SpaceX Starship struts its stack to show it has the right stuff The Jeff Bezos-bearing Blue Origin New Shepard rocket elicited attention for its shape when it launched last month. On Friday, rival billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX Starship made a show of its size. SpaceX stacked its Starship SN20 upper-stage atop the company's Super Heavy booster at its facility in Boca Chica, Texas, to test …
I would want a reeaally long peice of blue touch paper if it was me lighting it.
Going back to the Bezos and Dynetics complaints, do they honestly expect the world to hang around while they play catch up?
I can't decide whether it is jealousy, arrogance or ignorance that drives the complainers.
I can't work Musk out, but he delivers time and again. I think that must be his buzz, actually creating something someone said wasn't possible. I read/heard somewhere he doesn't do press releases, but talks directly to the public via twitter.
I think he and Branson are going to win. Two different spaces, but both with $billions potential.
I also think that, like now is massively different from 2001, twenty years ago, we wouldn't recognise 2041; and the difference will be significantly down to these two.
The difference is that there's a host of small satellite slingers and Branson's doesnt appear any better than the rest, so by that measure he's a dilettante at best.
No-one appears to be coming close to SpaceX's cost per tonne to orbit. I doubt many people like Musk for sheer gobbiness alone, but he appears to be at least 2-3 years ahead of everyone else in capability and more in terms of cost to orbit.
Yeah Musk is a nerd and an engineer. He's bad at interviews, public speaking and sometimes at gauging what's acceptable to say in public, and he would prefer not to be a CEO. That's why he lives in a $50.000 modular home near Starbase rather than a $163 million Beverly Hills house (or on a $500m yacht) like Jeff Bezos.
On the Everyday Astronaut Youtube channel there's "Starbase Tour with Elon Musk [Part 1/Part2]", they're enormously informative about the entire thing.
How can you state Musk is bad at interviews, his replies in the Everyday Astronaut part1/part2 YouTube videos were informative, complete and vastly more knowledgeable than most CEO's.
Of others, Tory Bruno, CEO of ULA, is pretty impressive too, both very worthy of their position as CEO, their approaches are just different.
I've followed the construction of Boco Chica from the start, and I struggled to understand some of the technical detail being discussed, but I'd prefer that than some BBC teletubby equivalent dumb downed 'shite', dumbing down the detail as they always do.
Kudos to Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut) for doing his homework, and showing how his knowledge of rocket propulsion has come on leaps and bounds. He did his best with Elon Musk, who was clearly tired. What he produced was better than anything made by the BBC.
Overall both parts so far, were excellent, if a bit rough around the edges, but they captured so much info, I'd rather the detail, over any slick graphics every time. The BBC could learn a lot from Tim Dodd's approach, he's clearly respected by Elon Musk for taking the time to understand the subject matter.
Going back to the Bezos and Dynetics complaints, do they honestly expect the world to hang around while they play catch up?
To be fair to Bezos, the original NASA idea was that the moon landing contract was going to have more than one winner. But Congress didn't give them the funding the requested, so they chose to cut the program to be a winner-takes-all halfway through. And who can blame them for going with SpaceX, who've met all their other COTS contracts? The GAO appeal established that NASA had said in advance that multiple awards was dependent on funding, so changing it was fine.
In the previous COTS contracts there was some up-front money for design / early production, and then if it looked good you got awarded some future contracts - which you'd obviously only get paid on if you complete.
So for example Boeing are being paid more per crew launch to the ISS than SpaceX - which is funny because the Boeing one still doesn't work. However NASA only paid for one test flight, so Boeing are having to fund this month's themselves, having fucked up the last one so badly. And of course, if NASA don't OK it, they'll just tell Boeing to bugger off, and can give those other missions to SpaceX. Which must look tempting, given they're cheaper.
With the cargo deliveries to the ISS they went to SpaceX and Orbital (with Cygnus / Antares). Both blew up one payload, though at least SpaceX had the good grace not to total the launch complex as well...
As someone who once worked at NASA, and still keeps in touch with colleagues there, the bottom line is SpaceX has really raised the bar for launches. Boeing can't sit on it's rear much longer while collecting billions from taxpayers. Blue Origin is so far behind, having not yet even gotten anything into orbit, they are not a serious contender for serious space work. If Bezos wants to compete with Boeing and SpaceX, he needs to sink billions of his own money into Blue Origin, and fast. Or simple settle for the rich-plaything market.
