Starship Flight 3 Test Launch

[dgianstefani]

Here's the best footage I've found.

Pretty cool to watch.

This thread is for discussing the Starship rocket, this test, and the current space tech scene, not Elon haters/fanboys or anything else.

At 16 million pounds of thrust, more than twice the thrust of the Saturn V that we went to the moon on, 7.6 million pounds.

Way more than NASA Space Launch System too - 8.8 million pounds.

 

[freeagent]

Those shockwaves are awesome

 

[dgianstefani]

Plasma field on the manoeuvring flaps as it reentered was fun.

here's the full flight.

The entire thing being streamed via inbuilt Starlink modules is impressive too.

Biggest thing we've ever put into space.

 

[FoulOnWhite]

That is a lot of thrust. Did it need that much? Saturn 5 was big, how big is this in comparison?

 

[dgianstefani]

That is a lot of thrust. Did it need that much? Saturn 5 was big, how big is this in comparison?

It's max thrust. All 33 engines worked, but they weren't necessarily running at 100% all the time from what I understand.

Saturn 5 had a slightly smaller rocket (on the ground), but in space, the actual capsule/module was much, much smaller than the "starship/ship" part of "starship".

What's impressive about this is the booster is designed to go back down and land, to be reused/recycled, and the main ship (way too big to be called a capsule IMO) is also designed to airbrake, then land.

 

[FoulOnWhite]

It's max thrust. All 33 engines worked, but they weren't necessarily running at 100% all the time from what I understand.

Saturn 5 had a slightly taller rocket (on the ground), but in space, the actual capsule/module was much, much smaller than the "starship/ship" part of "starship".

So i guess the capsule can be payload or people?

I still think there needs to be a dock in space ala star trek. Take small parts up then build up there. No need for massive rockets so much then, or maybe there is idk. Just seems to make more sense to me. Maybe could share the cost/build with the major space players for use of all of them.

No doubt this is pretty cool though. I'd love to be close enough to "feel" the launch.

 

[dgianstefani]

So i guess the capsule can be payload or people?

Yes. For the planned Mars mission/moon stuff etc. They launch multiple "ships", but the people ship can then dock to the "payload" ship in space, which can just be fuel, supplies etc.

Then the boosters all land and are reused/recycled, with the assembled ship in orbit doing it's thing.

That is a lot of thrust. Did it need that much? Saturn 5 was big, how big is this in comparison?

It's max thrust. All 33 engines worked, but they weren't necessarily running at 100% all the time from what I understand.

Saturn 5 had a slightly taller rocket (on the ground), but in space, the actual capsule/module was much, much smaller than the "starship/ship" part of "starship".

What's impressive about this is the booster is designed to go back down and land, to be reused/recycled, and the main ship (way to big to be called a capsule IMO) is also designed to airbrake, then land.

I was wrong. The Saturn V is smaller than Starship. The Saturn V is taller than the Space Launch System, it's direct replacement. But I think new versions of the Starship will have heavier payloads, this is still only the third test and the ships are modified each time.

It's also worth remembering that the entire Saturn V/SLS rocket besides the capsule/module at the top is discarded and burns up on reentry, but the booster stage of Starship is designed to land.

Plus the entire Ship is also designed to land, not ditching most of the module in space and reentering in a tiny capsule with heatshielding, like the NASA rockets.

Of course NASA did all this in the 60s, and went to the moon in 69, so it's not really fair to directly compare them. Especially since the Space Launch System is just an upgraded Saturn in essence (same engines as the Saturn V and the Space Shuttle).

The Saturn V had a payload to LEO of about 118 tonnes - StarShip can manage 150 tonnes - and possibly as much as 220 tonnes if it can be refueled on orbit.

Specs from Orbital Today.

Largest payload to LEO the Saturn V delivered to LEO was Skylab at 90 tonnes, so these specs are theoretical.

