Update on SpaceX’s preparations for the 4th test flight of Superheavy/Starship
Link here. The article is definitely worth reading, as it tells us that SpaceX is pushing hard to be ready to launch in early May, as Musk has promised. The article also thinks SpaceX will be able to ramp up later launches to one every two months.
The article however is I think being naively optimistic about this timeline, because it naively assumes the FAA will quickly approve the launch licenses to meet that schedule. I guarantee the FAA won’t, as it has taken it one to four months after SpaceX was ready to launch to approve the licenses for the previous launches. The length of that approval process has shrunk each time, but FAA still made Space X wait each time, for no reason.
Making that schedule even more unlikely is SpaceX’s desire to do as many as nine test launches per year at Boca Chica. While the company could certainly do this, the environment reassessment issued in 2022 limits it to only five launches per year. It needs a waiver from the FAA and the Biden administration,
a waiver no one should expect considering the Biden administrations hostility to Musk.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Link here. The article is definitely worth reading, as it tells us that SpaceX is pushing hard to be ready to launch in early May, as Musk has promised. The article also thinks SpaceX will be able to ramp up later launches to one every two months.
The article however is I think being naively optimistic about this timeline, because it naively assumes the FAA will quickly approve the launch licenses to meet that schedule. I guarantee the FAA won’t, as it has taken it one to four months after SpaceX was ready to launch to approve the licenses for the previous launches. The length of that approval process has shrunk each time, but FAA still made Space X wait each time, for no reason.
Making that schedule even more unlikely is SpaceX’s desire to do as many as nine test launches per year at Boca Chica. While the company could certainly do this, the environment reassessment issued in 2022 limits it to only five launches per year. It needs a waiver from the FAA and the Biden administration,
a waiver no one should expect considering the Biden administrations hostility to Musk.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
‘Making that schedule even more unlikely is SpaceX’s desire to do as many as nine test launches per year at Boca Chica. While the company could certainly do this, the environment reassessment issued in 2022 limits it to only five launches per year. It needs a waiver from the FAA and the Biden administration, a waiver no one should expect considering the Biden administrations hostility to Musk’.
Which asks the Question why is he so vocal on being a conservative when he needs so many permissions from the Leftist’s.
David Obst: So then, you accept the idea that Americans should forego their First Amendment right to free speech in order to kowtow to politicians? Does this mean also that you accept the idea that we are no longer equal citizens, but that those in power are the equivalent of royalty who have the right to destroy you if you say something they don’t like?
Nice country you used to have there. Sure a shame something happened to it.
why is he so vocal on being a conservative when he needs so many permissions from the Leftist’s.
Back in the 1980’s, HP would run ads for their test equipment in engineering publications with the tagline …
… when performance must be measured by results.
IMO, Musk is someone who thinks along that line, as well … and he knows that you do not get sustained results by ignoring the truth that some want ignored in favor of what they would like the truth to be. Not just technical facts, but the societal and economic forces that affect his enterprises because they affect those he employs to get results.
He also has the buffer of accumulated wealth, and the leverage of currently providing the most timely and reliable space-launch services available to all comers – including various government agencies; Starship joining the operational SpaceX fleet will benefit their operations as well.
…why is he so vocal on being a conservative when he needs so many permissions from the Leftists?
I think it may be a combination of the following:
1. Elon is enamored, probably naively, with the idea that a product can be so good, it cannot be resisted even by those who would try to stifle it.
2. He may also have an ace in the hole in Starlink:
https://youtu.be/bUWKnyELivA
David Obst asked: “Which asks the Question why is he so vocal on being a conservative when he needs so many permissions from the Leftist’s.”
Which asks the Question: so why does he need so many permissions from the Leftists?
Governments were invented by man to do three things:
1) to protect us from all enemies, foreign and domestic,
2) to peaceably resolve disputes as an impartial third party, and
3) to stay out of our way.
Mankind did not invent governments to limit us. We invented them to make our lives better, not worser.
When the government is the one restricting our rights and usurping our freedoms, then it has become the domestic enemy it was intended to protect us from. We call these oppressive governments “tyrannies.”
