Making Spaceflight Great Again.: SpaceX catches a Super Heavy Booster Rocket

By Jo Nova

I mean, wow.

The SpaceX fifth Starship rocket is 19 stories tall and they caught it first try with the Mechanzilla chopsticks.

Musk: “This the largest & most powerful flying object ever made at more than double the thrust of the Saturn V Moon rocket. ”

 

If Elon had not jumped in with the Orange Hitler Man, this would have been on every news channel.

Seen from a distance we can appreciate just how fast it was hurtling toward the ground. The pre-launch information mentioned that the rocket would decelerate so rapidly it would cause audible sonic booms in the area.

The rocket at launch:

Elon Musk commenting on the lawfare being used to slow launches:  “The next fight of Starship is ready to fly. We are waiting on regulatory approval. It shouldn’t be possible to build a giant rocket faster than the paper can move from one desk to another.”  More on ZeroHedge

 

 

 

9.9 out of 10 based on 97 ratings

70 comments to Making Spaceflight Great Again.: SpaceX catches a Super Heavy Booster Rocket

  • #
    RobB

    The thunderbirds were doing it years ago…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNhk_-v0SMs

    190

  • #
    Neville

    Musk is a completely different kind of Human and seems to complete his ideas in very quick time.
    How he manages so many things at once is spooky and I often think he is so way out there that he belongs in a special category by himself.
    But then again I’m never going to buy a Tesla EV from him. A safe convenient ICE vehicle suits me just fine.

    570

    • #
      Steve4192

      What sets Musk apart is he isn’t afraid of failure, and is allergic to playing it safe … in everything he does. Sometimes it works sometimes it fails spectacularly (Cybertruck, Hyperloop). Elon doesn’t care one way or the other. Every failure is viewed as a learning opportunity that allows his companies to move forward with new knowledge (of what not to do). SpaceX failed A LOT in it’s early years, but every failure was used to improve of their next launch, and Elon never lost faith in his engineers to figure things out.

      470

      • #
        James4227

        I suspect that he may have given his engineers a few tips along the way too. He’s definitely a “think outside the box” kind of guy.

        210

      • #
        Tel

        The reason Elon Musk is not afraid of failure is that he has never suffered any consequences for his failure.

        If I was to run down pedestrians with my car, besides carrying the guilt of that, someone would take my licence away … however Musk’s load of garbage “self driving” technology has killed multiple people, including some innocent pedestrians and every single year Musk sasy, “Nearly got it working, probably gonna be done next year”.

        If I went around setting fire to buildings and vehicles, I would get slammed in gaol but Musk’s overdriven battery technology has started multiple fires … in buildings and in vehicles … to the point where Walmart started litigation (then settled out of court). Overall Tesla has an appalling safety record but no one seems to care.

        108

        • #
          Serge Wright

          Does battery safety lie with Musk or the government regulators ?. Of course it’s the latter and lithium batteries are a hazard whether they come from Musk’s factories or from Chinese ones. We also know why the regulations are so lax in this space and it’s the same reason you can knock down a pristine rain forest to erect huge bird killing wind turbines without a voice of protest.

          130

          • #
            Strop

            If the regulators let me buy a gun and I randomly shoot 100 people in a shopping centre, is it the regulator’s fault for guns being available or mine?

            The fact that not every battery blows up means it is possible to build a battery that doesn’t. So it’s the manufacturers fault if it does …. if used correctly. Who offers the warranty on the battery? Not the regulators.

            20

    • #
      Yarpos

      “How he manages so many things at once is spooky and I often think he is so way out there that he belongs in a special category by himself.”

      The CEOs span of control is wide and diverse in any large company but they arent directly managing all aspects. Musk sets the culture, attracts and hires good people and is not risk averse. He is less beholden to share holders and next years bonus than most.

      80

  • #
    Vicki

    Saw the footage this morning. Astonishing, I can recall the scepticism not that long ago when early attempts at even launches failed. All the naysayers were wrong. Makes NASA look passee.