 

[ty_ger]

Then the boosters all land and are reused/recycled, with the assembled ship in orbit doing it's thing.

I'm not so sure about that. We'll see. If they exhaust their fuel on payload, they are destroyed.
The problem is, if you keep enough fuel in them to be reused, you greatly affect the payload capacity. The last bit of thrust is the greatest and most effective thrust. You save that for reusability, you don't get your best payload. You use it for payload, you don't get reusability.
And if you do keep aiming for reusability, inspections and repairs are so much time and cost that it is pretty much pointless to ignore the payload-driven mindset and forget about reusability.

 

[dgianstefani]

I'm not so sure about that. We'll see. If they exhaust their fuel on payload, they are destroyed.
The problem is, if you keep enough fuel in them to be reused, you greatly affect the payload capacity. The last bit of thrust is the greatest and most effective thrust. You save that for reusability, you don't get your best payload. You use it for payload, you don't get reusability.
And if you do keep aiming for reusability, inspections and repairs are so much time and cost that it is pretty much pointless to ignore the payload-driven mindset and forget about reusability.

Sure, but what's cheaper, building new boosters, or reducing the payload slightly? I guess SpaceX must think it will be more economical in the long run to have boosters that they can at least control, if not land, after usage.

Their Falcon rockets have done pretty well in the reusability department, and the cost of going to space has never been cheaper per kilo, so something is working.

Keeping the entire "ship" by airbraking/landing it also seems much more economical than only recovering the landing capsule from the entire Saturn V, for example.

I also like how for the entire launch/flight/landing process they have real time internet connection, so data even from failed tests can be useful right up to the point of failure, plus the incredible video/footage we get of launches now.

 

[Vayra86]

Breathtaking.

 

[Onasi]

Very cool. Probably will be a vehicle for another Lunar mission in a decade or so, knowing how these things tend to move at a glacial pace. Mars… not betting on it before I am dead, in all honesty.
But it is inspiring to see what just some amount of human ingenuity can achieve. Imagine if every countries space agencies actually cooperated and shared resources and if the powers that be were actually interested in humanity advancing instead if whatever the hell they are doing now. We’d have an ISS 2 that’s five times bigger than the first to serve as a mid-way point for Lunar exploration by now. Sigh. Space exploration makes me both inspired and incredibly sad somehow.

 

[dgianstefani]

Very cool. Probably will be a vehicle for another Lunar mission in a decade or so, knowing how these things tend to move at a glacial pace. Mars… not betting on it before I am dead, in all honesty.
But it is inspiring to see what just some amount of human ingenuity can achieve. Imagine if every countries space agencies actually cooperated and shared resources and if the powers that be were actually interested in humanity advancing instead if whatever the hell they are doing now. We’d have an ISS 2 that’s five times bigger than the first to serve as a mid-way point for Lunar exploration by now. Sigh. Space exploration makes me both inspired and incredibly sad somehow.

Mars has an atmosphere with all the perks that come with that plus potential water somewhere. The goal is Mars for sure. Moon would be good maybe as a base and to refine fuel etc.

Once the design is good enough, it's as simple as scaling, build lots of them. SpaceX/Tesla have demonstrated they're good at that, so, I guess we'll see.

 

[Onasi]

Mars has an atmosphere with all the perks that come with that plus potential water somewhere. The goal is Mars for sure. Moon would be good maybe as a base and to refine fuel etc.

I hear that a lot and my question is always “Then what?”. Sure, putting people on Mars is a milestone, just as it was with the Moon, but there is a reason we stopped going TO the Moon. Not much point. Mars is different, sure, but I honestly still haven’t heard a compelling “Step 2”. And sci-fi inspired talks of a colony don’t sound feasible in our lifetime.

Once the design is good enough, it's as simple as scaling, build lots of them. SpaceX/Tesla have demonstrated they're good at that, so, I guess we'll see.