"If Bezos wants to compete with Boeing and SpaceX, he needs to sink billions of his own money into Blue Origin, and fast."
Uhm... you do realize that ALL of Blue Origin's funding has been from Mr. Bezos; he's typically sold a billion a year of Amazon stock to finance it. And since he's not the showman his competitors are, and he keeps his development information very, very closed, it appears he's not doing anything from the outside.
That's a bad assumption.
Uhm... you do realize that ALL of Blue Origin's funding has been from Mr. Bezos
Perhaps it's not enough? The poster did after all say billions, maybe he meant billions per year?
I'm certain that Bezos has sunk way more money into Blue Origin personally than Musk has into SpaceX. I don't know if that still holds, when you include money from investors. But then SpaceX now have a significant revenue stream from actually getting paid to do stuff.
That also has the benefit of making most of your costs cheaper. Because you're manufacturing at scale, plus you can afford to fund more employees - as some of them are again being paid for by your customers.
It's also an excellent test of the quality of your work - can you get people to pay for it? And gives you market sectors to aim at - because you're talking to your customers all the time - and they're likely to tell you what they want.
Plus having a good (and visible) track record gives you credibility. Both in hiring good people, and in getting money out of NASA.
For one LEO satellite, Starship is far too big but really good for putting up constellations. Starship is just about big enough to put an ordinary satellite in geosynchronous transfer orbit. The reuse hardware trashes payload mass to high energy orbits - until refuelling in LEO becomes operational.
The size starts to make sense for a return trip to Mars. Setting up the propellant factory on Mars needed to get back would benefit from something significantly bigger. Musk has a vague plan for a rocket the same height as Starship but twice the diameter that fits the bill but would need 4 time the propellant to get back. The current "small" Starship would be a better choice for Mars' first exports: Mars rocks, NASA astronauts and second hand raptor engines.
That said I am sure Musk is quite pleased that the requirements and available technology made Starship 7.5% taller than a Saturn V. (Recent manufacturing improvements made Booster number 4 1m shorter than the 70m normally quoted and he was pleased as a teenager by that number.)
Hundreds of tons of CO2 produced by every launch
Yup. And the total, global annual launch industry produces about as much carbon dioxide as 1 day's operation of Heathrow or JFK International. Or fewer than 100,000 cars.
for what? So some billionaires can satisfy their egos.
That was the moral panic last month involving a suborbital race between Bezos and Branson. SpaceX's Starship is addressing market interest from (at least) NASA, who sees the StarShip as worth a $2.9 billion investment.
Musk might be personally weird and have his own motives, but SpaceX isn't just a vanity project for him. Just glance at the Falcon 9 launch manifests: they're not filled with ego gestures, they're carrying payloads for paying customers.
The combustion of Methane and Oxygen (which is what the Raptor engines burn) is primarily as follows:
CH₄ + 2O₂ → CO₂ + 2H₂O
There are other pollutants released of course - most notably Nitrous Oxides from burning the surrounding air - in a typical rocket engine, but burning Methane is still a lot cleaner than, say, Kerosene.
Looking ahead Methane can be produced through various methods, but most notably by the reaction:
CO₂ + 4H₂ → CH₄ + 2H₂O
SpaceX are planning on utilising renewable energy sources to produce the above as part of their goal to be carbon neutral.
Yeah, the Earth's atmosphere is 78% nitrogen. NOx will typically be produced from any combustion event at temperatures over 1300c where nitrogen and oxygen are also present. So it's pretty much impossible not to produce at least some NOx when launching a rocket.
(But I hear cold-rockets are only 20 years away. Now about this bridge I have for sale...)
"NOx will typically be produced from any combustion event at temperatures over 1300c"
At the nozzle exit. It's a pretty simple matter to design a nozzle that creates sufficient expansion to cool gasses below that point. As a side effect of accelerating them. Most first stage engines are over expanded at sea level (more cooling) so as to match higher altitude atmospheric pressure and obtain better efficiency.
http://braeunig.us/space/thermo.htm
After an engine expands the gas to atmospheric pressure, it's of no use to the vehicle. While the engines are fixed ratio engines, and stage dependent, there is no incentive to worry about such as small amount of NOx.
The average operations of a jet engine put any rocket engine to shame for NOx production.
SpaceX are planning on utilising renewable energy sources to produce the above as part of their goal to be carbon neutral.