    470

  • #
    Philip

    I heard Elon say he is running into approval problems. They have to show how they don’t land on a shark or a whale in the ocean. I thought it was a joke, but no it’s not.

    330

    • #
      Steve4192

      California is blocking SpaceX from doing launches for Space Force satellites because he supports Trump. I hope Elon sues the pants off them, but I suspect Space Force will play the national security card and solve the problem for him. It’s not like there is another vendor out there who can reliably launch their satellites for them. They need the satellites and SpaceX is the only game in town. They will either override the California commission or Elon will say screw it and do the launches from Texas.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/12/us/spacex-launch-california.html

      290

      • #
        Jaye

        Elon has said he will initiate litigation today against the Californian Government. Musk has gone from Hero to Zero for the Democrats. He’s gone from Zero to Hero for Republicans.

        Democrats are toxic and support Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin over Musk – which shows just how lunatic they are.

        270

      • #
        Russell

        Maybe someone should suggest to Musk that launching from somewhere in Australia’s north would make sense, NT perhaps.

        151

    • #
      PeterPetrum

      Meanwhile, off the coast of America massive floating wind farms are getting fast approval.

      190

      • #

        No floating wind farms have been approved. Five leases have been sold off CA and eight more are due to be sold Oct 29 for the Gulf of Maine. Project approval is 5 to 10 years out.

        But massive fixed bottom wind projects are indeed being approved for construction at a rapid rate and several are under construction, what the industry calls “steel in the water”.

        181

  • #
    Murray Shaw

    Musk is an industrial titan, the likes we have not seen since Henry Ford.

    330

    • #
      Gnrnr

      If you look at how Ford built his company initially and how Musk built Tesla, you can see he read from the Ford playbook. Vertical integrations, doing things differently, looking for and eliminating wasteful processes etc.

      10

  • #

    It is a great achievement and if Musk was not associated with Donald Trump, it would have been trumpeted everywhere.

    430

  • #
    John Galt III

    The Communist party of the UK (aka: the Labor Party) decided to not invite Elon Musk to its upcoming investment conference. Mean tweets or something.

    Talk about plain stupid. Then again Communists are evil in addition to being stupid.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/11/labour-investment-summit-is-dead-on-arrival/

    310

  • #
    Mooka

    Ain’t socialism grand, if you don’t kiss their arse they will try to destroy you.

    170

  • #
    Honk R Smith

    Why didn’t the Space Shuttle ever hang a left and sail to the Moon?
    I remember being under the impression that was the intention.
    I think such is the premise of the second ‘Airplane’ movie.
    What capabilities did that little Apollo system have that the shuttle lacked?
    That would have prevented a Moon jaunt.

    Being a 60’s kid, hard to believe I made it to 2025* and there’s been zero human (outside the magnetosphere) space travel.

    *(Well not quite yet … I am unvaxxed and exercising regularly.)

    160

    • #
      Gee Aye

      What capabilities did that little Apollo system have that the shuttle lacked?

      vertical take off and landing.

      50

      • #
        Honk R Smith

        Huh?

        40

        • #
          Gee Aye

          the space shuttle needs a runway. Is that clearer?

          30

          • #
            Ted1

            Without 15 lb/sq.in atmospheric pressure the shuttle’s wings are useless.

            But the real reason is that for long distance travel the tare mass must be minimised.

            I was never convinced that sending men to the moon was a sensible idea. We’re all gunna die some day.

            In about 1992 I was shown over an F18 at Williamtown. I was told that it had three and a half tonnes of electronics in it. 1970s electronics.

            I thouGht at the time that had it had 1992 electronics the tare mass might have been three tonnes lighter, allowing far better performance.

            Apollo had 1969 electronics. How much more efficient could it be with 2024’s electronics?

            It would be interesting if TonyfromOz could comment on this.

            00

        • #
          Strop

          I think Gee Aye, like me, was thinking you were meaning the shuttle going to and landing on the moon. Hence it would need to have the harrier jump jet like capabilities rather than a runway landing and take off.

