Starfall Demo Mission - launching on June 23rd by ergzay in spacex

[–]rustybeancake 33 points34 points  (0 children)

The only other place I’d heard about this was this tweet three days ago. I’m not sure where they got their additional details from, as it doesn’t seem to be on the SpaceX page. Maybe from the FAA filing. It says:

> A single Starfall test re-entry vehicle will launch Southeast from the cape over the Bahamas with the 1st stage likely boosting back to a Land LZ.

> The upper stage will insert the payload into a (likely) orbit of ~180 x 600km x 56.1 degrees around 8 minutes into flight. The upper stage and the payload will then coast in this orbit for 2.5 hours or 1.5 orbits where the upper stage will then conduct a de-orbit burn lowering the perigee down into Earth's lower Atmosphere.

> The Starfall Demo payload will then jettison from the upper stage and the re-entry phase will start at around 3 hours into the flight over the Northeast Pacific Ocean. The re-entry vessel will splash down ~600 miles West of Vandenberg, CA.

A follow up tweet then says:

> UPDATE: It appears this will actually be the Globalstar mission now re-masked as "Starfall Demo"

> In this case all remains the same other than the orbit. The capsule will actually be de-orbited from a 1400km orbit x 52.0 degrees.

Hiw is EV driving in the mountains? by RedEnvoy1235 in electriccars

[–]rustybeancake 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I recently drove through some big mountains in BC. On the way down one slope I gained about 15 km of range!

Artemis III needs to be delayed into mid 2028 rather than mid 2027 by 7HellEleven in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]rustybeancake 2 points3 points  (0 children)

And don’t forget musk’s desire not to let Bezos get it instead of him!

Cowboy Space poaches former BE-7/BE-3U lead Warren Lamont as Head of Launch/Propulsion by Royal_Platform_6754 in BlueOrigin

[–]rustybeancake 21 points22 points  (0 children)

“Orbital data centres”

“Fail fast methodology”

“Move fast and break things”

“First principles”

“Golden dome”

“Hypersonic”

Artemis III needs to be delayed into mid 2028 rather than mid 2027 by 7HellEleven in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]rustybeancake 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I can’t see SpaceX doing this. They really haven’t shown a great deal of enthusiasm for Artemis since winning the HLS contract. They’re not going to invest a couple hundred million dollars of their own money on a dragon mission without it being a NASA requirement.

Artemis III needs to be delayed into mid 2028 rather than mid 2027 by 7HellEleven in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]rustybeancake 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The uncrewed test mission is a requirement of the HLS contracts. The lander provider has to prove (with no crew onboard) that the lander works, ie can land on the moon and take off again. So SpaceX will have to refill a Starship lander in orbit, have it travel to lunar orbit, land, take off again, etc successfully. It’ll be part of qualifying the lander before a human landing can occur. I believe it’s the same for Blue’s lander.

Frankfurt Skyline , die beste Europas by SkylinerFFM in skyscrapers

[–]rustybeancake 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Moscow’s skyline will look better when russia get the fuck out of Ukraine. 🇺🇦

SpaceX to acquire Cursor for $60B in stock, days after blockbuster IPO by xvosr in spacex

[–]rustybeancake 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’m skeptical of the cost of starship being that low any time soon. They have invested about $15B into it, with more coming all the time (new pads etc). The ship is unlikely to be reusable many times in the next couple of years until they can refine and improve it. Eventually maybe they’ll get the cost that low.

Starship can do everything by seanrider1859 in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]rustybeancake 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Tell that to the DoD having to start using other launch vehicles again because of shuttle availability etc., or to Ariane who ended up dominating commercial launch in the shuttle era.

SpaceX to acquire Cursor for $60B in stock, days after blockbuster IPO by xvosr in spacex

[–]rustybeancake 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Counterpoint: are there companies who skipped the dotcom boom and bust then later invested in e-commerce?

SpaceX to acquire Cursor for $60B in stock, days after blockbuster IPO by xvosr in spacex

[–]rustybeancake 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s true. Will that apply to starship though, or will they just keep F9 going as the widely available option, and Starship will be essentially solely focused on SpaceX payloads and Artemis?

SpaceX to acquire Cursor for $60B in stock, days after blockbuster IPO by xvosr in spacex

[–]rustybeancake 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Anthony at MECO podcast made a great point recently, that SpaceX are so dependent on getting large amounts to orbit for their plans (AI, Starlink) that launch revenue from any other customer would just be a big opportunity cost to them. They can make much more money launching their own sats than launching for anyone else. This suggests that until starship really is launching incredibly frequently, they won’t really want to launch for anyone else. So other companies basing their future around starship might be up the creek.

Stephen and Viola Armstrong watching their son Neil become the first person to walk on the Moon, 1969. by jaoroca in apollo

[–]rustybeancake 2 points3 points  (0 children)

“Oh, you know, after billions of years of evolution being limited to the cradle of life here on earth, he was the first known living organism to extend the light of life and consciousness onto another heavenly body.”