And in other news..
https://www.thestreet.com/investing/musk-space-x-wins-round-in-texas-land-dispute
The Railroad Commission of Texas on Tuesday voted 3-0 to designate SpaceX's Lone Star Mineral Development unit as the operator of inactive oil and natural gas wells on 24 acres. That land is being developed to support the entrepreneur's rocket-launch facility near the mouth of the Rio Grande, Bloomberg reported.
...SpaceX plans to drill natural gas wells near the rocket launch site and use the methane it extracts in connection with the rocket facility operations.
SpaceX also plans to build two natural gas-fired power plants and refrigeration equipment to make liquid methane, according to Federal Aviation Administration documents.
So Musk's moved to Texas and gotten in on the fraccing business. From memory, part of the complaint was that Musk had already started drilling, and there's also a related case ongoing in a different court. I was curious whether this was just a land grab, or if Musk was seriously going to be fraccing. Dallas Petroleum Group were apparently planning to use/using their lease as a disposal well, so whether there's much gas there to drill for.
It's debateable if fraccing is greener than shipping in the amount of liquid methane that'll be needed to fuel his massive erection though. Suprised he's not using solar or wind to power the turbo compressors as surely that's 'free' energy.
So, is the above scandal or the extension of his rocket the true definition of ElonGate?
It's.. curious. Or greenwashing. Some of the elements are a matter of public record, ie Musk bought (or leased) 600 acres from Sanchez DPG had already paid $6m to lease a small parcel from Sanchez, but Musk cliamed that parcel as well. The Railroad Commission of Texas decided that DPG's claim had been 'abandoned', mostly on the basis that DPG seemed to have been late paying taxes.
T'other claim/case is ongoing in a different court, and is based more around the real-estate stuff, so whether Sanchez had the right to resell the lease Sanchez thought they'd already bought.
But it seemed kinda murkey. SpaceX seemed to decide that they needed the parcel, DPG weren't using it, so they'd just take it. And now I think a fair chunk of their methane production/storage facility has been built over DPG's claim. All without any legal eminent domain, dinner or movies. But I suspect this may have also been a bit of a ransom strip job, ie DPG holding out for money to volunatarily abandon it's lease.
But the greenwashing part is despite Musk having made most of his billions lobbying for subsidies based on his 'green' credentials, he's now fraccing for gas in Texas. There's also the general environmental friendliness of his Boca Chica operation given the fraccing, or just operating a couple of orbital launch sites in a nature reserve. By it's very nature, it's hardly a very 'green' operation.
Which I gas is also an OPEX issue. The Bbc's Matt McGrath has just thrown up a very hysterical (and incorrect) piece about how CO2 and CH4 will doom us all, unless we go vegan and 'Nett Zero'. Which means more taxes on fossil fuels, and CO2. So SpaceX may have to announce an electric BFR. Taxing part should be fairly easy though, ie it's simple to measure or calculate CH4 production, usage, venting and CO2 emissions from launches.
(And on a more practical note, curious thing about the test fitting is the way the BFR dwarfs the existing tank farms. I guess they could be higher pressure than the BFR, or whether it's possible that Musk will use DPG's disposal wells for storage)
Carbon dioxide is not 'far less problematic as a greenhouse gas than methane'. If anything it is differently problematic. Methane has a much higher warming effect than CO2, but its lifetime in the atmosphere is much shorter: methane lasts for ~12 years while CO2 lasts for several centuries (in concentration: individual molecules cycle through the oceans much more rapidly but concentration is what matters). That means, for instance, that if you realise there's a bad methane emission problem you can address it and things get better in a decade, while if you realise there's a bad CO2 emission problem you can 'fix' it but you're still screwed for longer than we've had electric light.
"CO2 lasts for several centuries"
4 billion years. This planet hasn't had a significant period without CO2 in its atmosphere. Processes that produce and consume CO2 are ongoing and interdependent. You can't get rid of it without producing more (in varying degrees).
That said, the 'centuries' PR is just designed to promote panic. CO2 levels respond very quickly to seasonal changes with time lags on the order of weeks. Not centuries. It's just a matter of altering the production vs consumption rates.
I can't work out whether you are just hugely uninformed or a troll.
Yes, there has been atmospheric carbon dioxide since there has been an atmosphere: that's not what 'CO2 lasts for several centuries' means. What it means is that, if you perturb the concentration of CO2 somehow, it will take several centuries to return to somewhere near what it was before it was perturbed. We know this process happens because if it didn't the CO2 level would just drift up or down for ever, and if that happened there would be no life on Earth, and there is, in fact, life on Earth. And yes, we also know that concentrations have varied significantly over geological time: what the concentration hasn't done is go to close to zero or reach the level it has on Venus. The climate during some of those periods was also not conducive to supporting a large-scale technological human civilisation, of course.
