Soldato
- Joined
- 13 May 2003
- Posts
- 8,852
If they had lost attitude control could easily have broken up.
** The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond **
- Thread starter Cosimo
- Start date
Yeah, it's toast 
Great flight though!
Great flight though!
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Soldato
looked a bit tumbly before the feed cut
Soldato
It looks like they lost quite a few tiles when they hit the atmosphere in the wrong orientation. Unfortunately, NASA found out the hard way what happens with missing heat shields.
Soldato
Agreed, there was a sudden rotation - then it cut out.
Soldato
Right, now we look forward to IFT-4 
Caporegime
No way will NASA get astronauts on the moon by the end of 2026. No chance in hell.
Associate
Depends on how they spend the money, if they had given Spacex the budget wasted on SLS, starship would be flying daily at this point.
Soldato
I mean...the SLS has already sent an Orion capsule on an unmanned lunar flyby. Next up for that programme is a manned flyby in September 2025, and a crewed landing a year later. Yeah, it's wildly over budget and delayed. But it does at least vaguely function, which for something that Boeing is involved with is a pretty major achievement right now
Soldato
It'll probably be somewhere around 2030 now. But New Glenn, and possibly SLS, should be flying by that point which will help.
SLS is a bit of a mess but NASA diversified to use multiple providers for launch security; it's not up to NASA to fund R&D of a private launch platform like SpaceX.
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Associate
I mean...the SLS has already sent an Orion capsule on an unmanned lunar flyby. Next up for that programme is a manned flyby in September 2025, and a crewed landing a year later. Yeah, it's wildly over budget and delayed. But it does at least vaguely function, which for something that Boeing is involved with is a pretty major achievement right now
Its a billion dollar per launch, not including R&D. how many do you think they will do before the budget gets pulled?
Soldato
$1b per launch is a bargain compared with the shuttle
Including R&D costs, at the pathetic rate they could launch them they cost $1.64b per flight (source: Dennis R. Jenkins, "Space Shuttle - Developing An Icon - 1972-2013").
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Associate
Every thing is good value compared to the shuttle.$1b per launch is a bargain compared with the shuttle
Soldato
Fair point, well made.
Sadly I agree.
Soldato
Caporegime
lol, that’s like one of those dodgy fireworks that you think are gonna be great, and they just fizzle out straight after firing
Soldato
Sadly missed the launch and re-entry due to work. However I've just finished catching up. What a spectacle! The sheer size and power on display. I'd love to witness a super heavy launch in person! Also those plasma shots, so beautiful!!! May not have had the ending we all hoped for but that was still huge progress over test 2 and I think the SpaceX team will be very happy with that. They will have got an awful lot of data from that launch and I look forward to seeing how IFT4 progresses from there.
I think SpaceX should be proud of what was achieved, it may still be a long ways off being the finished article but today was another big step in the right direction.
I think SpaceX should be proud of what was achieved, it may still be a long ways off being the finished article but today was another big step in the right direction.
Soldato
- Joined
- 13 May 2003
- Posts
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SLS is $4Bn per launch according NASA.
I'm fairly sure I read that with some development work Flacon Heavy could get Orion to the moon (needs an adapter) for a $200m-$250m per launch expendable cost. SLS can take substantially more but the cost is eyewatering.
Starship is unlikely to be man rated anytime soon but for getting mass into LEO it will be a gamechanger. Technically Falcon Heavy can do most of the work of building the Moon Gateway or Orion and non-Starship HLS systems. But SLS in required by legislation to be the delivery vehicle for Orion. Pork Barrel at it's best.
I'm fairly sure I read that with some development work Flacon Heavy could get Orion to the moon (needs an adapter) for a $200m-$250m per launch expendable cost. SLS can take substantially more but the cost is eyewatering.
Starship is unlikely to be man rated anytime soon but for getting mass into LEO it will be a gamechanger. Technically Falcon Heavy can do most of the work of building the Moon Gateway or Orion and non-Starship HLS systems. But SLS in required by legislation to be the delivery vehicle for Orion. Pork Barrel at it's best.
Associate
- Joined
- 19 May 2010
- Posts
- 1,170
And how much has been spent on Starship to achieve....... Nothing?