Before the Democrat Party moved so far to the left, Musk was a Democrat. He may still be one, appalled at the direction that his party has taken.
Why should he not be vocal about this sad state of affairs? Why should he be punished for his opinions in a free nation? Why does the Democrat Party increasingly resemble the left-wing NAZI party (National Socialist German Workers’ Party)?* Shouldn’t Musk be complaining about that, rather than the much less insidious policies that he complains about?
_________________
* Why do the Democrats, friends of the NAZIs in the 1930s, insist upon invoking Godwin’s law? Shouldn’t we learn from the past so as to avoid repeating it? If we deny that NAZI tactics and policies can raise their ugly heads again, then we cannot defend against them. The NAZIs learned eugenics from the Democrat Party and took it a step farther. Today, the tactics and strategies of the NAZI Party are being used by the Democrat Party.
So, what should the German population have done to defeat the NAZIs before they could do so much damage to their country, and how do we accomplish that before the Democrats do the same to us? Standing up to them and winning must certainly be one of the steps in preventing a similar disaster.
How does Starship slow down for reentry? It doesn’t turn around to do so, does it? I can’t picture how that works.
How will the Starship slow down for reentry? I don’t understand how that will work with the engines in the back.
Thanks
From my reading of Shirer’s “Rosa and Fall of the Third Reich”, which is based on the impressions of an American journalist living in Germany during the “rise”, I have formed the opinion that the German populace was not highly resistant to the Nazi culture, and in many cases embraced it comfortably.
Ray Van Dune: Welcome to today’s America, because Shirer’s description of the German populace matches too many Americans today.
Darwin Teague asked: “How does Starship slow down for reentry? It doesn’t turn around to do so, does it? I can’t picture how that works. … I don’t understand how that will work with the engines in the back.”
There are two ways for Starship to turn around in orbit. It can fire up the gimbaled engines and vector the thrust off the centerline of the ship in order to make it spin around. We saw it do that during the landing tests three years ago. That method flipped the ship very fast.
Another way is to use much smaller thrusters like Falcon does in order to make similar maneuvers to turn around before the boost back burn, when it returns to the launch site, or to reposition for reentry burn, when it lands on the drone ship.
_______________
Ray and Robert,
So, with America’s population so similar to the German population that didn’t resist the nasty changes, what can the rest of us do to prevent disaster? Standing up to them and winning may be one step, but what others do we need to do?
Edward: If my ribs allow me on Monday, my essay that day will address your question.
Well obviously I meant “Rise and Fall…” not “Rosa and Fall”… stupid auto-cucumber!
Yes, I am aware of the obvious parallels between the rise of the Nazis and the aspirations of today’s American left. I hope there are sufficient contrary mechanisms; in the main the American tradition of fair play, federalism, the second amendment, and the internet! I think the key is to make sure the traditional American POV continues to be heard loud and clear, even if at times it appears to be less than dominant!
If the corrupt judiciary succeeds in jailing Trump, that could signal that the time has come to revolt, and not merely object!
The subject of turning around in Starship is best understood by the fact that in the vacuum above the atmosphere, it can assume any orientation without a drag penalty, so it can be rotated so that thrust in against the orbital direction can be applied by a thruster located pretty much anywhere on the ship. Care must be taken to make sure the thrust is applied through the center of mass, of course!
Once the ship’s orbit intersects with the upper atmosphere, atmospheric drag and the ship’s tremendous speed means it should orient itself like a shuttlecock and burn off its kinetic and potential energy. Any “backwards” alignment then will result in incineration!
“why is he so vocal on being a conservative when he needs so many permissions from the Leftist’s.”
It seems to me that the answer is obvious. He considers the subjects that he addresses, such as illegal immigration, to be critical to the survival of the culture that underpins U.S. society. He also knows that without slowing the progressive left, private space endeavors will end up looking much like private space in China. He might be a billionaire and a genius, but he is an American by choice and he made that choice when the United States had more of a traditional moral center.
