Texas Starship Testing

I know. It's the whole "There is no Planet B", combined with the continuing scourge of manifest destiny. The uncomfortable part, for me anyway, is we are running out of time. And, it appears that an increasing majority of the population is running headlong into the impending disaster. I wonder if other weather forecasters, soothsayers, foretellers of possible future events, have this problem.

My metaphor of planetary infection and biological response is just a thought problem for me. An exercise in theorems and postulates. Your projection of an unsustainable future has merit though, some of which we can already see happening. Climate exacerbations are still a questionable mechanism, subject to unforeseen and unexpected modifications. Takes me back to my circulations within circulations metaphor. What I have seen thus far though are some proofs, much argued, and a negation effort to make useful data unreliable for nefarious purposes. Disturbing that there is support for this most damaging of fake news. Straighten up, mankind.

 

You shouldn't anthropomorphize our planet.
It doesn't like it when we do that.
Especially when you try to gender it.

Also, as much as I hate to empower the 'climate industrial complex' with, like, facts and stuff...Disney has taught millions of children something that they evidently forget after puberty:
The Earth has been much colder in the recent past, and also much warmer.

We vastly overestimate our proper place in the big picture.
Oh, and some evidence exists that Covid isn't/wasn't a completely 'natural' response to the our planet's current human infestation.
I grew up in the 60's, when "The Population Bomb" was the current crisis.

We are a rather....um....invasive species.

Enterprise and optimal climate in the same breath.

Interesting.
If we're going to start 'infecting' other rocks then we need to rid ourselves of this quaint notion of 'climate control.'

Climates on other rocks are.....'suboptimal'.
OUR superpower has always been adaptability.
In a far-off future it would be interesting to see how our species deals with the dueling (or singular?) notions that we should NOT impact the climate on this rock while perhaps terraforming others.
If past is prologue, we will have forgotten (or hidden) many of the details.

They had good telemetry...until they didn't which leads me to believe that they might have intentionally not lit the candles.
Before I was lured away from dot.DOD.dot.gov to an ethical, efficient, and wildly profitable industry (telecommunications) we used to throw stuff in the water to see if it works and how it works.
Since a kind and benevolent God provided us with SALTY oceans, we had to use pressure vessels, and these were always destructively tested.
This caused all kinds of fury with our mechanical engineers, who insisted that they could 'do the math.'

Since SpaceX is a private company (THANK GOD!!!) they don't have to 'show their work.'

Starship is a really BIG wessel.
Since they're going to put humans in it someday the 150-tonnes to LEO probably includes a good fuel budget for the return flight.
Starlink sats are something like 575 pounds.
I would have said something like 260kg but the lift capacity for Starship is expressed in tons and I don't like working with third-world measuring systems in my head.

I'm thinking that 400 Starlink sats per shot might be doable.
Maybe 450-500 remotely.
I'm not sure if the juice is worth the squeeze though given the cost delta.
I AM sure Elon is sure - so we'll see.
60 chicks in a Falcon every couple of weeks is a decent bet for now, since losing 400 of them in a failed launch might be non-trivial.

Or maybe not.
Elon is the Henry Ford of rockets, and he understands mass production and vertical integration.

The first (Flight-1) Los Angeles boats were 5,700 tonnes light load and 361' long.
Ships are measured by how much water they displace - but fuel is also not all that light - so the math can be a little tricky.
One might expect that terrestrial submarines are more robustly constructed that rockets - at least for what they do.

Destroyers are actually just about the size of a WW-2 "Treaty Cruiser"
Our Arleigh Burke tin cans are roughly 510' and tip the scales at 9900 tonnes for the Flight-III models.
I don't really count the Zoomies (Zumwalt class) since there will only ever be three of them and they're DINOs - Destroyers in name only.
We call Destroyers 'tin cans' anachronistically because they have no armour to speak of save for some kevlar anti-spalling stuff. "Treaty Cruisers" were a result of some disastrously counter-effective Naval Arms Treaty rules that (like MOST treaties) only WE followed.

 

The most recent absurdly hotter time was about 50 million years ago. Cooling since about 15 million years ago was recently (century scale) reversed by returning fossil CO2 to atmosphere.

On the cold side, humans species sapiens was likely evidenced from bones about 300 thousand years ago. During that tiem there have been 3 strong glacial cycles. The next glacial has been postponed indefinitely. Until CO2 gets back down. So at least we can be rather confident that agriculture will not need to persist through such conditions.

 

i agre with obama, stop dreaming about mars and put your collective genius to solving problems on earth

 

Science is agnostic.
Well.....it's SUPPOSED to be anyway.

Solving problems on Mars will also help solve them here on Earth!

 

I’ve heard that line before, but I would say it’s more about where you’re spending the research money

 

Unfortunately, unmanned exploration - isn't.
It lacks TWO essential ingredients: an explorer and bucks.
Besides, as StarFleet Academy's longest serving employee might say about it not being necessary to maintain a garden with one's hands:
"... Yes, and you could explore space on a holodeck instead of a starship."

 

Fourth test flight is scheduled for June 4 pending regulatory approval. Same flight plan as last time.

 

My first duty station with the National Weather Service was in Brownsville (BRO).

Looks like it could be exceptionally warm and humid there (Brownsville/Rio Grande Valley, TX). It's not unusual for temps to be 90+ with 80+ dewpoints. 115+ degree heat index is exceptional.

 

Boeing could still beat the muskrats off the ground June 5, but it's going to be close...

 

I imagine that quite a few Bolsa Chica residents are in the rocket industry. If there were only a way to connect them with like-minded visitors for homestays during these methane parties...

 

While exploding 1000 tons of methane (with 4000 tons of LOx) would be a spectacle, there is much more to think about if Starship upscales according to plan. This is an interesting summary:

SpaceX's Starship May Nearly Triple US Natural Gas Demand (the main component of which is methane)

Going so big would take all US current methane production and more. Apparently the later plan is to directly capture CO2 from air and electrically convert it to CH4. Electrical requirements stated in that document seem very optimistic to me, but possible.

If all done by direct air capture this could be carbon neutral. Amazing in itself, but still requiring 33 million kWh per launch. A lot of solar paneling or windmilling would be required to make the electrical side carbon neutral.

One might want to place such facilities distant in case even one goes explody. For the rest of this century, five (ish) major hurricanes may arrive at nearby shores*.

Later high-cadence launches will be from offshore barges (right?). Overall it is interesting to think about how this Mars Thing will play out.
==
nearby shores* Cape Canaveral in FL is worse. Seven (ish).