Do you know this to be factual? Because why?

jt2hunt said:

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Do you know this to be factual? Because why?

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Tim Dodd suggested it and a few months later Elon confirmed they changed it in part because of his suggestion

I could see Elon saying "well, we know if generally works the other way, but it could work this way so let's try it" but that does not equate to thoughtless. You can only expand boundaries by pushing them. You only know where the boundary is by crossing it.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CrwW4Q2pPqU/

Just speculating.

bthotugigem05 said:

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jt2hunt said:

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Do you know this to be factual? Because why?

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Tim Dodd suggested it and a few months later Elon confirmed they changed it in part because of his suggestion

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This is what I recall as well. Tim is a good guy I think but this was sort of like "well, nortex97 on texags said this might be a good idea" and taking it.

nortex97 said:

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bthotugigem05 said:

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jt2hunt said:

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Do you know this to be factual? Because why?

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Tim Dodd suggested it and a few months later Elon confirmed they changed it in part because of his suggestion

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This is what I recall as well. Tim is a good guy I think but this was sort of like "well, nortex97 on texags said this might be a good idea" and taking it.

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I routinely make design changes in my business based on your posts. You are now saying that's not a good idea?

Elon is an odd duck. I don't doubt he took a wild suggestion and went with it, but I tend to think he asked a question or two.

fka ftc said:

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nortex97 said:

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bthotugigem05 said:

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jt2hunt said:

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Do you know this to be factual? Because why?

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Tim Dodd suggested it and a few months later Elon confirmed they changed it in part because of his suggestion

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This is what I recall as well. Tim is a good guy I think but this was sort of like "well, nortex97 on texags said this might be a good idea" and taking it.

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I routinely make design changes in my business based on your posts. You are now saying that's not a good idea?

Elon is an odd duck. I don't doubt he took a wild suggestion and went with it, but I tend to think he asked a question or two.

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Have you seen his kids' (with Grimes) names?

Scoop – @KathyLueders, former top NASA human spaceflight official, joined SpaceX, according to CNBC sources.

Lueders is based at Starbase in Texas and will report directly to president & COO Gwynne Shotwell:https://t.co/1IHcS7zWi1

— Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) May 15, 2023

"We got a ton of data out of that mission," Kshatriya says of the first Starship/Super Heavy launch last month, in support of Starship HLS development. Says SpaceX is open to NASA input on development, and vice versa.

— Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) May 15, 2023

PJYoung said:

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Scoop – @KathyLueders, former top NASA human spaceflight official, joined SpaceX, according to CNBC sources.

Lueders is based at Starbase in Texas and will report directly to president & COO Gwynne Shotwell:https://t.co/1IHcS7zWi1

— Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) May 15, 2023

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Huge get for SpaceX, she will help them navigate the very complicated NASA bureaucracy.

Kathy, Gwynne Shotwell and Elon Musk know each other very well. She has been visiting SpaceX HQ for NASA since 2006, and was deeply involved in ensuring Cargo and Crew Dragons were safe vehicles to travel to the space station. Now this experience will be applied to Starship.

— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) May 15, 2023

bthotugigem05 said:

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PJYoung said:

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Scoop – @KathyLueders, former top NASA human spaceflight official, joined SpaceX, according to CNBC sources.

Lueders is based at Starbase in Texas and will report directly to president & COO Gwynne Shotwell:https://t.co/1IHcS7zWi1

— Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) May 15, 2023

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Huge get for SpaceX, she will help them navigate the very complicated NASA bureaucracy.

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She's worked with SpaceX for a long time but she's in for a big dose of culture shock.

lb3 said:

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bthotugigem05 said:

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PJYoung said:

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Scoop – @KathyLueders, former top NASA human spaceflight official, joined SpaceX, according to CNBC sources.

Lueders is based at Starbase in Texas and will report directly to president & COO Gwynne Shotwell:https://t.co/1IHcS7zWi1

— Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) May 15, 2023

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Huge get for SpaceX, she will help them navigate the very complicated NASA bureaucracy.

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She's worked with SpaceX for a long time but she's in for a big dose of culture shock.

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Maybe, maybe not. I suspect she's eager to get to SpaceX because of the culture. She probably feels like she can get so much more done there than she could've at NASA.

And as far as her interactions with NASA, I think this will be awesome. Being on the inside of an agency like that gives her tons of insight on how to navigate the huge bureaucracy, how proposals are evaluated, how contracts are written, what incentives to engage, etc. I think we will start to see faster approvals and better safety.

fka ftc said:

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I could see Elon saying "well, we know if generally works the other way, but it could work this way so let's try it" but that does not equate to thoughtless. You can only expand boundaries by pushing them. You only know where the boundary is by crossing it.

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One of Elons criteria for design evolution is that if you're not putting things BACK on you didn't cut enough.

This is an ultra heavy lift and a Mars rocket. Every ounce he can trim saves pounds in fuel or adds cargo.

She's a good technocrat but I feel like much of Boeing's CST-100 issues are because she was far to willing to let issues slide than risk a confrontation over requirement interpretations with Boeing's management and attorneys.

