XPost: alt.space, alt.science, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh

All went well for awhile - the booster worked, the
ship achieved its suborbital goal.

The booster was not meant to return - they instead
used it to test a high angle return prodgram, which
didn't work so they exploded it. The techs said
that simulations were kinda 50/50, so they went
for a physical test. Now they know, stress too high.

The StarShip went on for a little while. The payload
doors were STUCK alas, the dummy cargo could not be
deployed, they DID manage to re-close the doors.

Then a fuel-line popped - acting as a thruster -
and the vehicle began to spin out of control.
No way to compensate. Something similar happened
in an earlier flight - clearly they don't have
the issue fully resolved ... vibration likely.
Must be some fascinating harmonics in something
that size.

In any case, this went much better than the last
two flights.

The booster had flown once before.

This IS a huge and complicated flight system.
Alas it is extremely EXPENSIVE to fly these
things and SOME of the same issues keep
coming up. Musk perfected the Falcons with
a fly/explode/analyze/fly-again paradigm but
maybe a little more engineering skill and
better sims will be required for this beast.

Sorry, nobody's going to Mars or anywhere else
on these things anytime soon. They do have
great PROMISE however - the cargo capacity
makes a lot of other ambitious space/moon
projects much easier to achieve. A new space
station could be delivered in much larger
modular sections - a great savings. Same for
any eventual moon habs ... assuming we don't
just cede the moon over to China and Russia.

Kind of expecting to see a giant red star
painted on the moon pretty soon now - a
low-orbit sat could eject red retroflective
dust, act like a ink-printer head.

Anyone remember "7+" :-)

In any case, the whole flight can be viewed
starting from spacex.com

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