BUMPED: 12th Starship/Superheavy test delayed another day to May 21, 2026
UPDATE: One day after its announcement below, SpaceX announced another one day delay. The 12th Starship/Superheavy launch is now targeting May 21, 2026, with a launch window beginning at 5:30 pm (Central).
Original post:
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SpaceX earlier today announced a revised launch date for the 12th Starship/Superheavy orbital test flight, delayed one day from May 19, 2026 to May 20, 2026, with a launch window opening at 5:30 pm (Central).
No reason was given. I suspect weather might have played a factor, but it is also possible that some technical issues required a short delay.
Either way, the link to the X live feed will be posted here once it goes live. I will also embed it on Behind the Black once it goes live.
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It’s kind of sad that SpaceX cannot fly test flights with (more or less) abandon anymore. Now, if the flight is less than perfect, the knives come out on social media.
Looking objectively at what they are doing, it is developing the largest rocket ever flown, and the first that is not only 100% reusable, but relatively rapidly so! This effectively relegates everyone else to also-ran status, some unfairly to be sure, but some quite deservedly! Looking at you, ULA!
Now on top of it all, comes the IPO! I wonder if they are technically set to host the size of TV audience they may get on Wednesday?!
And there’s the old story about how a NASA engineer wondered “Will the Saturn 5 go up, or will Florida go down?!” If he’s still around, imagine what he must think about Starship!
Tom D,
The knives come out on social media whether a test is successful or not – or even whether there is a test or not. There’s just a lot of Musk Derangement Syndrome going around out there. Pay it all no mind. Just the usual pygmies trying to relieve themselves on the toes of a Titan.
Dick Eagleson wrote: “”Just the usual pygmies trying to relieve themselves on the toes of a Titan.””
Perfect.
Also, the “this is only a test” brings to mind the classic television We Control The Vertical, We Control The Horizontal. SpaceX certainly controls the huge SuperHeavy Booster and Starship, both horizontal and vertical. From the first videos of the return of SuperHeavy, seeming to hover over the water, to it nailing capture by the chopsticks. Whatever happens with the next launch, SpaceX will succeed with parts of it, learn and keep learning. What a great time to be alive!
“… Now, if the flight is less than perfect, the knives come out on social media. …”
well, SpaceX could talk to the public a lot more, address their legitimate concerns. Good start is to respond to what Anton says:
https://youtu.be/oKK0dgDIxKY?si=N1HCjXL7sfjPKhqP
Summary of the video as posted on youtube:
As SpaceX prepares for a major IPO and expansion of the Starlink network, Anton Petrov explores the environmental impact of thousands of satellites burning up in the upper atmosphere. Recent research highlights how metallic vapors and lithium residues from these re-entries could alter atmospheric chemistry, raising concerns about potential long-term consequences for the planet.
In the past, Starstool took the worst of it, with SuperHeavy not severely damaged after the first flight.
Now, for rapid reuse’s sake…the pad has less give…. might that be hard on the rocket in turn?
One of the reasons I avoid doctors is due to a belief that I am in a negative homeostasis…so many things are trying to kill me I just don’t know which way to fall.
A fellow worker underwent a procedure only to have a mild stroke not long after
Where Falcon enjoys what one might call a sweet spot….the more complex a beast like SS/SH becomes….the more like a human body it seems.
That’s actually the biggest reason I like SLS…two RATOs and just four liquid engines…. don’t tempt fate more than you have to.
Jeff Wright,
“Where Falcon enjoys what one might call a sweet spot….the more complex a beast like SS/SH becomes….the more like a human body it seems.”
This is one reason for Elon Musk’s philosophy that the best part is no part. Not only does it make the structure lighter, allowing for more payload and a greater victory over the rocket equation, but it is one less part to fail at a bad time. Or at any time.
I don’t have a problem with something having a lot of engines like Gary Church does–as long as the engines aren’t all in one core.
F9 could be OTRAG’ d and it would work fine in a Saturn IB situation… that’s my bet. Keep Vacuum Raptors on an expendable upper stage long enough to bulk up Starlink numbers.