And yes, well done, there are indeed seasonal, cyclic changes of about 10ppm as you can clearly see here. Here's the thing: those changes are seasonal and cyclic: they repeat over the period of a year. Those cyclic changes are due to the absorption and emission of CO2 by all life on Earth (mostly plants), and I think also by seasonal sea temperature changes perhaps. These are not things you can adjust easily, to put it rather midlly.
So what is meant by 'CO2 lasts for several centuries' is that, once those repeating seasonal changes are averaged out, concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere would fall over a period of several centuries assuming humans are not actively extracting vast amounts of it. The converse is generally true as well: without human emissions and assuming no large-scale vulcanism or large impact events, CO2 levels take centuries to rise as well: ice-ages take thousands of years to end (and to start).
Here is a paper which discusses CO2 lifetime in the atmosphere in some detail. In particular it's interesting to look at the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (this is mentioned in the paper). This took place about 55 million years ago and consisted of an abrupt rise of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere (probably due to large-scale vulcanism I think), followed by a recovery. The recovery took about 150,000 years: these are the sorts of timescales we're talking about. Incidentally the 'abrupt' change in the PETM probably took thousands or tens of thousands of years: it's hugely less abrupt than what we're doing now. I'm not sure if there is any good evidence that there has ever been a change as rapid as what we're doing now, short of, presumably, catastrophic impact events.
And finally: if you really believe that this is designed to promote panic and that global warming is not real, then fuck you. Seriously: just go away where you can't do any more damage. Climate science is not a conspiracy.
"I can't work out whether you are just hugely uninformed or a troll."
You posted the link to the data yourself (Mauna Loa CO2 measurements). Take a look at the slope of the AGW increase over time and compare it to the slope of the seasonal variation (the effect of plant respiration given the greater uptake by the ecosystem). There is little if any lag between the seasons and the seasonal CO2 signal. The upward/downward slope of the long term trend is completely dependent on the difference between our CO2 production and the ability of the ecosystem. If humans were to turn everything off and walk away (not very likely), the initial slope of the drop in CO2 would be greater than the slope of the increase since the beginning of the industrial age. Most of the drop would occur in a few decades, with the system reaching equilibrium asymptotically, but in a shorter time period than since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
That paper on volcanism (not vulcanism) cites CO2 lifetimes from 35 to 100 years based on their calculations. Not 'centuries'.
And if you think that climate doesn't respond to control system theory like every other branch of physics, then what you have is a religion, not science. And your climate scientists have taken the same position that clergy has, believe or else.
And finally: watch your language. This may be why so few people take you climate scientists seriously.
What the synchronizing of the annual variation with seasons tells you is that time for atmosphere to mix gases is rather short (you would need to ask a climate science person but I think is is a week or so), as well as other things about distribution of land masses, tilt of axis and so on.
But the Muana Loa graph tells you nothing at all about what would happen is anthropogenic emissions stopped on its own. What the graph shows (all it shows) is that CO2 is growing by about 2ppm/y, averaged over time. Could be that is because anthropogenic emissions are zero and CO2 is just growing (such as at end of ice age, although these growths are much slower): then if anthropogenic emissions stopped ... nothing would happen. Could be that anthropogenic emissions are about 2ppm/y and none is scavenged: then if emissions stopped annual average level would remain constant for many years. Or even it could be the case that anthropogenic emissions are ~100ppm/y and 98ppm/y is being scavenged. All are compatible with this graph: to be able to understand it you need additional information not present in it: you need at least to know what anthropogenic emissions are.
So well I do not know what your miscomprehension is, but it is large.
And then you go on to claim that a 'paper on volcanism (not vulcanism) cites CO2 lifetimes from 35 to 100 years'. Well. Is not in fact a paper on volcanism of course. And we have dictionaries from which we read 'volcanism | ˈvɒlkənɪz(ə)m | (also vulcanism) [...]': perhaps you should have looked in one?. And look at third paragraph, first sentence: 'There is a strong consensus across models of global carbon cycling, as exemplified by the ones presented here, that the climate perturbations from fossil fuel–CO2 release extend hundreds of thousands of years into the future.' This is not '35 to 100 years', I think.