Scaling would necessitate someone willing to pay for them. Teslas are a consumer product, that’s fine. The smaller SpaceX ships are perfect for cargo and satellites, which makes them commercially viable. The Spaceship is, as you pointed out, enormous and expensive. I am unsure on how it can pay for itself enough to get the mass production off the ground. Haven’t run the numbers myself, but I have the feeling that for the usual goals several smaller ships can do more for less. But we will see. I remain skeptical.

 

[dgianstefani]

I hear that a lot and my question is always “Then what?”. Sure, putting people on Mars is a milestone, just as it was with the Moon, but there is a reason we stopped going TO the Moon. Not much point. Mars is different, sure, but I honestly still haven’t heard a compelling “Step 2”. And sci-fi inspired talks of a colony don’t sound feasible in our lifetime.


Scaling would necessitate someone willing to pay for them. Teslas are a consumer product, that’s fine. The smaller SpaceX ships are perfect for cargo and satellites, which makes them commercially viable. The Spaceship is, as you pointed out, enormous and expensive. I am unsure on how it can pay for itself enough to get the mass production off the ground. Haven’t run the numbers myself, but I have the feeling that for the usual goals several smaller ships can do more for less. But we will see. I remain skeptical.

If you don't reach, you never advance. Betcha the people born in the late 19th century didn't think they'd see flight, atomic energy, nuclear weapons, space launches or two world wars within their lifetime.

If humanity stays a single planet race, we will be extinct within the next few centuries in my opinion. That or degraded back to stone age tech, with the knowledge we've accumulated lost. It only takes one broken generation to break that chain of custody.

We're also at the point where computing power is advancing exponentially, as is the software and algorithms to use it, so there's that too.

The internet where we're having this conversation is arguably possible due to the space race.

I'm referring to heavier than air flight of course.

As for money/scaling, there's plenty of money to be made in space tech/materials.

 

[the54thvoid]

If you don't reach, you never advance. Betcha the people born in the late 19th century didn't think they'd see flight, atomic energy, nuclear weapons, space launches or two world wars within their lifetime.

If humanity stays a single planet race, we will be extinct within the next few centuries in my opinion. That or degraded back to stone age tech, with the knowledge we've accumulated lost. It only takes one broken generation to break that chain of custody.

We're also at the point where computing power is advancing exponentially, as is the software and algorithms to use it, so there's that too.

The financial cost to move to other worlds is beyond any government. You need a new world order to achieve that, and to get there, you need to sort problems on earth first. The greatest problem we face to reach for the stars is not technological. It's ideological, and it's based on primitive territorial sabre-rattling. Space-X are doing great things on the shoulders of giants, but it's not for the advancement of humanity, it's for profit.

I'm a fervent believer in what we can do, but while we have such insane problems on earth, we don't have the capacity to move beyond this realm in any meaningful way. If we do, and we don't fix our own problems, the next 'alien' colonies will be no different from those the Europeans set up in the New World. It will be rinse repeat, all over again. The first colonies will have to strip resources, though, at least Mars is a dead planet. While we destroy our own green paradise, we can spend multi-trillion dollar sums trying to do mini-terra forming experiments. It's sort of backwards. Our next migration will take lifepspans, and that's the problem. We need to make Earth habitable for centuries to build the infrastructure to move beyond. Look at the UK. Much of it still uses Victorian era utilities. We allowed profit to take precedent on the notion of innovation, but the companies we entrusted to improve them sat on shares instead.

Please don't take this as a slight on your thread. I'm a science graduate, after all. But it's just a dream that is too easily undone by reality. Elon Musk (in the twenteens) said that climate change is the greatest threat to mankind. It's not really, though. Man is man's greatest threat. So, for these massive rockets to actually deliver on their promise, we need to stop being such dicks to each other in the first place. I don't see that happening any time soon. I dream of a world where the West, the Far East, and all that comes between, unites on a common goal to to extend the longetvity of our species. We have the drive, we have the scientists and engineers to work towards that goal, no matter their faith or their colour. But do we have the balls to all come together?

