It's that simple!

It blew up about 3000 km/hr short of orbit, so thankfully all of it has burned up in Earth's atmosphere already :)

Interesting comment from Jared Isaacman: https://x.com/rookisaacman/status/1815801469532266841

Its a good article, a few thoughts:

• I don't like monopolies, but why the sudden unease? The government buys all of its refueling tankers from Boeing, all of the main battle tanks from General Dynamics, all the aircraft carriers from Newport News shipbuilding, all of our air-to-air missiles from Raytheon. The government buys fighter jets from a duopoly that often provides reciprocal work-shares making them a monopoly. Historically, the government had no problem buying launch services from ULA and in fact had to be sued to prevent a continuation of that practice.

• If SpaceX acts like a monopolist, then they will increase prices to levels that naturally stimulate more competition or risk antitrust actions. However, If SpaceX does not act like a monopolist and the government is getting the best product for the lowest price through open competitions, then what is the problem? As tax payers, we should want the best product/service for the lowest price and delivered as quickly as possible. We probably should not punish the few companies that are actually exceeding expectations.

I would love to see the government breaking up the monopolies that actually harm the competitiveness of the nation by failing to innovative and consistently come in over-budget and behind schedule and therefor have an allergy to fixed price contracting.

It blew up about 3000 km/hr short of orbit, so thankfully all of it has burned up in Earth's atmosphere already :)

It blew up about 3000 km/hr short of orbit, so thankfully all of it has burned up in Earth's atmosphere already :)

I'm guessing you're talking about the election result? That was my first thought as well. However, here's what the author had to say:

...it seems unlikely that this document—which has been in the works for more than a year—was unduly influenced by Trump's election. It was prepared by an FAA still under the Biden administration. Rather, the tone of the environmental assessment signals that SpaceX was probably already on a path to complying with federal regulations.

"Congrats to SpaceX for completing & documented the 57 items required by the FAA for Flight 2 of Starship!

Worth noting that 6 of the 63 items refer to later flights."

Context: the FAA has closed the mishap investigation of IFT-2

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/03/thursdays-starship-flight-provided-a-glimpse-into-a-future-of-abundant-access-to-space/

SpaceX can likely build and launch a fully expendable version of Starship for about $100 million. Most of that money is in the booster, with its 33 engines. So once Super Heavy becomes reusable, you can probably cut manufacturing costs down to about $30 million per launch.

This means that, within a year or so, SpaceX will have a rocket that costs about $30 million and lifts 100 to 150 metric tons to low-Earth orbit.

Bluntly, this is absurd.

For fun, we could compare that to some existing rockets. NASA's Space Launch System, for example, can lift up to 95 tons to low-Earth orbit. That's nearly as much as Starship. But it costs $2.2 billion per launch, plus additional ground systems fees. So it's almost a factor of 100 times more expensive for less throw weight. Also, the SLS rocket can fly once per year at most.

And yet, looks like it's all been basically completed! Only a few "big ticket items" deferred to future vehicles.

You're right, that's my bad. I just meant to say the debris hasn't gone into orbit.

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1823378186836889699

CNBC updated its story yesterday with additional factually inaccurate information.

While there may be a typo in one table of the initial TCEQ's public version of the permit application, the rest of the application and the lab reports clearly states that levels of Mercury found in non-stormwater discharge associated with the water deluge system are well below state and federal water quality criteria (of no higher than 2.1 micrograms per liter for acute aquatic toxicity), and are, in most instances, non-detectable.

The initial application was updated within 30 days to correct the typo and TCEQ is updating the application to reflect the correction.

Because of a relentless focus on costs and cheap building materials, such as stainless steel, SpaceX can likely build and launch a fully expendable version of Starship for about $100 million. Most of that money is in the booster, with its 33 engines. So once Super Heavy becomes reusable, you can probably cut manufacturing costs down to about $30 million per launch.

This means that, within a year or so, SpaceX will have a rocket that costs about $30 million and lifts 100 to 150 metric tons to low-Earth orbit.

Bluntly, this is absurd.

For fun, we could compare that to some existing rockets. NASA's Space Launch System, for example, can lift up to 95 tons to low-Earth orbit. That's nearly as much as Starship. But it costs $2.2 billion per launch, plus additional ground systems fees. So it's almost a factor of 100 times more expensive for less throw weight.

My bad, I didn't convert units correctly! Should be about 35m/s^2

I think I may have an idea of why this has been down-voted?

How much you buy into this vision will undoubtedly depend on your predilection toward Musk and your sense of the difficulty of forging habitable communities on an uninhabitable world like Mars.

I wonder who didn't click the article /s

I understand the sentiment, but I'm sorry to say I have seen absolutely no data that supports this. Perhaps you'd like to share a source?

NSF Video Apologies for the X links!

This time is so frustrating. There really isn't any malice or sabotage happening that I am know of, and the system seems to be working well in that the rules enacted to protect human life, property, AND the environment are being followed. But the bureaucracy is so stifling. It's almost comical (in a tragic way) how even a national priority as high as a return to the moon cannot move ahead despite the obvious benefits of doing so.

Dare I say magical? So cool this is happening. Crazy that it's barely in the mainstream news (at least in my experience).

Flight 4 ended with Starship igniting its three center Raptor engines and executing the first flip maneuver and landing burn since our suborbital campaign, followed by a soft splashdown of the ship in the Indian Ocean one hour and six minutes after launch.

I still can't believe that happened! Gives me so much confidence on their in-space propellant storage too, for some reason.