Starship can come later.
Steve Richter,
As I’ve mentioned to you before, you can contact Elon Musk (and numerous SpaceX staff) fairly easily on X. They often reply even to very small accounts. Want an answer? Tweet at the guy.
Jeff Wright,
There’s no good reason to delay Starship for Starlink launches when Falcon 9 has launched more than ten thousand already. Diverting effort (when the number of engines on the first stage is not an issue) is a waste of time and money.
Nate said:
“… As I’ve mentioned to you before, you can contact Elon Musk (and numerous SpaceX staff) fairly easily on X. They often reply even to very small accounts. Want an answer? Tweet at the guy. …”
cut it out, Nate. SpaceX is pursuing a $trillion valuation. It responding to a video that says the Starlink satellite network will do damage to the ozone layer is just not going to happen.
I did ask Grok.
The concern is legitimate and has been covered by AGU, Scientific American, Nature, and others. It’s not settled science with precise quantified global impacts yet—more research is needed on exact depletion rates, distribution, and comparisons to natural meteoroid inputs—but the physics and trends are real.
No public direct response from SpaceX (or Elon Musk) to this specific video or the exact aluminum oxide reentry concern appears in available sources.
Steve Richter,
It certainly won’t happen if no one ever asks! I think you really would be surprised, but if you choose not to, so be it. Otherwise, your best resort is probably contacting your representatives or Congressman and asking them to get a statement from SpaceX.
Steve Richter,
Many of the people pushing this alarmism about upper atmosphere contamination from re-entering satellites are the same people who’ve been foisting baseless climate alarmism on us for the past three decades. For now, we can simply continue to take data and see how closely – if at all – it matches alarmist predictions. If there does turn out to be an actual problem, satellites can simply be collected at end-of-life and returned to the ground intact for disposal here.
This latest Starship SuperHeavy “delay” reminds me of fine tuning new guitar strings. When you replace all six strings, you have to let them stretch out before they will hold their notes. When I was 20 years old, I was impatient for the new strings to hold their notes. At my current 70 years, I have gained “some” patience. I do not mind the Starship delays, since they are probably fine tuning this next iteration. They have done static fire tests, and much more. This entire launch is a test. With all of SpaceX’s previous rocket testing and success, they already have a large knowledge base. They are, once again, planning on pushing the limits. I so much enjoy explaining to others the “test to failure” moments. Finding the limits brings long-term stability. While Thursday’s launch is not a test-to-failure event, SpaceX will learn a great deal. Let’s Go!
I wonder if during this launch they will have seismographs and decibel meters.
In the areas that are suing them for noise and vibration damage.
All tests are tests to failure. You always expect a failure, you just hope it eventually gets very low. So low that it gets to an acceptable level.
Hello Dick,
Speak of the devil, there’s a new (albeit more measured) example of this alarmism published today over at The Space Review.
To Steve,
I have been in the camp that what is launched to orbit should stay in orbit…not just wet workshops. That eliminates the need for aerodynamic control surfaces and heat shields
The Convair Atlas station should be what Starship should morph into.
We get 100 tons of natural space debris every year…so no biggie there.
Jeff Wright,
Taking that path eliminates our ability to return anything other than data or energy from space, and it adds significant manufacturing costs to anything we’d like to do. It’s much better to continue Starship development as-is (and develop multiple other spacecraft capable of pinpoint landings from space), as that has the potential to unlock flight rates in the thousands and tens of thousands, versus our present limited capabilities. Mastering rapid, full reuse is far more transformative than simply leaving everything in orbit. Without it we’re far less likely to justify anything with humans in the loop, from tourism, to research, to Mars settlement, and beyond.
We have rapid, airline like reuse in…well…airlines.
And Warren Buffet all but said investors would have been better off had somebody downed Orville.
That’s why you need an independent, well funded NASA so American aerospace lives where old fossils like that want it to or not. There’s where the necessary pain should come from.