As for this innocent comment (which is why I replied):

Betcha the people born in the late 19th century didn't think they'd see flight, atomic energy, nuclear weapons,

We built planes to deliver those atomic weapons to kill hundreds of thousands in one blast, and the threat of those weapons still remains.

Yet at the same time CERN and ITER are the fruit of multi-billion dollar, multi-national goverment entitities.

I have faith in our world's scientists - I have zero faith in those who try to divide us.

And again, apologies for the imposition in your thread. I feel strongly about scientific advancement, but history shows us it's usually derailed by profit and/or ideology.

 

[dgianstefani]

The financial cost to move to other worlds is beyond any government. You need a new world order to achieve that, and to get there, you need to sort problems on earth first. The greatest problem we face to reach for the stars is not technological. It's ideological, and it's based on primitive territorial sabre-rattling. Space-X are doing great things on the shoulders of giants, but it's not for the advancement of humanity, it's for profit.

I'm a fervent believer in what we can do, but while we have such insane problems on earth, we don't have the capacity to move beyond this realm in any meaningful way. If we do, and we don't fix our own problems, the next 'alien' colonies will be no different from those the Europeans set up in the New World. It will be rinse repeat, all over again. The first colonies will have to strip resources, though, at least Mars is a dead planet. While we destroy our own green paradise, we can spend multi-trillion dollar sums trying to do mini-terra forming experiments. It's sort of backwards. Our next migration will take lifepspans, and that's the problem. We need to make Earth habitable for centuries to build the infrastructure to move beyond. Look at the UK. Much of it still uses Victorian era utilities. We allowed profit to take precedent on the notion of innovation, but the companies we entrusted to improve them sat on shares instead.

Please don't take this as a slight on your thread. I'm a science graduate, after all. But it's just a dream that is too easily undone by reality. Elon Musk (in the twenteens) said that climate change is the greatest threat to mankind. It's not really, though. Man is man's greatest threat. So, for these massive rockets to actually deliver on their promise, we need to stop being such dicks to each other in the first place. I don't see that happening any time soon. I dream of a world where the West, the Far East, and all that comes between, unites on a common goal to to extend the longetvity of our species. We have the drive, we have the scientists and engineers to work towards that goal, no matter their faith or their colour. But do we have the balls to all come together?

As for this innocent comment (which is why I replied):



We built planes to deliver those atomic weapons to kill hundreds of thousands in one blast, and the threat of those weapons still remains.

Yet at the same time CERN and ITER are the fruit of multi-billion dollar, multi-national goverment entitities.

I have faith in our world's scientists - I have zero faith in those who try to divide us.

And again, apologies for the imposition in your thread. I feel strongly about scientific advancement, but history shows us it's usually derailed by profit and/or ideology.

This is fine for me. All I want is humanity to be a multi planet race, so if something happens to this planet, there's a way for life to go on.

You don't need to apologize for some imposition, I made it clear at the start it was about "space tech" and with a bit of creative interpretation you can extend that to cover "is our space tech good enough" or "can we unite enough to do it even if it's just for profit".

I just wanted to weed out the "Musk bad" people or the "he is Jesus' second coming" people.

Obviously it would be better if we went to the stars with our problems at home solved, but realistically, I think a The Expanse style situation is more likely, besides the alien tech.

You mentioned that we made all those technological achievements to kill each other. That's true. But we also went through the cold war and the space race as a matter of pride. We had to win. I think we still have that within us as a driving motivation.

I'm not certain we can make earth habitable for generations to come. I think there will likely be some kind of collapse, the scale of which I'm not sure, but I'd certainly like it if there was a second place in space we call home when/if that happens. The average person (especially in the West) has never before been so disconnected from the basic skills and knowledge to survive in a world where the trucks don't deliver food, or the television doesn't tell them comforting propaganda etc. What's that saying? Three meals from anarchy?

