SpaceX moves Starship to launch site, and liftoff could be just days away

[baq]

This either works and will be a sight to behold or it blows up, which most definitely will be a sight to behold. In any case much to look forward to (though I’m firmly in the ’hope it works’ camp ;))

[mlindner]

I think some people are having wrong expectations heading in to this. If it explodes 30 seconds after leaving the launch pad it's still a huge success. Anything beyond exploding on the launch site is a success. They have a bunch more vehicles lined up behind this one as failure is highly expected, almost to the point of intention.

I'll be legitimately happy if it doesn't explode on the launch pad and at least gets any debris into the ocean instead of on land. This is just the beginning.

[Yizahi]

The best thing about Starship test is that Elon will (hopefully) shut up about Twitter and focus on the important things instead of garbage.

[kretaceous]

Sorry I'm out of the loop/don't really understand what this is. Why would it blow up?

[ramraj07]

You do want to blow up (not deliberately though) this thing once though. If no prototype ever blows up before you start going into production, you never know some pieces of information you’d gave gotten from monitoring the failure process.

[cubefox]

It is both unlikely to either launch or explode. Much more likely is a boring launch abort due to some technical issues, and another try in a few weeks. The opposite of a "sight to behold".

[midland_trucker]

A thing I find mind-blowing is that if this concept succeeds, that I and everyone reading this will be able to afford to go to low earth orbit on a relatively modest salary within the next ~20 years (conservatively).

This feels like quite a difficult reality to internalise given we all grew up seeing only a select few exceptional people, with the stars aligning in their career, be able to do that.

[mrandish]

Long before heading to orbit, I'm excited to just get a front row seat for the launch of a fully loaded Starship. Apparently, being in the NASA guest stands for a Saturn V launch was mind-blowing and this would be double that.

Hopefully, SpaceX will set up some kind of excursion package where you get a Starbase tour, a primo front row seat to a launch and a limited edition T-shirt. Forget Taylor Swift tickets for >$1K when Starship can literally rock my world.

[sva_]

I wonder if people in general are fit for the G-forces they're subjected to when launching into space.

I think astronauts usually go through very rigorous testing and training. And I'm not sure that is something we can engineer ourselves out of.

[ledauphin]

is this a generally agreed-upon fact? I'm not sure I buy it, but I'm interested to see a defense of it.

[fijiaarone]

If I just give up lattes and new Ferraris for 20 years, and work real hard, I can go to space!

[tim333]

I think the rocket will succeed but I find Musk's projections of costs as low as $10 a ton to orbit a bit unlikely.

[tjpnz]

I used to think that being born a millenial was a curse for realising those kinds of dreams. But as someone who's not an influencer and who's not interested in overpriced suborbital carnival rides I'm more than happy to be proven wrong.

[elihu]

> "After it launches, the Super Heavy rocket will fly from SpaceX's Starbase launch site eastward, over the Gulf of Mexico. For this test, the booster will not attempt a landing. After stage separation, the Starship upper vehicle is intended to reach orbital velocity before attempting a reentry into Earth's atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. If all goes well, it will make a controlled descent and landing into the ocean just north of the Hawaiian islands."

A shame we won't get to see the booster land. And it sounds like they aren't trying to capture the upper stage either, unless they have a really big drone ship.

[stetrain]

They most likely want or need to prove that they can reliably bring these things down in a controlled manner to a soft landing.

They did the same thing with the early Falcon 9 landings, bringing them in to a "soft" landing over a set of GPS coordinates in the ocean. Once they can demonstrate this process to a certain degree, they can start working through the permitting process to try actually bringing them in over land.

[grecy]

Lots of speculation that SpaceX will likely try to "soft land" the booster in the ocean, just like the did with Falcon 9 first stage the first ~handful of times they were trying to land it (or, more accurately, learn how to land it).

Possibly similar with the upper stage too, just so they can practice and learn.

[russdill]

Depending on availability, there are a couple of NASA assets that may capture the flight of the booster and the re-entry and descent of the second stage.

[grecy]

There are marine warnings from April 6th-April 12th. https://twitter.com/Alexphysics13/status/1642028439539425283

Also, Elon just said "(Orbital Flight Test) More than days away, but hopefully not many weeks away"

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1642273756289671170

[samhuk]

> "More than days away, but hopefully not many weeks away"

I find it amusing how close this sounds to your average run-of-the-mill Early Access steam game. "Next patch will be more than days. And more than weeks. But not more than many weeks! Probably... We hope...I think"

[mlindner]

People need to make sure to maintain their expectations. This launch is not a failure if the rocket blows up soon after take off. They have an assembly facility built to build these vehicles quicker and quicker and every new vehicle is modified from the last.

The only thing that would be a failure is if it blows up on/near the pad and damages the facilities they've built over the last two years or so that would put another delay in the testing regime. This rocket is significantly more "slapped together" than past rockets and has been designed in a way to minimize cost as much as possible. It would be extremely surprising in fact for this flight to be a complete success.