I watched Squawk Box today and Bezos was interviewed about AI.
He and the talking heads tried to talk down the notion of an A.I. bubble.
Every coach that ever got fired always got a vote of confidence a few days before.
On the other side of the spectrum from Warren Buffett was perhaps the most vile man who ever lived… patriarch Joe Kennedy.
But you have to say this about him–he knew when to get out.
The saying was that he got out of the market when his shoe-shine boy asked about what stocks to invest in.
That spooked him as much as it would spook me to hear Kramer talk about a winning stock–he a natural Wrong-Way Corrigan.
Today on CNBC (some of those guys are more conservative than Fox talking heads, mind you) Bezos talked about giving his money away.
That tells me he’s about to lose it anyway.
Buffett doesn’t do hopium.
He literally threw darts at a board with stock listings and invested in those holes…which wasn’t as deep as the NewSpace hole is going to be…and soon.
Buffett’s dart-board out-performed “managed” accounts the day-trader kids.
And those day traders sounded just like you.
This is why America needs a simpler, Buran style Shuttle 2.
Keep most of the mass up there. Less complex orbiter that can return 20-30 tons of real product.
Non-NewSpace investors won’t open up wallets on something in a tiny Varda capsule.
You have to bring back bulk to get non-true believers to invest in space…a capability than can survive multiple market crashes just like shuttle 1 did.
Richard M,
Thanks for the tip. I’ve been a bit behind in my reading of The Space Review lately.
The article in question is not alarmist so much as informative of current knowledge and ongoing research. Much of it is just a more elaborate and footnoted version of what I’ve been saying to Steve Richter here lately.
The author of the piece, Michael Puckett, is a frequent commenter on Rand Simberg’s blog Transterrestrial Musings (transterrestrial.com). He is no alarmist.
The profitability of spaceflight and aviation is substantially different; the latter is a low-margin, cutthroat business with plenty of competition. Aviation is a mature market, space is not. There aren’t many good ways for one airline to differentiate itself from others. That shrinks profits, which is what investors usually want. Regardless of his opinion, commercial aviation is still quite good and good for the United States. NASA independent of what? The will of the people who are taxed to pay for it? I don’t think you’re going to find much support for that. We have an entire private space sector now that isn’t dependent on the whims of the government, and it is steadily growing, whether you recognize it or not.
What he actually said is that the value to society is far greater from his for-profit companies than from charitable giving. He’s right. Charity doesn’t scale, but a company making a profit can.
Your analogy doesn’t make any sense, please go into more detail.
Which day-traders? All of them? How did they sound like me? How does any of this support developing another Shuttle? There’s an enormous leap of logic you’re making here that isn’t backed by your argument.
Who is paying for this? The federal government won’t. Varda has non-NewSpace customers, who cares if they aren’t getting non-NewSpace investors? Customers, not investors, are what determine profitability. When is this hypothetical Shuttle 2 supposed to enter operation? Why will the private sector buy space on it versus Falcon 9, New Glenn, or Starship? The Shuttle didn’t survive market crashes–it had nothing to do with the market, outside of a brief period where the government tried to force all commercial payloads to use it. No, ‘bulk’ cargo isn’t necessary, but profitability is. Thirty tons of carbon steel wouldn’t be worth the investment. Two hundred pounds of refined pharmaceuticals would be. Just as corporations haven’t made much use of the ISS or Shuttle because of the significant restrictions on doing so, low availability, and high cost, there’s no reason to expect anything different would happen with a government-owned Shuttle 2. Scale will come as people figure out what they can profitably produce even with high costs, because then they can buy more launches while paying high prices, and that scale will drive down costs thanks to the learning curve inherent in manufacturing, which then makes business cases with lower margins possible, thus driving further cost reductions, making more sectors profitable, and on and on.
I’m sorry, Jeff, but your fear isn’t a convincing argument, and your points don’t support your wishes.
The market is an unquestionable religion to you. The reason the USAF outlived Braniff is because it wasn’t slave to a market…. that’s the kind of stability American space prowess deserves.
