25 thoughts on “Starship Progress”

1. A notable milestone…and yet it seems so….expected, mundane almost.

   The highest compliment that SpaceX can get, I think,

2. One of the reasons I hope Artemis 1 launches in this window and succeeds at least through TLI is because it clears the political path for a Starship test launch. If SuperHeavy survives through staging and Starship reaches LEO, then we’ve at least got an expendable rocket that can do the job of Saturn V, only bigger and cheaper. If Starship makes it through EDL (at least to the point of making a pretty splash north of Hawaii) then we potentially have the Shuttle back, only bigger and better. Both were needed post-Apollo and are needed now

   1. I can’t argue with sound reasoning….

   2. Looka like I got my wish on Artemis 1. The big flewbird flew.

3. Unless that video was edited, it didn’t look like a full duration test to me. It was still very impressive and I look forward to more tests leading up to the first flight attempt.

   1. I took “full test duration” to mean that the engines fired for the planned duration without an abnormal/early automated shutdown. Since every engine has already been fired at McGregor, I figured they were data collecting on interactions. But, could be seeing it wrong.

      1. In my experience, “full duration testing” meant the engines fired for the same amount of time that they would during an actual launch. Back in 1966, I witnessed a full duration static fire of a Saturn V first stage. I was 3 miles from the test stand. Nine year old me was very impressed.

         1. NavyNuke is pointing out the difference between claiming a “full test duration” and a “full duration test.”

            Plainly, “full duration” means the length of time of a first stage burn, and anything less is playing with words.

            “Full test duration” can mean “we intended to run the engines for 14 seconds and they ran for 14 seconds, so they ran for the intended duration of the test.”

   2. Full test duration. Thermal equilibrium; steady state. Not first stage burn duration.

4. 14 down, 19 to go.

5. With a nominal thrust of 510 klb per Raptor 2, wouldn’t this static fire be the equivalent of a Saturn V first stage thrust?

   1. Sounds about right. When they get all 33 engines firing at once, it’s going to be glorious. .

      1. Close. That would be 7.14 million pounds thrust, while the Saturn V produced 7.5 million pounds.

         1. You know… that is pretty damn close. With less than half the engines running.

            But remember, SLS is TIME Magazine’s Glorious Rocket of the Year.

   2. 15 Raptor 2s at full chat would be roughly equal to Saturn 5.

6. Assuming all 14 Raptor 2s got up to full thrust, this test produced about the same thrust as a Falcon Heavy plus a Falcon 9.

   1. In thrust we trust.

      1. [thumbs up emoji]

      2. Yowzah!

      3. In payload we trust, and Saturn V still holds that crown for a little while longer. I noticed the other day that Starship could lift a Space Shuttle orbiter as payload, then, after refueling, deliver it to the surface of Mars. Kuhl!

7. Help me out: Why do people say that Artemis can land on the moon in one shot, whereas Starship requires in-space refueling from multiple missions? Why does that make sense when everyone seems to agree that Starship is “more powerful”? Or, where is this explained fully? Thanks!

   1. Because they’re idiots and/or liars. Artemis can’t land on the Moon at all, only fly a crew to near-rectilinear halo orbit. With refueling, Starship can do a lunar free-return flyby (e.g., dear,Moon). By carrying several tons of fuel as cargo, it can deliver a crew to NRHO (where Gateway will live) and then manage trans-earth injection to EDL (which Artemis manages only with the tiny Orion command module). WITH refueling, Starship can land 100 tons of crew and cargo on the Moon, then ferry the crew back up to Gateway in NRHO. Lunar Starship as currently specified is not equipped to land back on Earth, but with addition refueling could return to low-earth orbit.

      1. Bad typing as usual: I meant, “WithOUT refueling, Starship can…” And by can, I meant when and if. By this time next year SpaceX could be a nationalized subsidiary of Boeing and Musk, stripped of his naturalized US citizenship and deported, could be the Chief Designer for the Chang Zhen 9 project, a.k.a., Sinostarship. (PS: who remembers this would not be the first time the US has done something this maximally stupid?)

         1. I couldn’t remmber how to spell it, but I was referring to Qian Xuesen (modern Pinyin spelling), co-founder of JPL, who was kicked out of the US and became head of the Chinese missile and space propgrams.

      2. So the short answer is (as I suspected) because they’re comparing apples and oranges. What Starship people are calling a lunar mission is way more ambitious than what Artemis people are calling a lunar mission. Correct?

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