Well, is now increasingly what you are confused of, but this perhaps is addressed in the fourth paragraph, where is discussed the difference between lifetime of individual CO2 molecule in the atmosphere (which is probably less than one century), and change in concentration over time, as CO2 is both absorbed into and released out of the oceans and elsewhere. Change in concentration is what matters of course: one molecule is same as another. Person you were responding to mentioned that in previous comment: perhaps he should have done so again.
Well, I do not support swearing at people (and cannot swear fluently in English anyway), and I am not a climate scientist though I do sometimes eat in same canteen as some. Also think person you responded to is not. But after long enough dealing with endless, endless people who either think they understand things they do not or who are just lying, and who always, always dispute the research they have done and call them a cult and a religion it is not surprising they lose their tempers sometimes, do you not think?
It’s Northern European pragmatism in action
Yup. It's sensible, ie using digestors to produce biogas. Remaining waste can still be used as fertiliser.. which is a slight snag for militant vegans, ie banning livestock production means removing a source of organic fertiliser. Especially if they also ban 'fossil fuels', given those are also used to produce ammonia and other fertilisers. So go Green, and watch the world starve. But they've always had strong Malthusian tendencies.
But there's also subsidies to farm, ie 'renewable' energy, and 'renewable' heat subsidies to collect. Which doesn't always work out, as NI found out.
If you compare how much tax big corporations paid in the UK versus how much tax workers paid, there is no wonder why companies can send their bosses to space and you can't even buy a sensible bike without having to make tough decisions (should I buy a bike and repair broken oven next month? or maybe replace dates pots and pans? Then you have to take money from the pot you had for air conditioning and feeling bad for having to postpone it till next year again).
Some food for thought...
Unfortunately people have this tendency to want to breathe and eat and have something better than the floor to lie on during the high-g bits of the trip. The mass needed for an individual and their support works out at around a ton as a rule of thumb.
Various organisations award astronaut wings with different criteria. The FAA recently updated theirs (pdf). NASA started with a ≥100km requirement (legal definition of space). The USAF went for ≥50miles (well over the altitude where blood boils at body temperature). NASA (and other US institutions) switched to match to USAF. Orbit is not required.
The new FAA criteria differentiate between employee paid to go to space and tourist paying to go to space. As the FAA is all about aviation safety, a major contribution in that field can replace the employee criterion so Wally Funk qualifies from her lifetime of aviation experience even though she was a guest (half way between employee and tourist?). Jeff might qualify because of New Sheppard and I think he should qualify if New Glenn is successful. VG pilots pass as crew+employees. Branson probably passes because Virgin Orbit (Vox Space?) puts payloads in orbit.
Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic avoid the criteria for the customers by awarding their own flavour of astronaut wings.
Among the complaints about pollution and taxes and rich people, many of which seem to confuse Musk's efforts with Bezos' or Branson's, many are missing the point.
If successful, this marks a new milestone in human space flight.
The stack was completed in anticipation of NASA's environmental review which could come at any time. Presumably, the next step is a static fire test. Completion of the orbital test will pave the way for the Starship to be human certified which will make it the largest and most capable spacecraft since the Shuttle.
As SpaceX has become so predictably successful, we forget that there are still new mountains to climb. Here's hoping him success in this ascent.
Pints for him and his boffins.
And still the ever present chance it becomes a freaking great firework
But that was a stack test... make sure everything fits together and the tower has the plumbing at the right level to supply the booster and starship
Got fueling tests and test firing the engines to do before the thing even moves 1 foot off the launch pad
But I'll take the day off if the test flight is while I'm at work.... just to see it go
The tower gets some controversy so the details will matter. SpaceX got all the required building permits to build a tall tower. They do not have FAA approval to use the tower as a launch tower. The latter comes from a statement from an FAA official. This statement got Chinese whispered across the internet so you will find plenty of fact free comments about lack of planning permission / building control.
The tower does not supply propellants to Starship or the Super Heavy booster. SpaceX call it an integration tower as it will be used to stack rockets. This may well be a sufficient distinction for legal weasels. Superheavy will get propellants from the launch platform (completely separate from the tower). Starship will get propellants through the booster.
The plan is that the tower will catch falling boosters. I have no idea what the FAA will say about that but something similar has happened before. There was an experimental aircraft that landed by flipping up vertically and docking with a tower.