SLS gets the ire of most here–and yet, this current conflict with Iran in only a few weeks is costing America much more at the pump than the penny each American spent for the priceless wonder that was Artemis II.
Is it going to take a blue backlash in November to awaken you from New Space dreams? That is what may very well happen. Elon became the face of space–and that may result in an election where Old and New Space alike get attacked.
Had I been Trump, I would have done the earlier strikes on Fordow….and left it at that… until after the mid-terms.
I’m old enough to know the pendulum doesn’t just swing in one direction.
My hope is that if a blue wave does happen, the No Labels/Problem Solvers will blunt some of the weirdness….but I wouldn’t put money on it. Fetterman and Britt get along well, so there is that.
The reason a Buran 2 is worth looking at is that with no tail full of SSMEs, the OMS can go where the RS-25s went, with jets attached to either side
This space-plane would use kerosene as fuel and therefore give the military more than the one-way HOT EAGLE/SUSTAIN architecture.
This way, Shuttle 2 becomes the DASH-80 which gave America a tanker and an airliner both. Space Force would fund shuttle so as to keep NASA whole.
The key is that Shuttle-2 would be a full jet that can take off on its own to show the flag…gunboat diplomacy.
That kind of soft power DOESN’T cost 8 bucks a gallon.
Dick Eagleson wrote: “Many of the people pushing this alarmism about upper atmosphere contamination from re-entering satellites are the same people who’ve been foisting baseless climate alarmism on us for the past three decades. For now, we can simply continue to take data and see how closely – if at all – it matches alarmist predictions.”
We did that with climate alarmism, but when the collected data didn’t fit the alarmists’ predictions, the alarmists modified the data and “recalibrated” the data collection instrumentation so that it all fit the predictions better, making it seem worse than it really is. Although this is usually called fudging the data, for climate alarmism it was not. The alarmist scientists got away scot-free with their fudging and their deceit.
On the other hand, once the climate data had been fudged, everyone stopped being alarmed about the climate and turned to the latest and truly more important societal problem: women trapped in men’s bodies. I now live in abject fear that one day I will feel particularly feminine — a woman trapped in a man’s body — and will use the women’s lavatory only to feel masculine again while still in the stall — realizing that I’m actually a man trapped in a women’s lavatory.
On the third hand, the gripping hand (hat tip to Niven and Pournelle), it seems that modern society is beginning to accept that we were all correct in the first place: that men are real men, women are real men, and the sheep are real scared. With the latest alarm coming to an end, it is time to find yet another alarm to use to control human society. Atmospheric contamination is one of the options being explored. The best part of alarming us over re-entering satellites is that the scientists have already learned that they can get away with fudging the data to make something seem worse than it really is. No matter the alarmists’ predictions, they can make sure that the data fits, proving themselves right.
___________
Jeff Wright,
You wrote: “I have been in the camp that what is launched to orbit should stay in orbit…not just wet workshops. That eliminates the need for aerodynamic control surfaces and heat shields”
Well, that would be a nice goal, except that Nate P is correct. Some down mass is necessary in order for space to be useful to we earthlings, the ones paying for our space endeavors. If the up mass can be reused, repurposed, or refurbished for other uses, then we could save many launches to put up additional mass for use, a good cost savings. We think.
Space is a brand new industry, due to the previous limitations placed upon the industry by government, so pretty much everything we do there is new. We are still finding what earthers want, the things that make money, and it is still a great investment or a disastrous investment, like the railroads of two centuries ago. Elon Musk and Peter Beck seem to have figured out how to successfully do business in space. Others are following. Still others have failed. This is the nature of any new industry.
NASA is limited in its efforts due to its government existence, and from what I heard from the announcement of the SpaceX IPO, that company alone spent as much last year as NASA’s budget. We are getting better things from SpaceX than we are getting from NASA, so SpaceX’s money was better spent.
