“Countdown hold for final launch checkouts”
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Musk aside, that was pretty bad ass.
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Explosive start and end to Starship’s first flight
What a launch - seeing Starship head skywards, its 33 engines burning as it slowly pushed upwards into the blue Texan sky, was quite something. It passed a key point - clearing the tower and not blowing up the launch pad infrastructure.
So far so good.
But it was at the point where the booster tried to separate from the upper stage that things went wrong. The booster started tumbling, then boom - it was gone.
SpaceX call this a rapid unscheduled disassembly. But even though the company wanted this test to go further, they won’t call this a failure.
There were still cheers at SpaceX HQ even when the rocket went up in smoke. The fact that the rocket got off the ground is a start - they’ll assess what went right and what went wrong - and then have another go.
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“Rapid unscheduled disassembly” nice.
Musk’s face was pretty blank during that part. Or is his face pretty blank most of the time?
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At least 5 of those flamed out early on, the lift-off didn’t look smooth to me. I can’t imagine the permutations of the control problems that you start to get are particularly easy to deal with, especially if the engine flame out leaves you with misbehaving pieces. It’s also not particularly re-assuring that the self-destruction of the rocket took out the payload as well.
I note, without further comment, that the N1 had 30 main engines.
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Waiting for someone from Airbus to point out that SLS also has an 8 m payload.
Also, if you click through…
A modular approach enables Airbus LOOP customers to adapt the deck selection to their individual mission requirements and objectives. Operators may choose to replace any or all of the three decks with individually designed options in line with their respective mission objectives.
…
Under the Airbus LOOP umbrella, Airbus also offers a variety of services and products that support Human Spaceflight Missions, ranging from consulting service to individual payloads:
…
Outfitting Elements (e.g. Glovebox, Rack, Cooler/Freezer,…)
But will it inspire a Death Cab for Cutie song?
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fictional plot summaries in secondary sources should really be in the present tense
makes me wince every time
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Dan is in that comic too.
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Yurimania has not bitten the dust!
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