SpaceX will launch the mammoth Starship on Sunday in a launch window that opens at 5 AM PST (7 AM local time) from the company’s Starbase site in southeast Texas. This flight, which will be the fifth in the Starship development program, is coming a little sooner than expected: the Federal Aviation Administration had previously said that it did not anticipate issuing a modified launch license for this test before late November.

  • Nighed@feddit.uk
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    2 months ago

    extremely impressive - the atmospheric heating on the bottom as it came is was scary though!

    (no engines lit here!)

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      2 months ago

      The engines are lit there. They’re just not operating at very high pressure, I think they do it to stop too much air getting into the engines.

  • ColeSloth
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    2 months ago

    Wasteful, useless, fix this planet, yadda yadda.

    That’s all a bit true, but this is still cool as fuck.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      2 months ago

      It’s also an irrelevant.

      Humanity can do two things at the same time, we always have been able to. So to say we shouldn’t do thing X because thing Y is still a problem is fundamentally misunderstanding how progress works. If you genuinely think along those lines then we probably shouldn’t be making video games either because climate change is still a problem.

      • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        I say we stop doing home cooking channels. There are enough recipes. That energy needs to go to fighting climate change.

  • Badabinski@kbin.earth
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    2 months ago

    Starship landing was a success too! They landed right on target this time. There was still a bit of burn-through at one of the aft fins (much less than before), and it exploded a little bit after it landed. Hopefully they’ll be able to land Starship on the ground next!

  • khannie@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Live stream available here. Apparently launch in 40 minutes or so from this comment:

    Edit: that was some dirty link sorry

    • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Cool, then get NASA to actually do something vs hamstringing itself with bureaucrats…the only reason people like you rage against SpaceX is because it’s tied to that idiot musk.

        • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          You’re joking right? No they have not… I love NASA, but acting like what spacex has done is only because of NASA is bullshit.

          • katy ✨@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            2 months ago

            because everything spacex has done is because of nasa. all spacex does is toss unlimited money at exploding rockets and pollute the environment and ecosystem

            • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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              2 months ago

              SpaceX insisted on fixed price contracts. Unlike the other companies doing cost-plus contracts (aka unlimited money contracts), SpaceX sets a price on government services and then delivers for that price.

      • triptrapper@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        NASA is hamstringing itself? Tell me more. I don’t know anything about NASA, but I would have guessed the bureaucrats were external.

        • CptEnder@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          The US government moreso than NASA as funding for them as been an easy punching bag for both political parties lately.

          The other thing is optics. NASA isn’t allowed to blow up 20 rockets on their designs. They only get one chance to get it right. That’s why the SLS has only 1 launch and is 1/1 as opposed to the SpaceX Dragon and Starship can just throw money at them until they work.

          Not saying one way is better than the other, just that NASA has to fight not to make the front page because 9/10 it means they made a mistake which costs them more funding. IMO all of this is going to come up to a very slow pace akin to NASA when we start with crewed missions (SpaceX Starship will be mission controlled by NASA as well). They super don’t fuck around with crewed launches, especially after the botched Boeing Space launch. And a crew launch failure affects everyone SpaceX and NASA alike.

    • SparrowRanjitScaur@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Absolutely if private entities want to go to space they should be able to. What grounds would you block them on? This is not a substitution or replacement of public space agencies

        • SparrowRanjitScaur@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Why? They’re providing a service with that contract. NASA isn’t capable or doesn’t want to do everything in house. If they deem it beneficial to outsource some projects to contractors then what’s wrong with that?