AgitatedPancake
Frobot
Figured I'd start up a thread specifically about the SpaceX Starship development happening down in Boca Chica, Texas. I know not everyone here follows rockets and space travel in general, but I'm sure you appreciate technological development. And this is private industry, funded nearly singlehandedly by SpaceX and Elon Musk (they're bidding contracts with NASA, but if they do win, they will be deliverables being paid for, not subsidies)
They're completely rethinking rocket development, and how rockets are supposed to work. These massive stainless steel rockets (that seriously look like they're from 1950s comics and movies) are being built out in the open air by average joes like us doing common fabrication that we recognize. Doing away with the clean rooms and fancy materials like composites, making production cheap and insanely fast. Once they've refined the *how* of the production process, they'll clean it up and build the rest of the infrastructure, but all of these test articles are quick and dirty. And they will be fully reusable (even their Falcon 9 that lands and reflys boosters right now still have to throw away the second stages with every flight, worth millions)
So for scale on how fast the production is, their 10th prototype (SN10) is sitting on the launch pad right now about to take flight as they learn how to fly these things, and they've only been testing/building for two years (and they started with an open field with essentially zero structures). Compared to NASA's big rocket called the SLS, that has been in development in one form or another for almost 10 years and still probably won't be ready to fly this year, with a cost factor almost 100x these Starships.
SpaceX has blown up their fair share, and todays SN10 launch may also end in a huge fireball, but that's small in the grand scheme of things. For reference, the 11th prototype (SN11) is already done and sitting waiting for 10 to fly before it gets transported out to the launch pad, and they have 3 or 4 further prototypes in various forms of assembly getting ready for more test flights in coming months. They really want to get to orbit this year, but realistically it will probably be early 2022. The full stack will be the biggest and most powerful rocket ever made, by a large margin (way bigger than the Saturn V that took us to the moon).
Anyhow, if things go well the test flight of SN10 will happen in 45 minutes. Check the video links below. SpaceX's official stream isn't live yet, but I'll link it when it does go live
But here's a narrated non official stream with a very informed group of guys using some pretty impressive remote cameras:
They're completely rethinking rocket development, and how rockets are supposed to work. These massive stainless steel rockets (that seriously look like they're from 1950s comics and movies) are being built out in the open air by average joes like us doing common fabrication that we recognize. Doing away with the clean rooms and fancy materials like composites, making production cheap and insanely fast. Once they've refined the *how* of the production process, they'll clean it up and build the rest of the infrastructure, but all of these test articles are quick and dirty. And they will be fully reusable (even their Falcon 9 that lands and reflys boosters right now still have to throw away the second stages with every flight, worth millions)
So for scale on how fast the production is, their 10th prototype (SN10) is sitting on the launch pad right now about to take flight as they learn how to fly these things, and they've only been testing/building for two years (and they started with an open field with essentially zero structures). Compared to NASA's big rocket called the SLS, that has been in development in one form or another for almost 10 years and still probably won't be ready to fly this year, with a cost factor almost 100x these Starships.
SpaceX has blown up their fair share, and todays SN10 launch may also end in a huge fireball, but that's small in the grand scheme of things. For reference, the 11th prototype (SN11) is already done and sitting waiting for 10 to fly before it gets transported out to the launch pad, and they have 3 or 4 further prototypes in various forms of assembly getting ready for more test flights in coming months. They really want to get to orbit this year, but realistically it will probably be early 2022. The full stack will be the biggest and most powerful rocket ever made, by a large margin (way bigger than the Saturn V that took us to the moon).
Anyhow, if things go well the test flight of SN10 will happen in 45 minutes. Check the video links below. SpaceX's official stream isn't live yet, but I'll link it when it does go live
But here's a narrated non official stream with a very informed group of guys using some pretty impressive remote cameras:
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