War has been the primary driver of advancement in our history, but you could make that argument about necessity too. The Germans in WW2 for instance, they built intercontinental rockets because they were desperate, and looking for wonder weapons. The sailors trying to cross the oceans figured out how to navigate, because it was that or die. I don't see leaving Earth in a different light. In my mind it is required, therefore we will find a way.

I'm aware of the shortcomings and that so much more is needed regarding space development/resources applied etc, but I also think that the achievements being made, whether national or private (and there's a strong argument to not trust national governments IMO, given their history, of course this applies to private corpos too, but it's not a "government good, corpo bad" thing in my mind), should be celebrated. And putting the largest "ship" into orbit, and almost landing it is certainly an achievement and a step forward in my mind.

The financial cost to move to other worlds is beyond any government. You need a new world order to achieve that, and to get there, you need to sort problems on earth first.

I'd like to make it clear, any "NWO" that arises from our current political situation would be a horrific thing, in my opinion. So I don't want this, even if it is what is required to become a true spacefaring multiplanetary race.

It would be better for us to gently go extinct than become that kind of NWO "unity or death" species that we certainly have the potential to be.

I personally do not believe that a united human species is possible (without changing what it means to be human, good and bad, or a unifying alien threat, after which we'd be dead or go back to infighting), so I'm all for private venture like this SpaceX thing, alongside national ventures such as NASA or the ESA. My main concern at the moment is that private will eclipse national, and national will give up, instead just subcontracting private. For All Mankind has a good representation of the kind of space expansion I would like to see (and think is realistic).

Thanks for your detailed comment, I enjoy good conversation.

 

[Onasi]

You mentioned that we made all those technological achievements to kill each other. That's true. But we also went through the cold war and the space race as a matter of pride. We had to win. I think we still have that within us as a driving motivation.

That’s a bit of an oddity in view of the rest of your post and the post you are replying to. Who is “we” here? The West? USA specifically? This kind of tribalism is what makes me think that our species will just wipe itself out long before it reaches multi-planet status. We either should ALL win or the species is done. There is no other alternative. Using conflict to fuel progress becomes folly when the fruits of said progress can then be used for apocalyptic levels of destruction.
In such global affairs that affect everyone, pride or not, winning is only meaningful if the winner then helps the loser up, dusts him off and then they together go to better things, more achievements. So far, it doesn’t seem like humanity is trying that. Pride, pettiness and foolishness seem to be dominant in most fields.
In short, looking at the world now, I am doubtful that we survive this century, let alone however long it takes to get off-world colonies off the ground. The paradigm of how humanity sees itself must change before anything else. Without it, we are still just apes throwing rocks at each other.

 

[dgianstefani]

"We" is whoever is reading the post, I didn't specify which side of the cold war I was talking about, it's just an observation.

Tribalism is well established, we've killed each other before, we'll kill each other again. It's the "Unity" dream, an idealistic, ideological and yes, tribal, idea of conquering the whole world and marching forward into the sunset as an evolved species (but who did the conquering, and who was conquered) fallacy/false hope that I take issue with. Plus, I don't believe that kind of unity is necessary for continued technical evolution. There will be a second exploration wave, like when we sailed across the great oceans etc. Space is supposedly infinite right? Enough space for each culture/religion/ideology to have it's own place.

 

[the54thvoid]

In fairness to the OP, I'm going to LQ a few posts, my previous post included, as it is beginning to detract from the science angle. Let's go science, and hope beyond hope we'll all get along one day while keeping our individuality intact.

Let's get back to thrust, power, and trajectories!

 

[dgianstefani]

In fairness to the OP, I'm going to LQ a few posts, my previous post included as it is beginning to detract from the science angle. Let's go science, and hope beyond hope we'll all get along one day while keeping our individuality intact.

