SpaceX Starship booster catch

[AGTDenton]

If you didn't watch it live the highlights are below, pretty impressive!

First SpaceX mission I've watched in a while

[Saracen999]

I've yet to see a SpaceX launch, but was present at quite a few Shuttle launches. Probably 6 or 8, -ish. By "present", I mean about as close to the launch site as anyone gets, whiich is several miles. Usually, we were at the water's edge on Canaveral (not the same as Cape Kennedy), which is (or was in those days) a military facility and getting on it was only possible with a pass. It did give unobstructed naked-eye views of the launch site, albeit about 5 or 6 miles from the actual pad. The best public access was probably in the same general area, but on the roadside outside Canaveral, and by 'eck did it get crowded out there. Still a pretty good location to watch from, though.

Even the Shuttle launches, which were tiny compared to the Apollo program's Saturn V vehicles, were impressive as hell, even from those 5 or 6 miles away.

It would be great to see a Space X vehicle land, though. One of the Shuttles launches I watched was the first ever second launch of a Shuttle, i.e. historic in being the first re-use of a spacecraft. Space- landing would (IMHO) be a similar milestone.

[Percy1983]

Its certainly good but what about the elephant in the room, You can launch starship with the crew/equipment but would then need to launch 16 more in quick succession to fuel it for a lunar mission.

[jimbouk]

Its certainly good but what about the elephant in the room, You can launch starship with the crew/equipment but would then need to launch 16 more in quick succession to fuel it for a lunar mission.

That's the plan isn't it? Well not that many, and for Mars. But yeah in space refuelling.

Watched the catch last night from the highlights, thanks. Other half was confused about how the ship even got back to the right place! They need to overlay a picture of a bus for scale or something - it looks like a Thunderbirds model or something with no context from anything around it.

[[GSV]Trig]

It is amazing...

I remember thinking when they grounded the Shuttle fleet that it would be the end of proper space flight, then Elon turned up..
Watching those things land never fails to impress..

[TeePee]

It is incredible how much SpaceX has achieved and how much they are planning for the future. The most amazing thing is how far ahead the planning goes. They aren't just building rockets to launch in to space, they're building a production line to build hundreds of rockets. The target is one Starship per day.

You may have noticed that while this should be the lead story on every news site, but there's a definite attempt to reduce and minimize news reports relating to them. SpaceX has already faced significant delays due to politics, and this could potentially get worse. Musk represents a significant threat to parts of the US Government, and not just because of his support for Trump, or the Twitter acquisition which shut down one of their main avenues for censorship and propaganda. The real threat that Musk represents is in showing people, particularly young men, that things can be different and better. This is the future promised by science fiction.

[jimbouk]

I like to keep my science and engineering away from my politics. He's good at building rockets, I will say that.

[[GSV]Trig]

Never gets old watching these things land.

Not interested in his political affiliations nor his acquisition of Twatter, making Tesla cars, not patenting everything and his work in rockets says more than his politics, imho.

[DanceswithUnix]

I missed the live launch by a few minutes, but this was a very enjoyable flight to watch.

Its certainly good but what about the elephant in the room, You can launch starship with the crew/equipment but would then need to launch 16 more in quick succession to fuel it for a lunar mission.

Future Starships will be bigger, I'm not sure if that reduces the number of refuel flights required or if that comes out in the wash as a common denominator in the maths.

I don't believe it is 16 flights, though it's still quite a few. They are looking to build two launch towers in Florida on top of the two in Texas and who knows where else is in the pipeline. SpaceX are aiming for a turn around time from landing to relaunch measured in hours so the scale should be there.

[TeePee]

This flight was delayed by three months because of Musk's politics. The State of California is attempting to block future Falcon launches because of Musk's politics. The FCC has cancelled Starlink rural broadband subsidies over his politics. You don't have to agree with those politics, or be remotely interested in what his opinions are, to be concerned when the progress of science and engineering are being held hostage due to opposition opinions. If this continues, it is unlikely that SpaceX will be able to achieve a fraction of their potential. The extreme polarization of politics in the United States has real consequences.

[[GSV]Trig]

I would imagine there are plenty of countries out there that would happily take Elon in...