Space X Big Launch Tonight.

V

Vince

Hero member
Love him or hate him Launch test 2 of Star Ship is tonight at midnight Sydney time of the biggest most powerful rocket ever built. The last test was so powerful it smashed a massive hole in its launch pad so this time they fitted a huge upsidedown shower of water to hopefully stop that happening again, it's going to be quite a show, gigantic water spray versus 32 Raptor engines in full fire. Live on the Net.
 
Hi Vince
I got extremely lucky in 2018.
Whilst looking at the Saturn 5s at Kennedy Space Centre (on holiday) I overheard someone say "I can't wait to see the launch, I hope it goes today". I had no idea a launch was planned and was planning on leaving and going back to the hotel! It turned out it was cancelled the day before, but could now go. The launch was truly awesome. The noise, even at the great 'safe' distance was wonderful. Elon may be a nutter, but the achievements space x are incredible.

I'll definitely tune in and watch the big one.
 
Haggis said:
Hi Vince
I got extremely lucky in 2018.
Whilst looking at the Saturn 5s at Kennedy Space Centre (on holiday) I overheard someone say "I can't wait to see the launch, I hope it goes today". I had no idea a launch was planned and was planning on leaving and going back to the hotel! It turned out it was cancelled the day before, but could now go. The launch was truly awesome. The noise, even at the great 'safe' distance was wonderful. Elon may be a nutter, but the achievements space x are incredible.

I'll definitely tune in and watch the big one.
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...but it exploded?! Apparently possibly because of bits of conrete from the launchpad damaging the rocket. Shite design, no? Fingers crossed this time
 
They have changed a lot of bits since then, considering the size of the hole the last one made. They spend the big bucks that's for sure. The biggest issue tonight is there is only a 20-minute window, not much wiggle room if issues arise. Another window in 24hrs and then a combination of bad weather and the Thanksgiving holiday takes out the rest of the month. Fingers Crossed it goes off well. BTW they have 5 more Star Ships at various stages of build plus a few hundred Raptor Engines ready to go.
 
Pretty cool launch, Vince. Watching the speed and the altitude and then the reverse as the Stage 1 comes down and lands on a bloody platform on a ship!! Dead accurate! Cameras aboard to witness it all - GoPros? :eek: :ROFLMAO:
 
Well not quite, all went brilenty. Way better than expected, but the booster managed its turn to belly flop position for reentry after the hot stage firing and separation occurred and then it rapidly disassembled, eg blew up. The Upper stage got very close to escape velocity, eg 25,000kph and then they lost telemetry and also apparently rapidly disassembled from what they surmised. So all in all pretty good for its second attempt.
 
Watching the acceleration figures was something else ... it was increasing its velocity at a rate of about 100kph/sec! Wonder how many Gs that would be if there were humans on board!
 
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The full story was at the first launch 6 months back it was way stronger than expected and blasted the concrete launch pad into bits, some of those bits hit 6 of the 33 engines it runs causing those 6 engines to fail. That resulted in uneven thrust and it not going straight and eventually tumbling, they tried to fire its self-destruct system but that wasn't as successful as expected. That tumbling caused enough stress for it to eventually break apart. The fix this time was a huge water shower vertical under the rocket at launch to stop it from destroying the pad, a better system to separate stages and an uprated self-district system, all of that worked like a charm. So a huge improvement from the first launch. The whole point of this is in 6 months they made huge progress, if it was NASA this would have taken years. My hope is to see some progress before I kark it, I was 12 when Appollo 11 did it thing and I don't want another 50 years off vertualy nothing happening.
 
piranha-bro2 said:
Watching the acceleration figures was something else ... it was increasing its velocity at a rate of about 100kph/sec! Wonder how many Gs that would be if there were humans on board!
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as Clem is not here I try to explain. Acceleration is a = delta v / delta t. Delta v is 100 Km/h, delta t= 1, or 100000m /3600 s or 100m/ 3,6 s.
So a is 27,8 m/s2 approx. 3 g, seems to be reasonable. I don‘t think that I made a mistake 🫣
 
Musk has his own trick, he was selling actual operating Frame Throwers to the public for a while. My take is he is either the greatest individual who ever lived or the most dangerous. I still haven't made up my mind. Or even both at the same time. He does do Risk though, just like another but I have made up my mind about Rupert, their similarity, both were on the Razer's edge of Bankruptcy for extended times. Both would say their Genius got them through, both are bloody lucky as fuck as far as I can see. More a coin toss than Genius if you ask me.
 
I'm convinced Musk is that character out of the David Bowie film, The Man who Fell to Earth.......
Either that or just a plain con merchant/chancer, take your pick.
 
If it`s destroying the launch pad every time it takes off , why don`t they launch it sideways instead of straight up ....... All they need is a 20 mile runway and one of those ski lift things at the end , like they used to get Harriers airborne from aircraft carriers ... ? ......

BTW .... Musk was keen for us to go electric and carbon fuel free with Tesla .... Doesn`t Space X fly ( not for very long , admittedly ) in the face of all that .. ? ..........

How many petrol vehicles could we put back on the road in lieu of every Space X launch ... ? ...

Maybe it`s his idea of carbon trading .......
 
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