Let's get back to thrust, power, and trajectories!

Hmmm.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

My belief is that human motivation, philosophy and science are facets of the same thing.

But OK, as the OP I guess that's in line with forum regulations and therefore fair.

An "off topic" OT instead of LQ could be useful here ;P

One last thing I just noticed, and I have to take issue with -

We built planes to deliver those atomic weapons to kill hundreds of thousands in one blast, and the threat of those weapons still remains.

In my view, we built planes because we wanted to fly. It was someone else who realised the planes could be useful tools in the business of war. But the actual innovation was from a desire to explore a new medium (the air). For the Wright brothers, their favorite childhood toy was a rubber band powered helicopter, and they never let that beautiful idea go. I don't see space as a different issue, we went there because we desired to, and who the hell is gravity to tell us we can't?

 

[the54thvoid]

Hmmm.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

OK, as the OP I guess that's in line with forum regulations and therefore fair.

An "off topic" OT instead of LQ could be useful here ;P

One last thing I just noticed, and I have to take issue with -

In my view, we built planes because we wanted to fly. It was someone else who realised the planes could be useful tools in the business of war. But the actual innovation was from a desire to explore a new medium (the air). For the Wright brothers, their favorite childhood toy was a rubber band powered helicopter, and they never let that beautiful idea go. I don't see space as a different issue, we went there because we desired to, and who the hell is gravity to tell us we can't?

The irony is, gravity itself is still a theory less well understood than atomic theory. We know how gravity exerts it's effects on us (thus the bloody big rockets), but I'm sure I read a summary somewhere discussing how the actual mechanics of gravity are vague.

 

[dgianstefani]

The irony is, gravity itself is still a theory less well understood than atomic theory. We know how gravity exerts it's effects on us (thus the bloody big rockets), but I'm sure I read a summary somewhere discussing how the actual mechanics of gravity are vague.

Oh yeah, it's like with medicine, we know something works, and we can observe (somewhat) how it works from mechanism of action theories and various radiology tools and biological tests, but we don't know why, or fully understand the "how" and all the connections. Physics is a rabbit hole that leads to madness or enlightenment, not sure which.

I guess a universe where we haven't figured out a way to observe "dark matter" which supposedly makes up the majority of stuff, is one where we're pretty in the dark, bumping into things and forming theories. Eh, might as well have some fun and launch some big rockets along the way huh? Life's short.

 

[Onasi]

The irony is, gravity itself is still a theory less well understood than atomic theory. We know how gravity exerts it's effects on us (thus the bloody big rockets), but I'm sure I read a summary somewhere discussing how the actual mechanics of gravity are vague.

That is true. Gravity is currently still one of the fundamentals that isn’t fully consistent with quantum mechanics. We know (as much as we know anything, really) the latter to be true so the work is ongoing, last I heard, on creating a model that should unify everything under the same mathematical model. A Theory of Everything, if you will. As always with such things it’s not easy, to put it lightly. The fact that it’s speculated that gravity stems from some unknown event right at the moment of the birth of the universe makes verifying things… problematic.
And that’s if we take just the most widely accepted model of the universe, which obviously isn’t bulletproof either. I met scientists who aren’t particularly enthusiastic about it. Then you add the whole “observable” part and I think most astro-physicists would admit that we are working with fairly limited data.
In short - f**king magnets gravity, how does it work?

 

[the54thvoid]

I'm still boggled by the incredible work of NASA and the slingshot trajectories used on the planetary missions. Space-X will need the same approach for Mars when it finally starts sending test probes. And I guess that's what some people don't realise. There are windows of celestial alignment that have to be factored in. How many 'dummy' runs without humans will need to be done before any humans can go? Private enterprise can sign a waiver, but any govt body would need some reassurance people weren't being used as guinea pigs.

 

[Space Lynx]

Is Starship not reusable like Falcon 9? I did not see any landing take place. That's going to be very pricey if so...