          50

          • #
            Gee Aye

            yep. In which case the answer is that the shuttle lacked a moon lander.

            31

            • #
              Honk R Smith

              Good Lord … it was a space semi-truck.
              Excursion vehicle goes in the back.
              Separates and returns.
              SAME AS THE FIRST TIME.

              And secondly, how much science could be done from Moon orbit even without landing?
              How much science could be done by having a vehicle developing operational abilities in non-Earth space?
              (Which seems like the first requirement for travel to Mars.)

              40

    • #
      Strop

      The shuttle was only intended for earth orbits and not for space journeys like going to the moon.

      I think the lunar landing modules were only a few thousand kilograms and only a part of the craft. The Space shuttle is probably 15 to 20 times the weight and the fuel required to get it to the moon out of earths orbit, control its landing, and back off the moon would have been a significant extra load. Even with the low gravity environment. As well as having to give the shuttle all the trust capability of the small lunar modules but on a larger scale.

      50

      • #
        Honk R Smith

        Ya’ put the the lander in the cargo bay and with some additional fuel.
        All that’s needed is little spurt to head there and let gravity to the rest.
        No?
        Also, I have heard that once in space, weight becomes less of an issue.

        40

        • #
          Strop

          If you’re referring to still having a separate landing module then that’s a little different. I thought you were referring to the shuttle being the only craft and landing.
          In that case I think most of the extra fuel and thrust could be catered for in the launch rocket and boosters, and the landing module.

          But I also have the impression that the shuttle was only intended for earth orbiting and would need other modifications for further distances and altitudes.

          Maybe we have a rocket scientist or space traveller lurking who can give more than a layman attempt.

          30

        • #
          Ted1

          In space weight ceases to exist, does it not?

          Mass is till there, though.

          00

    • #
      Honk R Smith

      Isn’t the major barrier to human space travel water?
      My understanding is that atmospheric pressure on Mars is so low, nearly nothing, that water can not exist in a liquid state.

      Another major barrier I wonder about is space gravel.
      Do we know whether or not there aren’t little boulders floating around that are currently impossible to detect?
      Wouldn’t a high speed space craft just hitting a pebble suffer a catastrophic failure due to f=ma?

      Moreover, I don’t think we yet understand all the parameters necessary to sustain life in space separate from the planet.
      We don’t occupy the landscape, we are the landscape.

      70

      • #
        Gnrnr

        Do we know whether or not there aren’t little boulders floating around that are currently impossible to detect?

        Yes we know there are small objects floating around we cannot detect. The probability of your ship and that object being in the same spot at the same time given the velocities and distances involved is incredibly low. Given a hit from a large enough object, it will be invariably catastrophic. Nothing we have put into low orbit has hit anything large enough to do catastrophic damage as yet. Many satellites and I think the ISS have signs of micro impacts. Space is overall still a risky proposition.

        10

    • #
      NiggleW

      The Shuttle was completely unable to ‘Hang a left to the moon’ due to a lack of Delta V (i.e. fuel) In fact, the orbit of the ISS is so low, simply because that was the best the shuttle could do.

      If you could refuel the ET, then things would change re getting there, but the shuttle still couldn’t land on the moon…

      70

      • #
        Honk R Smith

        So Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, then the “Great Leap for Mankind”, then Captain Kirk heads out to The Final Frontier …

        and NASA’s next big project is intentionally limited to low Earth orbit??

        ‘Hey, American public, yeah we just did that Moon thing, here’s our next big project, but we’re not venturing out of the neighborhood for the foreseeable future.’

        Who do I see for a refund?
        Same with Viet Nam.
        2008 Bank Bailout.
        GWOT 20 years in Afghanistan.
        (BTW AFAIC the Ruskkies can have Ukraine.)
        Not to mention ‘Pandemic’.

        00

      • #
        old cocky

        The original idea was similar to “2001”, but possibly without HAL.

