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Starship Flight 7

(www.spacex.com)
649 points chinathrow | 8 comments | 16 Jan 25 21:25 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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terramex ◴[16 Jan 25 23:04 UTC] No.42732041[source]▶
Looks like second stage broke up over Caribbean, videos of the debris (as seen from ground):

https://x.com/deankolson87/status/1880026759133032662?t=HdHF...

https://x.com/realcamtem/status/1880026604472266800

https://x.com/adavenport354/status/1880026262254809115

Moment of the breakup:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE52_hVSeQz/

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dpifke ◴[17 Jan 25 01:58 UTC] No.42733260[source]▶
Preliminary indication is that we had an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall that was large enough to build pressure in excess of the vent capacity.

Apart from obviously double-checking for leaks, we will add fire suppression to that volume and probably increase vent area. Nothing so far suggests pushing next launch past next month.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1880060983734858130

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coldtea[dead post] ◴[17 Jan 25 05:06 UTC] No.42734284[source]▶
[flagged]
askl ◴[17 Jan 25 13:16 UTC] No.42737195[source]▶
It's just taxpayer money they're blowing up, so it doesn't really matter.
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ericd ◴[17 Jan 25 14:21 UTC] No.42737755[source]▶
They're blowing up their own money, unless you still count it as being the taxpayer's after the government pays them for launch services.
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1. pclmulqdq ◴[17 Jan 25 14:47 UTC] No.42738032[source]▶
R&D for starship has a several-billion-dollar NASA grant. Something like 30-50% of the money being blown up on this program is taxpayer money.
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2. ericd ◴[17 Jan 25 14:58 UTC] No.42738161[source]▶
Fair. I think that was for HLS rather than the launch systems, but I guess if it’s already been disbursed, it’s probably all commingled.

But that still means it’s not just taxpayer money, it’s mostly theirs. They’ve been raising equity rounds this whole time.

replies(1): >>42738311 #
3. Alex-Programs ◴[17 Jan 25 15:10 UTC] No.42738311[source]▶
It hasn't been disbursed yet (entirely). They get rewards for certain accomplishments.
4. Workaccount2 ◴[17 Jan 25 15:20 UTC] No.42738427[source]▶
The savings Spacex has promise of delivering to NASA make every dollar given to them probably an easy 2x-3x ROI.

Without Spacex, the typical cohort of gov contractors would have been happy bleeding NASA dry with one time use rockets that have 10x the launch cost and carry 1/4 the cargo.

replies(1): >>42740522 #
5. pclmulqdq ◴[17 Jan 25 17:10 UTC] No.42740522[source]▶
Sorry, Artemis carried more than one banana and actually made it to orbit. SpaceX has not provided any ROI yet. You can't compare the (very optimistic) promises of SpaceX against the actual returns of the rest of the industry.
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6. vardump ◴[17 Jan 25 19:03 UTC] No.42742009{3}[source]▶
Zero ROI?

Isn’t SpaceX the largest launch provider in the world and for the U.S. government?

Many times than the rest of the U.S. space industry combined.

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7. pclmulqdq ◴[17 Jan 25 21:00 UTC] No.42743171{4}[source]▶
*Starship has zero ROI and has sucked up a lot of federal funds.

Falcon 9 has had plenty of "ROI" but it wasn't really federally funded. Let's not get carried away though about "more than the entire US space industry combined," though.

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8. ◴[18 Jan 25 00:38 UTC] No.42744721{5}[source]▶