I was thinking to myself earlier, anyone know when exactly they switched from calling it BFR to starship? I remember a speech Gwynn shotwell gave at a work function back when I lived in Omaha. There was quite a bit of giggling in the audience when she announced plans for the BFR.

November 2018 https://www.engadget.com/2018-11-20-starship-bfr-spacex.html

Jock 07 said:

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I was thinking to myself earlier, anyone know when exactly they switched from calling it BFR to starship? I remember a speech Gwynn shotwell gave at a work function back when I lived in Omaha. There was quite a bit of giggling in the audience when she announced plans for the BFR.

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You said the reason

I think she's joining mainly to take a big paycheck. Congrats to her.

Cool picture:

@SpaceX @elonmusk Our Starship Test Flight Photo Contest Winner, Mind the Gap by John Pisani. John's work was selected by 50 aspiring future astronauts.

Congrats to John!

Next contest, next test flight! pic.twitter.com/YDsKuVKrog

— Spacepoint (@Spacepointorg) May 15, 2023

Technically, two parts: Starship is the spaceship/upper stage & Super Heavy is the rocket booster needed to escape Earth’s deep gravity well (not needed for other planets or moons)

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2018

nortex97 said:

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I think she's joining mainly to take a big paycheck. Congrats to her.

Cool picture:

@SpaceX @elonmusk Our Starship Test Flight Photo Contest Winner, Mind the Gap by John Pisani. John's work was selected by 50 aspiring future astronauts.

Congrats to John!

Next contest, next test flight! pic.twitter.com/YDsKuVKrog

— Spacepoint (@Spacepointorg) May 15, 2023

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Awesome picture with Starship framed like that

#SpaceX has filed a FCC permit request for the second test flight of #Starship from Starbase, Texas.

Not much pertinent information, aside from a start date of NET June 15 (of course pad repairs, vehicle testing, etc. will prevent that from happening).https://t.co/6dt0qD7ET0 pic.twitter.com/HvwDy6vlWL

— Tyler Gray 🚀 (@TylerG1998) May 16, 2023

The water cooled steel plate assembly is underway.

Flyover gallery access/support https://t.co/l5nZ12tVTO or subscribe. pic.twitter.com/hRVIODqMGA

— RGV Aerial Photography (@RGVaerialphotos) May 17, 2023

Interesting comment from elsewhere I thought folks might find useful for the changes/perspective. Raptor 3 will mean more thrust hitting the launch mount, and the philosophy of 'use this one now and we are working on version 2 and 3 in parallel developments already' is something the 'oh no that was a failure' crew don't get.

Quote:

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SpaceX have a revolving pile of irons in the fire, and always plan ahead for the next version even before they have finished executing the n-1 version. e.g. in Tim Dodd's first Starbase site walkthrough the night after the OLM ring was lifted, Elon and Sam Patel were discussing the changes to the next version of the OLM ring, before the just-lifted version had even been welded to the legs.

A big part of SpaceX's ability to move fast is not to actually develop things faster than elsewhere, but to accept risk and develop iterations in parallel rather than sequentially. e.g. if it takes 6 months for a Raptor variant to go from a concept to firing, and you start each iterations development 2 months apart, you end up with variant 4 just starting development when variant 1 is performing its first firing.

That seems like variants 2 and 3 are pointless (e.g. you could have just waited 6 months instead) but those 6 months of development work still inform you of things that work and things that don't even prior to firing, and keeps your development teams active rather than idle. It also means that you can be more aggressive in pruning development and freezing a 'good enough' but suboptimal design, knowing you can resume working on improving it straight away on the next version rather than waiting another 6 in between.

The downside is that you need more up-front cash (and whoever controls that cash to buy into the 'spend more, and spend it fast' mindset), and that any complete dead-ends you hit burns more cash when going back to the drawing board.

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This applies to things like the concrete/OLM/suppression equipment too, not just starship changes/engines.

They can throttle the Raptor 3s down during liftoff

Well sure, but there are compromises in all decisions. Raptors cycling up fast also decreases the time they are near the pad and increases something along the lines of 'propulsive/structural efficiency' (not sure of the terminology a rocket engineer would use).

The whole thing is engineered to have a huge T:W ratio so it jumps off the pad and gets as much out of the booster stage as possible (cut off is lower altitude than F9 though). The point is that the pad should be designed/engineered around making/facilitating the rocket as 'good as possible' vs. the rocket compromising so the pad doesn't get charred too much. (My two cents, anyway).

Anyone heard anything more out of spin launch recently? I'm certainly no rocket surgeon but this concept never seemed very viable to me. Although they have gotten a lot of VC attention over the years so there's obviously some folks out there who see potential.

Just stepping back for a moment: This is an incredible pivot in history. We have a private competition to build landers to put humans on the Moon, with fixed price contracts, that pits two of the richest Americans against one another. This is not your mama's NASA.

— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) May 19, 2023

I can almost taste the sarcasm 🤣

— Robert Burgman (@robertburgman3) May 19, 2023

Someone in Congress got a nice Easter Basket.

One hell of a plasma beam! https://t.co/y8uOTeFlsD

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 19, 2023

nortex97 said:

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One hell of a plasma beam! https://t.co/y8uOTeFlsD

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 19, 2023

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I want to see how the plate looked before and after.