“The market is an unquestionable religion to you. The reason the USAF outlived Braniff is because it wasn’t slave to a market…. that’s the kind of stability American space prowess deserves.”
Government seems to be the unquestionable religion to you, especially the Marshall Space Flight Center. Every time we question it, you get upset, as though you think of us as heretics.
The market is not a religion, it is the natural way of conducting commerce, ever since the first caveman made a trade with another caveman. Governments have an ability to interfere with free trade markets, but is interference of man’s free actions not the nature of deities?
“SLS gets the ire of most here–and yet, this current conflict with Iran in only a few weeks is costing America much more at the pump than the penny each American spent for the priceless wonder that was Artemis II.”
We tend to discuss space much more than politics or war, because many of us here understand space, science, engineering, and other relevant topics. The fact that we don’t talk enough about politics or war does not validate the uselessness of the Space Launch System. It is still too expensive to operate, and it still launches too infrequently to do much good. That is why Starship is being developed to launch often and at a low price. It is why every other launch system being developed or already developed is less expensive and launches more frequently, because if they didn’t, they would be just as useless.
“The key is that Shuttle-2 would be a full jet that can take off on its own to show the flag…gunboat diplomacy.”
Unfortunately, there is nothing that can awaken you from your own dreams. The rest of us live in a real world with real world limitations, where free markets demand that commerce produce useful products that people will pay enough for to sustain the production. Your world has a government that, in a god-like fashion, will fund any horrifically wasteful, useless project that tickles your fancy.
The ‘market’ is people. I am a big fan of letting people decide what to spend their money on, yes. How does having a military aviation branch justify a civilian space agency? Given the instability of government spaceflight, I’d rather have the increasingly robust private sector that Americans are building. Your argument is further hampered by the widespread availability of flights from other airlines meaning that the impact of Braniff’s collapse was minimal. The airline failed not because of a market crash or structural failure of capitalism, but because fuel costs increased and deregulation dramatically increased its competition. The market as a whole was and is very stable, even if individual companies are not.
Military spending is unrelated to SLS spending. If you want to persuade me that the SLS is worth it, you’ll have to do so while solely referencing NASA’s budget.
Who is going to pay for this? Why does a vehicle intended to go to space need jet engines?
What need does the military have for this? They’ve already got the X-37b and a plethora of aircraft designed for combat zones.
The military has consistently rejected working with NASA on LVs for decades now. This offers them nothing they don’t already have. Why would they care about keeping NASA ‘whole’? Starship is far closer to being an operational vehicle to give America both a ‘tanker’ and ‘airliner.’
Gunboat diplomacy implies it carries weapons, which means it wouldn’t be a NASA project, and in this role it would be dramatically inferior to existing platforms. Why would Space Force pay for this? What need does it have for a spaceplane more capable than X-37b?
I’m quite satisfied with the soft power of Starlink bringing Internet access to millions of people globally, along with SpaceX’s vision of building industry on the Moon and settling Mars. That’s all priceless–and better yet, the citizenry doesn’t have to pay for it. Quite the bargain for us.
The reason behind my advocacy of Shuttle 2 is two gold.
I want NASA to be more like Elon. With engines under the external tank (SLS core) the aerodynamics of the orbiters are less constrained by the aft boat-tail.
One orbiter can be a Faget straight wing…another a wave rider, etc.
Methalox does not lend itself to military use…kerosene does.
Sagan once described himself as a carbon chauvinist.
I am a kerolox chauvinist with respect to space-planes and strap-ons
I am a hydrolox chauvinist when it comes to booster cores in that what others call bug I call a feature.
The ET could easily have been harvested in that it didn’t need the complexity Starship demands–and Buran could actually glide–Starship cannot.
A lot of folks just think I am a MSFC homer…but there are technical reasons for my stance.
With a side-mount SLS, wide payloads can be had more easily. Each space-plane could be different within reason.
Whichever one works the best–that becomes shuttle 3.
No need to rely upon a wonderboy that cannot even sleep alone. THAT is what alarms me.
