The Astronomy Thread

Physicist #1 : "Terrific. First time we see a black hole clearly, and it's mooning us..."

Physicist #2 : "It's all relative anyway..."

That crazy son of a bitch

Fit check complete. Testing of thrust puck, last of the thermal tiles installed, static fire both, bribe Biden's FAA and this candle going to light soon™

When do we get a test of that monster?

Well, if YouTube chat is to believed, from today until 2022.
Seriously though, never even entertain the idiots both in chat and on Lab Padre/NSF. They love to just smell their own farts.
I'd suspect we'll see fittings, piping and thrust ram checks maybe next week, with static fire of the 29 BN4 raptors, which will be a holy shit in itself, nothing that powerful has been fired up before that I am aware of, and of the 3 raptors ( it also has 3 vac engines for space ) on SN20 coming in the next few weeks.
I'd guess we are about 3-5 weeks from launch though. Neither will be landing on land, this is all for stack launch and orbit checks.




What is absolutely amazing to me is how they in a weeks time turn rolls of steel into a booster/rocket. It's easy to think it is just a empty silo seeing it, but it is packed full of pipes, tanks, wiring, sensors, computers, thruster control, and more. They make it look super easy and simple and is shit it takes NASA/Boeing and such months to years to do just for one rocket. SpaceX has the engineering and mechanical science down to about 1000% more efficient than other space groups.
They use union contract for much of the construction and welding, but with a twist that in Texas it is a right to work state, so if they fuck around and miss goals or do shitty jobs, they still get fired. There is a reason he moved these operations to Texas in addition to having a coast/gulf to launch over. Just like building the launch rigs not only allows for better insertion location at equator but also a warning to FAA and Gov that he COULD leave the US if he had too.

That said, the welders, fabricators and builders must be some of the best in the business. They work in shifts 24/7, get shit done and obviously do a pretty damn good job.

It's easy to forget that rocket you see in the fitting is 394 feet tall. All full of modern space tech. Capable of launching 4times the payload mass of a Delta IV HEAVY. It is taller than the SLS and can lift more, yet will be mass produced launches will happen weeks to months apart within the next few years compared to NASA's billion dollar money sink.

And it's meant to be reusable. Let's not forget that.

If they actually can get the “mecha” grabber thing to work properly, that will be amazing to see

jooka said:

They really need to always have an exactly 6' dude in these pictures to give them a better size effect

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The first photo of both stacked has 9 people in it, 4 are on lifts. They are just so small it is hard to see them.
They stacked it, fitted it and did a photo op for a hour, lowered it back down and shipped SN back down the road to high bay for final installs and thermal tiles, all in about 4 hours today. Still some are saying the foreign media is claiming that even though it didn't have all the thermal tiles and no way to disconnect crane, the fact they lowered it back down spells "trouble" for SpaceX. Even in science the media needs to die in a fire. All propaganda, worldwide.

Tuco said:

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32 feet of stairs in low gravity vs an elevator, 100% reusable vs mostly expendable and 1000 cubic meters of space vs a small box. It's really not comparable especially when all those starship flights are going to cost less than a single launch for the national team. You could build an entire base on the moon for less than the three flights the national team needs.

Bezos, who has only launched a dick into space atmosphere is one salty bitch. I would trust SpaceX 1000x more than Boing boing or Fuzmazon.

Some media and people on social media losing their shit over this photo from Friday morning. Elon is dangerous! Elon doesn't care about the lives of his workers! This is so dangerous and for what!
Fucking cunts.

Tuco said:

Who?

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Media wise was some Dutch rag, social media was comments on Yt, Facebook and Twatter.

So no one that matters, got it

I was pretty clear it was media and social media people. It does matter in the tech world a bit, but it was more about the stupidity of it all. Those are the type of people that would watch 5 hour NASCAR races 10 times just to see one wreck.

Case in point, watch how they react when BN4 is yanked off the OLT stand tonight/tomorrow. It is being removed to install the fueling arm on tower to fuel the booster/starship but nope, to them it'll be another failure even though they have to have the arm to launch. All of them cunts probably paid by Bezos or Boeing.

Oldbased said:

I was pretty clear it was media and social media people. It does matter in the tech world a bit, but it was more about the stupidity of it all. Those are the type of people that would watch 5 hour NASCAR races 10 times just to see one wreck.

Case in point, watch how they react when BN4 is yanked off the OLT stand tonight/tomorrow. It is being removed to install the fueling arm on tower to fuel the booster/starship but nope, to them it'll be another failure even though they have to have the arm to launch. All of them cunts probably paid by Bezos or Boeing.

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Yes, but you liken all media to the worst media and act like there is some big media uproar against SpaceX when there is not. It would not surprise me though if as you say, Boeing, Bezos or others are encouraging such stories (it seems some of these have in the past).