SpaceX launches Starship rocket into orbit
on test flight, but loses spacecraft during
return to Earth
NBC News,
by
Denise Chow
Original Article
Posted By: Dreadnought,
3/14/2024 12:40:09 PM
SpaceX’s next-generation mega rocket launched Thursday morning, thundering into orbit on a key test flight meant to demonstrate new technologies and techniques that will be crucial on future missions to the moon and beyond.
The flight, held on the 22nd anniversary of SpaceX's founding, was the rocket’s third and most ambitious such test, according to the company. The event was closely watched because the nearly 400-foot-tall booster, known as Starship, is expected to play an important part in NASA’s return-to-the-moon program. The rocket lifted off at 9:25 a.m. ET from SpaceX’s Starbase test site in Boca Chica, Texas. On this outing, SpaceX achieved two major milestones over previous Starship tests:
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Reply 1 - Posted by:
seamusm 3/14/2024 12:52:43 PM (No. 1677609)
Better not pay for a round-trip ticket. We have all forgotten how risky rockets and space flight are. For that matter, we also seem to think that now-ordinary air travel is a guaranteed no-big-deal. Unless its Braniff, of course.
2 people like this.
The spacecraft was not "lost". It was supposed to burn up, with an outside chance of survival.
8 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Gordon Mills 3/14/2024 1:39:50 PM (No. 1677648)
#2, don't expect 'journalists' to get anything right. 'Journalists' are liars. Period.
8 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Northcross 3/14/2024 1:50:27 PM (No. 1677660)
The flat earth loonies will use this as further proof of a glass dome preventing anyone from going into space.
1 person likes this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
mc squared 3/14/2024 2:36:19 PM (No. 1677690)
Check the hood. It's probably up on milk crates with the expensive wheels missing.
1 person likes this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
DVC 3/14/2024 2:41:47 PM (No. 1677696)
Half a success. In the 1950s we were creating large numbers of new jet aircraft designs. We crashed alot of protofypes, and learned from the failures and fixed them and flew them again. A family member was a chase pilot on the Regulus cruise missile program, and he witnessed dozens and dozens of failure with the test airframes, the Loon, which was literally a US built (Ford and Republic) version of the German V1 buzz bomb.
Cheap test airframe for guidance technology tests. This method of build test airframes, fly them, break them, fix what broke, and fly a new version worked great then, and made faster progress possible. Musk is "inovating" by going literally BACK to the old ways to create the future.
My hat's off to him. I still laugh at the Teslas, but hell, there are enough suckers and enough government subsidies that he can use that to fund his REAL toys, these Starships.
Great, huge ideas and plans. This sort of men were written into the 1950s science fiction stories of Heinlein and Asimov. I wondered if they would ever actually walk the earth.....and now, I see at least one of them, almost a mythical figure. Certainly imperfect, but he has great ideas, and knows how to find the people to make them into reality.
I really wondered if the old 1950s Saturday sci fi movie shorts like Captain Midnight and Buck Rogers would ever be real, the whole "tail sitting" landing thing seemed impractical......until Musk made it practical and now recovers and re-uses nearly all his Falcon launch vehicles instead of just dumping them in the ocean.
How expensive would airline travel be if, at the destination everyone jumped out with a parachute and the airline crashed into the sea, one use only? Our conventional space launchers are just as insane, and only Musk's Falcons and soon enough, his Starships will be reusable.
MAJOR improvement. Go, Elon!
12 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
EJKrausJr 3/14/2024 3:53:23 PM (No. 1677747)
Spacex keeps learning. It's only the third Starship test flight. Even though they lost both the booster and the main ship, what they did was spectacular. Remember, it took multiple times until they successfully landed Falcon 9's boosters. But Spacex finally got it right. Spacex will find success. Unlike NASA that spends billions and billions and never succeeds. Have Patience.
6 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Muguy 3/15/2024 6:53:39 AM (No. 1678114)
While much was achieved and learned from this launch, it was not completely successful in crossing off all the list of issues surrounding it-
It is getting better but still nor ready for prime time. It cannot truly be called a success until it can do all that is expected consistently every time from now on-- should they get to call this a success under the circumstances?
0 people like this.
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