I have seen pictures of the SLS designers–they have the bearing of REAL leaders.
There is just something a little off-putting to my Southern sensibilities to that sugar foot that never sat right with me.
He smiles…and I don’t like that.
Glushko, Stalinist Soviet he may have been–was Botvinnik to Elon’s Fischer….an unsmiling man who never let anything out of his hands.
We live in a world filled with unserious men…a crime of which I confess I am guilty of
One of the most unpleasant men I have ever known was also the most competent man I have ever known. He knew the first names of EVERYONE in the company I worked for
The only reason the failed Soviet Union flew the flawless Energia was due to one man’s force of will.
Had Valentin Petrovich been in Starbase…he would never leave. He’d die in that building.
I like to think I understand the military. They live and die by kerosene. Musk will always be a software kid in my eyes.
I wish Space X would get its act together.
Now this launch is scheduled for when i will be watching the new Start Wars movie in the theater.
This is just inconvenient. I want to file a protest.
I want to watch the launch and flight on my big screen, not my phone.
Jeff Wright,
“Musk will always be a software kid in my eyes.”
Then you’re well overdue for a trip to an optometrist.
Jeff Wright,
You write down so many things you want, but you fail to connect them to any reason anyone else should support you other than that you want it. You focus on the aesthetics of leaders rather than their performance–when looking at performance, Musk is far more serious than anyone in Huntsville. If you’re genuinely so terrified about relying on him, you won’t win any support from most of us here for a big government effort. You would win support for advocating for more companies to get into the space sector and build hardware, but that seems an anathema to you. You advocate for some of the most expensive, least capable solutions to potential problems, because they stroke your ego rather than because they’re sensible.
A Buran type Shuttle 2 has more utility than the much smaller X-37, which being a government/spook project doesn’t have to prostitute itself like the poor blokes behind Dream Chaser.
I don’t know why folks call me unrealistic or a dreamer seeing that even a bankrupt Soviet Union could make Buran work.
SSTOs are what attract dreamers.
What I advocate is much more realistic….in that it is a payload, not an LV.
I rather like the lay-out of the shuttle-2 type vehicle in FOR ALL MANKIND in that you don’t have a single vertical stabilizer (tail-fin).
Imagine, if you will, the payload bay being like the frame of a trailer.
The aft body flap of the orbiter folds down…and a simple forklift could slide the OMS out on a single pallet.
In the past, people had to put the orbiter in a clean room of sorts. I would have only the payload container and its contents go through that.
The container is buttoned up and the seal broken only in space.
The package can slide in the back or be loaded from above. I might even have the cockpit controls like a kitchen island where you can walk all the way around them and effect repairs. Hand cranks for as many things as possible.
The goal would be to have the folks who worked on shuttle involved in the design process. Folks in the military to fly it about.
It costs what it costs, and it weighs what it weighs.
The last part is to scale up a launch vehicle to fit an already flight proven article….the orbiter only one of many payloads. The LV core would be made in such a fashion that it would lend itself to wet workshop use.
What I propose is the polar opposite of an unrealistic approach.
Instead–what I am advocating is….”how would Mike Rowe build a spacecraft?”
You’re unrealistic not because of cost, but because you haven’t answered any key questions, such as who is going to pay for it, or why they’re going to pay for it. To use an analogy, you’re a guy planning a date with a girl, but you haven’t even worked up the courage to talk to her, let alone ask her out, and she already has a boyfriend she loves. The military has no use for your Shuttle 2–they have the capability they need at a price they like already. NASA can’t afford this, and the private sector is doing its own thing. It doesn’t matter if any of the rest is realistic when your starting position is so flimsy.
The Buran was Americas greatest project ever created for the Soviet union.
The fact that the Soviets even thought they needed one leads to only one outcome. As we all know the shuttle was in large part funded by the military and CIA. It was shaped and sized to place and retrieve film style spy satellites. Within 1 year of its first flight the digital camera was invented and removed the need for miles of film to be in space. Thus the need for the shuttle, everything after that was just make work.