“Ray and Robert,
So, with America’s population so similar to the German population that didn’t resist the nasty changes, what can the rest of us do to prevent disaster?”
Bob, I don’t agree that the American population is “so similar” at all, and that is both what I saw in “Rise and Fall”, and what gives me hope now.
My political awakening roughly coincides with the 2000 election. Up to that point, I was busy starting and building a home and family, and content with the soft liberalism given me by the educational system. I actually voted for Gore, believing him to be a respite from the slimy Clinton. NPR confidently told me that Bush was an idiot, and I believed them. Doesn’t happen much anymore!
I also believed the story of Hitler that my liberal education gave me – that the poor Germans, impoverished by the Great War, Versailles, and 1929, were easy prey for the clever Hitler. He was practically our fault!
“Rise and Fall” showed me something else… a culture long comfortable with military might-makes-right and their racial superiority. Hitler was not an aberration, he was as comfortable as an old slipper! And I remembered well what my father had told me of the post-war Germany he had personally occupied. That the war had been the most righteous in history, because all the Nazis had died, and all the survivors turned out to have been secret anti-Nazis all along!! Hearing that as a toddler, I was at first puzzled, then surprised, until I eventually got the “joke”.
But anyway, it seems to me that the early 20th century Germans were very far from today’s Americans, or rather we from them. They seemed to be very disinterested in egalitarianism, and long comfortable with a worldview featuring their unquestioned racial superiority over all others. They also carried a grudge against virtually the whole world from only a few years past. An early war German general officer had reputedly shook his head, saying “Here we are again – at war with everyone!”
So, my main source of optimism is that we are NOT like prewar Germans (or Japanese). The forces that want to take control of us will not have an easy time of it, although they have shown remarkable endurance so far! Our main source of strength is our traditional beliefs about fairness, equality, and our Constitution, things that the Germans seemed to have lacked completely at the rise of Hitler!
Ray:
What happens when we compare the U.S. to the fifth century Western Roman Empire? Perhaps this is a more obvious fit.
Robert,
I hope your ribs are improving. Please take good care of them.
“If my ribs allow me on Monday, my essay that day will address your question.”
Thank you. It is a difficult question that I have been pondering for a long time. “Stand up to bullies” is easy when there is a school principal to back you up, but it is harder when it is the principal doing the bullying.
I have heard an analogy to the Titanic: if the Titanic had hit the iceberg straight on, it would have been badly damaged but still able to float. Hitting leftists straight on, at least in America, seems to work well, as Breitbart and Charlie Kirk have demonstrated. However, they haven’t gone after governments but have just been demonstrating that individual leftists are not well versed in their own philosophy and have a difficult time defending their fantasy positions once reality is pointed out in a way that they have agreed with. It is a cute trick to play, showing that they don’t really believe in their own fantasy, but it is not necessarily convincing.
_____________
Ray Van Dune,
“NPR confidently told me that Bush was an idiot, and I believed them.”
From my experience living among leftists, few of them have stopped believing NPR and other left-wing sources. These sources tell people what they want to hear: the world is dangerous, but authority will protect you just as your parents did. As it turns out, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away (or maybe an hour, in Uvalde). This is why NPR is so angry with their treacherous editor Uri Berliner. He spoke truth to masses.
Maybe that is another step we need to take, getting leftists to defect and tell the truth in a way that can convince those who live in a fantasy world, as Breitbart did, but this is difficult to do, more difficult than to get them to live in the real world in the first place.
Just how is it that pornography has entered into elementary school libraries, and why is it so difficult to get it out again. This would not have been a problem just two decades ago, yet here we are with school boards forbidding parents to read them the text of books from their school’s library. We cannot speak truth to power, they have already taken important portions of free speech.
Robert’s comparison of the US population of today with the Germans of yesterday may be apt. Not all Germans were enthralled with Hitler and many were frightened of him and his absolute power, which he demonstrated on occasions such as Kristallnacht and The Night of the Long Knives. Look at what happens in the US when you disagree with the leftist regime at any level. The FBI has even been sicced on parents disagreeing with school boards. The FBI!