Blue Origin: 18m
Apollo 11: 110m
StarShip: 120m
And StarShip is the same diameter all the way up as compared to Apollo 11; quite a beast! :)
Regardless of what happens it's going to be a very interesting launch...
Elon will probably be on Mars before SLS gets to have a human make it to the so called ISS.
Sending SLS/Orion to the International Space Station would be a waste of time and money because F9/Crew Dragon can get there and back for under a tenth of the price and Boeing can make at most one SLS per year.
I think you mean the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (Lunar Gateway/Gateway/LOP-G/Deep Space Gateway/DSG).
The fun will come if Artemis 1 (uncrewed test flight of SLS/Orion around the moon and back) does not go according to plan. Congress will probably authorise funding Boeing for a do-over and will be ecstatic about the extra year of delay because it will give Boeing some time to build LOP-G before it becomes obvious that SLS+Orion+HLS Starship do not need it for a return trip to the Moon.
The other (remote) possibility is Falcon Heavy + Crew Dragon replacing SLS + Orion. The original design of Crew Dragon was to be able to do this. When it became clear that NASA would not man-rate Falcon Heavy (because of the extra separation event for the side boosters), Crew Dragon got simplified by removing the Moon from the requirements. The obvious missing bits are deep space communications and the endurance of the life support systems. (The heat shield is good for a single return from the Moon but probably not reuse.)
Getting to the Moon with a Crew Starship and an HLS Starship would be even cheaper but I do not see NASA approving the return journey any time soon.
Given the head start Blue Origin had over SpaceX, I find it surprising that BO don't yet have a Falcon 9-alike, capable of putting satellites and conventional capsules into orbit. I also suspect that the sheer speed at which SpaceX got things done was a surprise to Bezos, and I note that BO's project Jarvis - to develop a reusable 2nd stage for New Glenn (the original design was for a reusable first stage, but non-reusable second stage) is "walled off" from teh rest of the company.
This is, apparently, for reasons that seem to me to indicate that thus far BO have been working more like the traditional space companies (ULA, Boeing et al) and so they're going to try a more Space X-like method of brainstorming stuff to get a reusable second stage designed asap. I can understand why BO mayhave gone for the more conservative approach; because they've been focused on humans into orbit and no-one wants to take too many risks with human life. But they certainly seemed to have missed a trick with not thinking in terms of develop a booster capable of pushing a second stage capable of orbit first, and sell launch services to satellite operators to fund further development. Going for the space tourist market first was, IMO, a bit of a mistake (despite which, I d think New Shepard is a great design!)
It's a shame that BO aren't even going to be attempting a launch of New Glenn even with a non-reusable second stage for at least another year - a 7m diameter reusable booster is still going to make a sizeable impact on the space industry, and given the reliability of New Shepard, I'd be surprised if New Glenn isnt equally reliable.. I very much hope they succeed, even though I dont like Bezos as a person.
Interesting times. I'm glad I'm still around to see all the space-related stuff happen. Damned shame the politicians have been letting us down on the Earthside stuff.
I think comparisons between Shepard and Glenn are probably optimistic.
Much heavier, much faster, even if you can, you don’t want to hover…
And of course you have to get to somewhere specific from an initially high lateral velocity.
I suspect they’ll manage it, and before long it will be routine. Skipping the F9 size is an interesting choice.
Musk really doesn't need to show off. SpaceX have been there and done that. They are now the space top dogs - and can already do a bunch of stuff that nobody else can do. With more capabilities in development. Until someone else has got re-usability on medium and heavy lift - they're in a class of their own.
Not that it stops him, as he does like to show off a bit. But at least he doesn't feel the need to put out the kind of whiny, passive agressive statements that Blue Origin often do.
What SpaceX have achieved is awesome - that is a beast of a rocket.
However, while looking at the photographs I couldn't help wondering if as well as the tallest rocket they also have the world's tallest cherry pickers. I'm just glad I don't have to go up in one of them! Hats off the the engineers that did.
1) How do you launch this thing without destroying the launch stand? I assume the safest way is to get Kong the crane to hold it at boom's length, Elon presses the ignite button and Kong squints like he's holding a giant sparkler?
2) How is that thing going to cope with max-q? The relative sizes of the parts means the leverage around the joint will be massive.
3) How do you land this thing in one (two) pieces?
So basically there are only three issues I can see with an orbital mission - launch, flight and landing - apart from that it's easy. If he pulls this one off Elon will become a legend, if he doesn't he may be rebuilding half of Boca Chica!
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