SpaceX (general discussion)

FighterJock said:
Elon Musk will just have to move the whole lot down to Texas and launch Falcon 9 from there, California's loss is Texas's gain.
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Beaches in South Padre is seriously underrated. Galveston and Corpus Christi gave the rest of the coast a bad name.

Heard that SpaceX will be a major draw to the region as well.
 
I don't post much because I am an aerospace and astrospace fan, not an expert. I've enjoyed following discussions by those more knowledgeable than myself on this forum for many years. Sometimes, lately, the politics of the forum members spoils some of the enjoyment of the conversation.
I don't always agree with Elon Musk's political posturing but his accomplishments are amazing. I think maybe he might be an alien .
SNNE, thanks for the levity.
MartinBayer, Dark Sidius and Archibald, you all three seem like very charming and knowledgeable gentlemen...most of the time.
Forgive the rant. (Picks up soap box and shuffles off stage left.)
 
TMA1 said:
The starship and it's first stage are so large that it seems these kinds of maneuvers to land them are quite aggressive. I wonder if as they perfect the landing and capture of starship and first stage if we won't see frequent damage to equipment and outright losses. Then again I am no engineer. To anyone with engineer chops out there, are these vehicles getting to the outer edge of safety in these kinds of landings?
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Wrong kind of engineer, but my immediate reaction to the Super Heavy mission profile is that bringing the booster back to the launch tower doubles the chance of an accident taking out your launch infrastructure and I'm not convinced that's a sensible decision. It's a spectacular decision, but I'm not convinced it's sensible in a pure engineering sense. Better to bring it back to a separate tower that doesn't have multiple functions.
 
TomcatViP said:
@Byeman : I hope that with a deserted launchpad and budget realignment, Kuru spaceport would reconsider their apparent lack of fair play.
At the end, making space more a private endeavor is what their gov, as the EU, have called for. It might not start with their plethora of dubious startups. But we could see that aspiration lifted hosting the best of the best athlete... (as they say).

Probably also that the French, German and other NATO members MoD would be relieved to see SpaceX reliable launchers available also there.
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No, they don't have deserted launch pads
It has nothing to do with FairPlay.
They want an indigenous European launch vehicle and not be dependent on a US company. Especially the French(who own Kourou).
 
Byeman said:
No, they don't have deserted launch pads
It has nothing to do with FairPlay.
They want an indigenous European launch vehicle and not be dependent on a US company. Especially the French(who own Kourou).
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How many launches this year and the one before?
 
What have Space X said about how much time will be saved recovering it in this way vs it coming down on a pad elsewhere?
 
fram2
@framonauts
We are now targeting NET spring 2025 for launch of Fram2, the first human spaceflight to explore Earth from a polar orbit. The new timing allows us to take advantage of more favorable weather conditions required for a safe launch and return to Earth for human spaceflight missions

We continue to train and finalize details around the research we will be flying aboard Dragon.
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1846016893766807631
View: https://twitter.com/framonauts/status/1846016893766807631

https://twitter.com/x/status/1846156249743720806
View: https://twitter.com/satofishi/status/1846156249743720806


Will splashdown in the Pacific.
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Someone on X put it nicely “SpaceX launched a skyscraper and it returned to earth and was caught with chop sticks while it was parallel parking.”
 
i like SpaceX sense of humor
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DWG said:
Wrong kind of engineer, but my immediate reaction to the Super Heavy mission profile is that bringing the booster back to the launch tower doubles the chance of an accident taking out your launch infrastructure and I'm not convinced that's a sensible decision. It's a spectacular decision, but I'm not convinced it's sensible in a pure engineering sense. Better to bring it back to a separate tower that doesn't have multiple functions.
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LOL, a pure engineering solution it is not, rather it is more of an engineer with an MBA type of solution. Ultimately any business endeavor is a multi-disciplinary thing, Elon definitely has the knack to figure out that kind of optimization which is supremely rare.

P.S. I say this as a semi-hobbyist entrepreneur (BS eng, MS eng, MBA)
 
Byeman said:
A meaningless point.
a. They realized their folly in using Russian supplied Soyuz for medium launches.
b. The fact that Ariane 6 has had development challenges doesn't change their stance and only reinforces it.
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Meaningless? Really? Do you make disdain a style, because It doesn't even hide the fact that you are absolutely refusing to see the stakes at play with an open mind.
Their launch site is bleeding money and, being unused, degrades slowly the competencies that are essential to ensure reliability.
And guess on what point the industry is at war today...
 
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Space X is banging along, keeps banging along and being innovative, keep going Space X. NASA did Webb (I'll give them that one and Webb is excellent) but mainly probes and some rovers now. Starliner and launch vehicles, DONE! And look at Boeing, how sad and what a mess or did I not use the right pronoun.
 
Byeman said:
A meaningless point.
a. They realized their folly in using Russian supplied Soyuz for medium launches.
b. The fact that Ariane 6 has had development challenges doesn't change their stance and only reinforces it.
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Ariane 4 (perhaps the 40 - 42 variants) should have been expanded beyond 2003, rather than the Soyuz option (although in the 2000 - 2008 period Putin was slightly less a PITA than nowadays, albeit political assassinations of opponents and bullying of neighboring nations were already there).
But Arianespace did not wanted to assume two production lines, plus Soyuz was already in the "place" ( = Europe) with Starsem

Starsem - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
Note that a Viking production line still exists in India for PSLV. Maybe they could have tapped into it for an extended Ariane 4.
 

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