There were some twenty plots against Hitler’s life, some of which were put into action but failed. The most famous one is described by the movie Valkyrie, a plot led by one of Hitler’s Colonels, and carried out by quite a few unenchanted or disabused Germans. So, how do we get a majority of gullible leftists disabused enough to turn on the abusive authority?
“a culture long comfortable with military might-makes-right and their racial superiority.”
I hate to say it, but those two tend to describe both sides of Americans. The right is proud of its military’s ability to defeat tyranny (because The American Way is right, and our military strength proves it), and the left thrives on power over other people, especially people they perceive as inferior races. The Democrat Party was founded specifically to defend the institution of slavery from people who thought slaves should be free and equal, as the Declaration of Independence stated. The left even sees all egalitarians as “white supremacists,” no matter their race or skin color.
“Our main source of strength is our traditional beliefs about fairness, equality, and our Constitution, things that the Germans seemed to have lacked completely at the rise of Hitler! ”
True enough, but that is a strength of the right wing, not the left wing, which has a new belief system of what is fair, that equity of outcome is better than equality of opportunity, and they despise our “outdated” Constitution.
You may not see it; you may live among right-wing people, but I see this every day. They are saturated with their beliefs and are difficult to convince otherwise. They see with their eyes, but they believe what they hear. From NPR and from others. It fits their current belief system so much better than reality does.
__________________
Gary H wrote: “What happens when we compare the U.S. to the fifth century Western Roman Empire? Perhaps this is a more obvious fit.”
I’ve heard that analogy, too. I don’t recall the Romans starting to believe fantasies, such as men can be women and can be pregnant. I think we are now beyond the Roman Empire comparison and into something new. However, we should definitely learn from the history of the Romans. They have something to teach.
It is a difficult question to ponder, for it is complicated by factors we have not seen before and may be hard to overcome. Or maybe there is something in history that teaches a way to overcome the nightmarish insanity that we are now living within.
Just how did we get here, and how do we go back up the road to a more sane world, a world of reality and Oh, my god! I’m sitting here at an outdoor train station as I write this, and someone just walked past wearing a mask! A Wuhan flu mask. It may be far too late for some people; I just hope it isn’t too late for most.
The Romans were stretched too thin.
Marcus Aurelius was their best leader, but forgot the primacy of Rome.
“Byzantium” translated in American colloquial English means “Ukraine.”
Or was it Istanbul? I forget…
I think the better historical fit is the late Roman *Republic*, not the last Roman *Empire*. Some form of dictatorship is our more probable destination, rather than collapse and foreign conquest, I fear.
If you think of Dementia Hitler’s regime as a group of competing crime families rather than a monolithic entity, Musk may very well get his 9 launches.
He very carefully approached the intel community, which runs the whole show these days, with an offer to launch all their payloads, something neither the ULA not anybody else can do. DoD and NASA also need Starship. Badly.
As much as the rest of the regime’s flying monkeys (FAA, Interior, the Judiciary, etc) want to shut him down, I don’t think they can or will go against the wishes of their Masters. Cheers –
I’d like Musk to invest in RDE’s
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/rotating-detonation-engines.30287/page-2#post-672920
Some good news in terms of alloys:
https://phys.org/news/2024-04-uncover-kinky-metal-alloy-wont.html
“A metal alloy composed of niobium, tantalum, titanium, and hafnium has shocked materials scientists with its impressive strength and toughness at both extremely hot and cold temperatures, a combination of properties that seemed so far to be nearly impossible to achieve….The best cryogenic steels, specially engineered to resist fracture, are about 20 times tougher than these materials. Yet the niobium, tantalum, titanium, and hafnium (Nb45Ta25Ti15Hf15) RMEA alloy was able to beat even the cryogenic steel, clocking in at over 25 times tougher than typical RMEAs at room temperature….The team found that the alloy had the highest strength in the cold and became slightly weaker as the temperature rose but still boasted impressive figures throughout the wide range. The fracture toughness, which is calculated from how much force it takes to propagate an existing crack in a material, was high at all temperatures.”