If the Soviets needed a shuttle that shape and size then they planned on stealing OUR spy satellites.
No more film style satellites thus no need to waste money on the Buran.
Why didn’t they ever fly it again. They couldn’t afford it and it thus stank as bad as our Shuttle. All the work the shuttle did could have been done with larger standard Apollo style rockets.
I already answered that….it gets paid the same way X-37 gets paid for.
Both SLS and the Iran War cost the same. Which drive fuel prices and everything else up?
I want my tax dollars to go to more Apollo ‘s and less Vietnams thank you very much.
The military didn’t have much use for space pre-R7 when it was all under Bombs Away Curtis LeMay.
The key to to get space advocates in the positions currently occupied by the fighter Mafia, since the money blown on them has ZERO utility as compared to space activities.
A bombed out Iran that still finds a way to shoot down stealth aircraft….not a good showing.
But Iran has no defense against space assets….and yet, most of our defense dollars go to USAF/USN pilots and logistics.
That is what screams loudest to be cut.
Nate P wrote: “I’m quite satisfied with the soft power of Starlink bringing Internet access to millions of people globally, …”
Oh, look at that. America’s new space program is already bringing benefits directly to the people of the world. Add the medicines that Varda is beginning to make, and we are starting to really get some very serious benefits for we earthlings. With NASA in charge of our national space program, these things were science fiction, but now that We the People are in charge of our national space program, we are finally living in the future.
Isn’t it nice that we no longer live in the past, where the Buran and other failed ideas were the most promising future for us.
_________
Jeff Wright,
You wrote: “I don’t know why folks call me unrealistic or a dreamer seeing that even a bankrupt Soviet Union could make Buran work.”
No they didn’t make Buran work. It only launched once, so no one knows whether it is reusable or how much it would cost or how long it would take to reuse. It launched empty, so no one knows its payload capability or whether it could support a crew. It reentered soon after launch, so no one knows its mission duration capability. The Space Shuttle may have been a disappointment, but at least it could launch crews and payloads 39 times or more.
It clearly was not inexpensive enough to reuse despite the Soviet Union having enough money to continue launching its other rockets. This alone talks to Buran being a failure.
If the U.S. military wanted a Shuttle 2 or Shuttle 3, they would advocate for one. You are dreaming of a solution to a problem that does not exist.
“Instead–what I am advocating is….’how would Mike Rowe build a spacecraft?’”
The rest of us are saying, “Wow! Look at the spacecraft Elon Musk built.” The crew and cargo capacities exceed the Shuttle’s and the Saturn’s and the SLS’s. The launch cadence exceeds those three, too. I’m really not sure why anyone would dream of worse systems than we already have.
“The military didn’t have much use for space pre-R7 when it was all under Bombs Away Curtis LeMay.”
The military didn’t? They sure put a lot of money and effort into Jupiters, Vanguards, Atlases, and other rockets for something they didn’t have much use for.
You think national defense is a waste of money, but you don’t mind blowing money on a useless NASA rocket system. The rest of us like that investor — not taxpayer — money is being used to pay for space operations that already bring us global internet access and new medicines.
— SpaceX brought us affordable and frequent access to orbit. Rocket Lab is close on their heels. This allows other companies to produce goods and services to the world’s people.
— SpaceX brought us Internet access to millions of consumers globally. Varda is bringing medicines to patients around the world.
As little as that may seem, sixty-seven years of NASA didn’t do that much for us.
Jeff Wright,
None of this is a realistic answer as to why the military would fund your dreams. The military is just a thin mask for your own wishes. They’ve soundly rejected using the SLS for anything. Golden Dome and future space-based systems will use SpaceX and other commercial providers. Military aviation has many years of life yet, calling for its cancelation now is not remotely reasonable.
Two last points: you’re about the only one here who wants to be dependent on the state; and as I keep saying, the military budget is irrelevant to NASA’s and how the latter’s budget is spent. Complain all you like about how much money the USAF gets–every time you do, you weaken your position further.