SpaceX Starship Test Flight

[Terry Carraway]

I watched the 12.5KM test flight yesterday. There are a number of YouTube videos of the test.

They accomplished the major goals. Launch, belly flop to horizontal, and "flying" with the aerodynamic fins back to the launch site, relit of the engines, and flipping right side up. But they did not properly control the vertical speed on touchdown, so was a bit spectacular.

But that was not a major goal of this flight, they expected the vehicle to be lost at some point, but it was great that it was only the final thing that went wrong.

[Scott Dyer HPN/NY]

Very nice job by them.

[Stephanie Belser]

East German judge awards them a 3.5 for failing to stick the landing....

[Terry Carraway]

East German judge awards them a 3.5 for failing to stick the landing....

I disagree, they REALLY stuck the landing.

[John O'Shaughnessy [FCM]]

I watched it in realtime. Very cool stuff! I love their approach. Build lots and test 'em instead of trying to make a single, perfect test specimen.

[Tom Charlton]

I watched it in realtime. Very cool stuff! I love their approach. Build lots and test 'em instead of trying to make a single, perfect test specimen.

Hi John,
The corporate culture at SpaceX is dramatically different from any competitors. From hiring practices to not being so risk adverse. I’m sure books will be written of their nontraditional methodologies.

One of the reasons I moved to Titusville this past summer is to be close to the space center. I think we’re on the brink of some incredible things because of a real commercialization of space. With a tenfold or greater reduction in the cost to put stuff in orbit many more things become feasible.

Regards,
Tom Charlton (SpaceX fan-boy)

[Russell Holton]

I'm wondering if the current approach is perhaps a result of a different risk/benefit environment. The 60's era space program was about political prestige and a bit of a proxy fight with the Soviets. The more it has to be perfect, the more layers of checks and cautions get added.

It was also a different technological era. Engineering was with a slide rule. I'm sure we've learned a lot about material science. Also, we can easily send automated systems for a test flight. We don't have to be so quick to be "manned".

In short, we may be seeing a different approach due to the maturing of the relevant technology.

[Ralph Jones]

Engineering was with a slide rule.

I can remember that thing hanging from my belt like a .45. Keuffel & Esser Log Log Duplex Vector..;-)

[Ray Tackett]

Still got my father's K&E and my own Lafayette Radio "log log decitring".

[Stephanie Belser]

I still have my 12" Pickett.

[Reams Goodloe]

Tom -

How are things out at Arthur Dunn Airpark? Have not been down there in years...... soloed there many moons ago....

Reams

[A. Niemyer]

I have to say that I was initially very skeptical about Space X; I thought it was mostly P.T. Barnum-level of hype, mainly to boost The Boss's enormous ego. The FanBoy cult they built didn't help them at all in my eyes. But, over time, their engineers have proven to be very agile and willing to "try it out and see if it works", which is thus far proving again the old adage about "build a little, test a lot, then build more and test a whole lot more."

History has shown us over multiple millennia that commercial trade and economic imperatives drive more exploration than almost anything else. History may not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.

Best,
Andy

[Ray Tackett]

[QUOTE=A. Niemyer;n19538]I have to say that I was initially very skeptical about Space X; I thought it was mostly P.T. Barnum-level of hype, mainly to boost The Boss's enormous ego. The FanBoy cult they built didn't help them at all in my eyes. But, over time, their engineers have proven to be very agile and willing to "try it out and see if it works", which is thus far proving again the old adage about "build a little, test a lot, then build more and test a whole lot more."/QUOTE]

Your assessment of The Boss is spot on as evidenced by the poor build quality of Teslas and their overhyped, underperforming features such as "autopilot". Makes SpaceX all the more impressive.

A comment I read someplace, likely Ars Technica, pointed out that test failures were once "ganz streng verboten" due to national prestige issues in the "space race" of the late 1950s and 1960s. Testing to learn what breaks and why leads to better products faster.

When Edison was trying to take the incandescent light bulb from laboratory curiosity to practical (mass-producible, shippable, consumer-usable), a reporter once asked him about his progress. "We have made lots of progress. We know roughly four hundred things that don't work."

[John O'Shaughnessy [FCM]]

I'm also curious how the changes in the cost of labor (increasing) vs. the cost of hardware (decreasing) has impacted this type of development.

$100,000 doesn't buy many weeks of 3 or 4 engineers time these days.

[Russell Holton]

I think another factor is back in the 60's the question was "can we?" Today, the question is "can we do it better?".