        The shuttle was going to lift materials and personnel into orbit to build a space station as an orbiting launch platform. There were various designs for propulsion within the solar system which required much less fuel than chemical rockets (ion motors, light sails, thermonuclear, etc). The money largely ran out after the first couple of moon landings, then Challenger threw a very large spanner in the works before Columbia put the kibosh on the shuttle.

        20

        • #
          KP

          “then Challenger threw a very large spanner in the works before Columbia put the kibosh on the shuttle.”

          That is most of the problems that have slowed human endeavour in the last 50 years. The West has become very risk-averse and unwilling to try anything that might give bad press to those in power.. As the bureaucracy grew in size and power this was magnified, until Musk came along and was willing to take failure on the chin and go forward.

          In a century when people look back at the start of human space flight, his name will be the one that is remembered.

          40

    • #
      Gnrnr

      Why didn’t the Space Shuttle ever hang a left and sail to the Moon?

      The shuttle had the fuel in the launch system to put that anywhere near being able to achieve a Lunar transition trajectory. Could only put the shuttle and its payload into around a 300km orbit as that was all the system was designed to do. The starlifter heavy that SpaceX just launched can put 250 tons into LEO if used as an expendable rocket, 150 tons if it does the return to pad they just demonstrated. That system would be capable of putting 10’s of tons into a lunar trajectory.

      00

  • #
    Ross

    Never say never they say. If I were to buy a BPV, it would be a Tesla no worries. Because at least they build their own charging stations and have so for years. Plus I have always had an admiration for Elon. He’s just a doer and has no shame in telling people to “go &%$#!! yourself”. We once had so many more people in corporates and companies of his ilk. Now they’re mostly staid, boring politically correct drones or DEI hires. You can almost predict what they’re gong to say before they open their mouth. With Elon Musk, it’s wow most of the time. Australia should proposition him to build a cybertruck factory in this country. Hell, we invented the pickup / ute in the first place, why not?

    120

    • #
      Mike Jonas

      Maybe Australia should simply invite him to build something of his choice. Why settle for a cybertruck factory when you might get something a lot more exciting. It might have to be something that doesn’t need reliable electricity, though.

      80

      • #
        KP

        Far better to invite him over the run the country as permanent dictator! When we are back to a Govt that takes 10% of the wealth generated in the private sector instead of 48%, we can ask him to retire gracefully!

        30

    • #
      Chad

      . If I were to buy a BPV,……

      ? Why make up your own TLAs ..?…..when perfectly well understood ones already exist,..
      ..such as “EV”, ….or if you are a wally, “BEV” !
      There are too many TLAs bandied about without adding to the confusion.

      20

      • #

        Australia could offer great first-world launch sites near the equator if only we could get rid of our red tape.

        SpaceX is launching from 25N but Darwin is 12S. At certain times of year, surely we have the space and the right conditions…

        120

        • #

          One group already doing something in Arnhem Land — https://ela.space/the-unique-benefits-of-launching-from-an-australian-equatorial-spaceport

          More than 50 launches a year. That’s the goal for Equatorial Launch Australia’s spaceport in the Northern Territory. The Arnhem Space Centre (ASC), as the spaceport is known, is strategically located at the top of Australia in East Arnhem Land, about 35km from the town of Nhulunbuy.

          Discussing the mission benefits of launching from an equatorial spaceport, Mission & Orbit Specialist, Stephanie Marsh, from ELA’s Launch Operations Team said “the surface of the Earth is travelling faster at the equator than at any other point on the globe – 460m/s- due to the rotational motion of the planet. As a result, rockets launched from sites near the equator receive an additional natural boost to get into orbit, reducing the amount and cost of fuel needed, …

          Low-mid inclination orbits between 20 to 40o inclinations (or tilt of the orbit from the reference plane of the equator) are also feasible from the ASC.

          The ASC can also provide access to polar orbits subject to risk analysis and mission objectives. Polar orbits pass over (or nearly over) the poles of the Earth, with deviations of up to 30 degrees still classed as polar orbits. Like other international space ports such as Vandenberg on the US West Coast, for southern launches from ASC a small ‘dog-leg’ manoeuvre is required to avoid Groote Eylandt but the launch then generally has a clear pathway over the very low populated areas of interior Australia.

