For those who may not have been following the SpaceX saga…
They launched Starship 5 yesterday morning for a successful test!!!
Much more successful than anyone expected. Got to 36:45 in the video and watch the end of it.
Yep, they ‘caught’ the booster!!! Amazing!
Say what you will about Musk, but the SpaceX crew is phenomenal! That they could come up with the idea, and then take it to execution is unbelievable…
And yet .gov is going after him every way they can, including slow rolling the Starship testing, along with the games being played by the CCC in Kommiefornia over extra SpaceX launches from Vandenberg.
This has renewed my excitement for our space program, in spite of NASA…
Sigh…
Saw it live. Boca Chica is about 60 miles downriver from where I type this. Amazing performance. My boss was at SPI close to where this happened and may have seen it in person – he is an early riser.
Elon Musk has his detractors, but he and his engineers are doing the work that governments have not yet done. Total Bad Ass in my opinion – others are welcome to their opinion.
The best ability Musk has is to attract very talented people and bring out the best in them. Musk may have the ideas and starting points, but it is the people around him who make it work.
jrg- Envy you on that! I’d be down there watching…LOL
Wayne- That he does!
Later, one of my coworkers told me he was out early yesterday morning when he spotted a strange clumped cloud to the far East. A small beacon of light near the top of it.
He wasn’t aware that they launched until two hours later. He said he also heard a low rumble which was probably the sonic boom over that distance. His home is in McAllen, same as our office.
Pretty cool stuff.
Pretty good achievement. When they can do it hundreds of times in a row with no disaster then the technology is ready for commercial passenger use. Till then it’s only good for freight. Non critical freight. At least the private sector is making progress. NASA itself has become virtually useless.
They are catching an unmanned lower stage, so success or failure doesn’t have any affect on landing a Starship on its tail. That should be the major milestone for Test 6 (hopefully in a few months).
“This has renewed my excitement for our space program, in spite of NASA…”
That says a lot about the situation we find ourselves in, doesn’t it? Our own government is the biggest obstacle to the furtherance of space exploration.
NASA’s greatest achievement was in having the faith to award SpaceX the cargo resupply contract to the ISS when SpaceX had only successfully launched two small rockets. Take a bow NASA because all else followed from this.
Dan- Probably not… And agreed NASA is outmoded.
Rick- Point!
TB- Sadly, I agree.
Eyrie- Yeah, but now they are trying their damnest to slow SpaceX down…sigh
No, I think NASA has people who are keeping the faith. It is the Demonrats and the White House trying to slow SpaceX. I think NASA leaned on the FAA to get Flight 5 approved.
I will never not be amazed at how they snagged a *skyscraper* out of the air like Mr. Miyagi catching that fly with the chopsticks.