| ▲ | GMoromisato an hour ago |
| There is a lot riding on V3. SpaceX cannot afford to take too many launches to get V3 solid. If 2026 is another 2025 (3 V2 failures in a row followed by 2 V3 successes), then they can forget about landing on the moon before 2030. My hope is that Flight 12 goes nearly flawlessly (at least gets to soft splashdown) and they can start testing in-space refueling in July/August. If they can demonstrate in-space refueling by the end of 2026, then they have a shot at a lunar-landing demo in 2027 and a crewed-landing in 2028. But a lot has to go right for that to happen. Here's hoping it does. |
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| ▲ | NitpickLawyer an hour ago | parent | next [-] |
| > then they can forget about landing on the moon before 2030. A crewed Moon landing before 30 is really implausible. Everyone is late, but the latest NASA OIG report put the Axiom suits very late (somewhere ~2031 if everything holds, but it notes it might not hold). |
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| ▲ | stephc_int13 16 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I am pretty sure that at least some SpaceX engineers are reading HackerNews. But I don't think I ever seen any insiders comments here, even anonymously. |
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| ▲ | russdill an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Small edit, 2 V2 (not V3) successes (flights 10 and 11). |
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| ▲ | john_minsk an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| question: what will happen if orbit refuelling goes wrong? Won't it destroy everything in orbit? |
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| ▲ | tristanj 6 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | All Starship test launches are suborbital so if anything goes wrong, it falls back to Earth. | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > what will happen if orbit refuelling goes wrong? Won't it destroy everything in orbit? No. What is the mechanism through which you suspected this could happen? | | |
| ▲ | bragr an hour ago | parent [-] | | Kessler syndrome presumably? | | |
| ▲ | hgoel 35 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Keeping the orbits low enough, and/or intentionally going suborbital after docking/before starting the fuel transfer, will make the chances of that being possible very low. It's also worth considering that they have demonstrated cryo propellant pumping between two tanks within a ship, so, AFAIK, transfer between two ships is more about testing the docking systems, than it is about the pumps. They could probably rig the system to first pump some inert gas to verify the quality of the docking, then try to pump propellants. | |
| ▲ | margalabargala 33 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | ...caused by what? |
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| ▲ | Lerc 40 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Presumably the effect of any explosion would decrease proportional to the volume as it expands. Is there much volume in space? | |
| ▲ | bediger4000 an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Liquid handling in microgravity has always been weird. Big gas bubbles in the fluid, surface tension effects causing liquid to float in balls in the ullage, stuff like that. Turbopumps break if they ingest a larger bubble. There could be some odd failure modes I would think. Failure to pump the liquid, broken pumps, who really knows? My guess would be that a failure mode would be a big spill, a failure to pump, only partially refilling, or broken turbopumps before an explosion. | | |
| ▲ | MadnessASAP 14 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | For something like a transfer between Starships you can resolve a lot of those problems by (very) gently spinning the 2 craft. It won't take much force for the liquids to settle at the bottom of their respective tanks where you would presumably put the intakes. | |
| ▲ | pmontra 38 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | A probably very naive question: why not pistons? | | |
| ▲ | labcomputer 21 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Because there’s a much, much simpler and easier way: 1. Connect the two ships 2. Connect the liquid valves from both cryo tanks together. 3. Spin the ships about the short axis 4. Open the vent valve for the cryo tank to receive liquid. 5. Lock closed the vent valve for the cryo tank to supple liquid. Steps 2, 4 and 5 are how you normally transfer cryo fluids between dewars on earth. You just to create pseudo gravity / acceleration in the body frame of the ships to make it work in space. |
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| ▲ | idiotsecant an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Seems like you could use peristaltic pumps | | |
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| ▲ | everyone an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
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| ▲ | rpmisms an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Have you met hardware guys? This is not how they operate, in my experience. | | |
| ▲ | everyone an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | I mean I might be a hardware guy myself depending on your definition. I've never dealt with rocket engineers.. Are they "hardware guys" according to you? If so it seems you are using that term incredibly broadly. | |
| ▲ | malfist an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Are you trying to say that "hardware guys" don't care if they're working to advance the agenda from a Nazi? | | |
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| ▲ | Recurecur an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | “They [sic] guy is a freaking nazi” Presumably you’re at least fairly intelligent, nonetheless propaganda has done its job. Fascinating… Just FYI, engineers are one of the groups most likely to lean right. I’m hopeful tomorrow’s launch goes flawlessly! | | |
| ▲ | dbeardsl an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Propaganda? He literally performed nazi salutes at a high visibility event. Not to mention all the wacko stuff he posts on twitter. A brilliant innovator can also have significant mental health issues. | |
| ▲ | deanCommie an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Just FYI, engineers are one of the groups most likely to lean right. leaning right is one thing. Supporting Elon and Trump and MAGA is leaning far right. | | | |
| ▲ | everyone an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] |
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| ▲ | excalibur an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Aren't theories supposed to include some conjecture? This here is pure deduction. | |
| ▲ | wonderwonder an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That's makes a lot of sense becuase the Nazi's were notorius for not having good rocket engineers | |
| ▲ | deanCommie an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | The whole DOGE debacle and in general the broad radicalization of western male youths has made me very cynical about the ethics of "young brilliant engineers". not to say the archetype you describe doesn't exist, but disappointingly I am convinced they are far from the majority. |
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