[sbuttgereit]

I'd agree with this. When I need to take "look away" breaks from work, I check some of the streams focused on the SpaceX facilities in Boca Chica; so I've stayed pretty current with the happenings there and the progress with the program. I think I'd characterize the possible test launch results like this:

1) Significant failure: the rocket catastrophically fails on the pad, damaging the ground equipment significantly.

2) Program setback: the rocket clears the pad, but fails to reach Max Q and requires significant redesigns (we might see some built prototypes scrapped if that's the case) or if the ground equipment needs significant redesign or repair after launch; I exclude the addition of deluge from that since it probably won't be there for first launch, but is already planned for installation.

3) Somewhat successful: the rocket gets off the pad and fails to reach Max Q, but the failure is the result of some less fundamental issue such as valves getting stuck, etc. causing termination of the flight.

4) Success: the rocket gets past Max Q without significant issue.

5) Very successful: Ship achieves planned trajectory.

And everything thereafter is just gravy (soft landings, tiles not falling off, etc).

[consumer451]

If it does make it to the planned apogee, I am curious what percentage of heat shield tiles will remain attached all the way to splash. My uninformed gut tells me that this might be a problem area.

[cubefox]

Even supposedly skeptical people are expecting too much, including the rocket exploding, and the launch attempt not being boring. More likely is a launch abort without anything interesting happening.

[hi41]

How is SpaceX able to undertake such incredible projects when established agencies such as Nasa cannot. I am awestruck. I feel so small compared to people who are able accomplish extraordinary things.

[SyzygistSix]

One difference is that spreading a NASA project to multiple contractors in multiple states makes projects much more expensive but it does insure that the project is very unlikely to be cancelled when it is time to pass a budget, which is the intent. SpaceX doesn't have that issue to deal with.

[stetrain]

NASA is part of this project. They are writing SpaceX a check to develop Starship and use it as part of the Artemis program.

NASA also wrote SpaceX checks for the development of Falcon 9, the Dragon cargo capsule for space station resupply missions, the Dragon crew capsule for space station crew missions, and various other probe and satellite launches along the way.

I think these were good contracts that benefited both organizations massively, let SpaceX survive, and let NASA contract for services without paying the entire development cost since that was shared with SpaceX's own investment and other customers.

But it's definitely not a situation that can be boiled down to SpaceX vs NASA, it's been SpaceX and NASA together since the Falcon 9 development program began.

[was_a_dev]

NASA cannot take risks of this magnitude, as US Congress will not fund such projects.

SpaceX can take as much (bussiness) risk as Musk deems acceptable

[mannyv]

Most of the time those people are just like us, but in a position to do these things.

Some of them, though, really know what they're doing and are just better at doing stuff.

[Casteil]

Progress/change can be slow (if not effectively impossible) in organizations with decades of established bureaucracy and politics.

[swarnie]

The most coherent answer I've had when asking this before is it basically comes down to capitalist theory.

SpaceX want (and need) to deliver the best viable product to market as soon as possible, everyone involved is focused on this singular vision.

NASA will have its funding cut or expanded on a 4-8 year basis. Politicians, agencies, states and other companies will lobby to get investment in their preferred areas. Even scientists/departments/entire universities will lobby to get their personal pet projects on to a mission to further their own agendas.

Frankly im unsure how a public space program can even operate most the time.

[MrOwnPut]

Government programs are inefficient.

Also NASA is a former of it's self, funding wise.

[esskay]

It's a few weeks, certainly not days - even Elon, master of over promising said its not days.

[wankle]

I like that it looks like a starship dreamed up in the 1950's.

[archsurface]

Clickbait - weeks, not days.

[franckl]

How much GHG does the rocket emit?

[esskay]

Eh? It's litterally designed to ferry people back and fourth from mars. Just because it can also launch satellites it doesn't stop it being an interplanetary vehicle.

[Lichtso]

Well another possible interpretation of the naming scheme is:

- (Planet-)ship gets you around different places on the same planet.

- Starship gets your around different celestial bodies in the solar system.

- Galaxyship gets your around different star systems in the galaxy.

[EarthLaunch]

You're right. It's marketing. (The other replies with new accounts are missing your point.)

Unless we consider it a ship for our star, rather than a ship to the stars. Though in a certain sense, it could lead to a ship to the stars.

[d21d3q]

By the time we will be have technology to travel between stars, current starship will be forgotten and name could be reused.

[inglor_cz]

Calling an inedible handheld microcomputer "Apple" is weird too, no? Ever tried biting one?

[stametseater]

It's clearly not seaworthy yet they call it a ship! What a farce, I want my money back.

[ETH_start]

We're truly on the cusp of a civilizational metamorphosis.

[jiggawatts]

The trillion dollar question is: does humanity colonise space in time to escape the coming AI apocalypse?

[hirundo]

Candidate measurements of a civilization's distance from the Great Filter:

  - energy yield of weapons
  - ratio of their AI's IQ to theirs
  - cost/mass to orbit

TODO: Calibrate after the Great Filter.