          80

          • #
            KP

            Lol! You can guess who they would have to grovel to for permission to do anything at all up there! More millionaires being created in Arnhem Land!

            30

  • #
    Penguinite

    And the Californian Deep State is attempting to crush Musk’s Californian based enterprise on the grounds of his support of the Next POTUS DJT just as he’s about to rescue two American Space Engineers abandoned by Boing Boing. They really are idiots led by the Chief Idiot Governor of California Gavin Nuisance!

    200

  • #
    John

    Musk is both a very determined and driven man and thus gets ‘runs on the board’.

    110

  • #

    The imagination and creativity of Human Beings is incredible along unfortunately with a capacity for destructiveness.

    60

  • #
    Billy Bob Hall

    Not bad at all.
    And the lift-off mass of ~5000 tonnes with the new planned variant having ~6000 tonne mass, it sure is one big MF.

    80

  • #

    Sorry, the second video was a repeat of the first, not the one I intended. Fixed now.

    The more distant view is interesting because it’s the only way to appreciate the speed. The rocket is tiny, and we struggle to see it at first, but it’s spectacular in a different way.

    120

  • #
    Old Goat

    What is notable about this is that NASA never achieved anything like this . Thats what happens when you farm out manufacturing to get votes instead of quality and efficiency . The laws of physics still apply – boosting payloads into space still requires you to generate thrust by expelling mass at high velocities . Elon has had more than a few failures on the way , but appears to have control of the process as he is good at optimising technology .

    90

  • #
    Bradley Ashworth

    Single handed Musk is making space seem achieveable – its been buried under risk averse red tape from the Space Agencies….who clearly cant make a decision without Amazon forestry clearing levels of paperwork. At some point he will put people in a Starship…the risk to life is always there for space travel…his challenge is not dealing with success. It will be the pile on when something goes wrong. But I have to say people clearly want this stuff – the hooting and hollering brings a grin!

    81

    • #
      Peter C

      Who wants to go to Mars? Not me, but I understand that there are plenty of volunteers, even if it is a one way trip.

      20

      • #
        KP

        You might get a chance to see his beautiful red sports car go past on the way! I think its heading outwards again this year.

        10

    • #
      Mike Jonas

      For the west to lose Elon Musk’s efforts now would be as disastrous as the loss of Sergei Korolev was for the USSR – and just like Sergei Korolev, who was a political prisoner but allowed to work on the USSR’s space program, Elon Musk faces obstacles from his own government (or their supporters) – the very government which will benefit enormously if he succeeds.
      Sergei Korolev: Father of the Soviet Union’s success in space
      History repeats.

      40

  • #
    Peter C

    The pre-launch information mentioned that the rocket would decelerate so rapidly it would cause audible sonic booms in the area.

    Err what?

    Sonic booms are caused by an object travelling faster than the speed of sound.
    I have not heard of deceleration causing booms before!

    50

  • #
    Mike Borgelt

    There is an Australian company called Gilmour Space. They have an orbital rocket ready to launch since May. Waiting for approval. Straya!

    50

  • #
    Honk R Smith

    Geez, I remember when they first developed mach speed aircraft.
    They didn’t know if humans could withstand it.
    Then they sent lesser creatures into orbit to see if they survived.
    Then a man.

    Humans have only exited the magnetosphere for very short periods of time … and that was a half century ago.

    I don’t see where we’ve done any experimentation in exo-Earth conditions to see if we can sustain evolved Earth biology in inter-planetary space.

    40

    • #
      TdeF

      There was a real fear with the first trains going so fast, around 60 mph and that people could not breathe. ” “Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia,” said the Irish writer Dionysius Lardner in 1830. “

      70

  • #
    Serge Wright

    One thing is certain. No DEI hires were involved in that engineering brilliance.

    80

  • #
    KP

    Stunning to watch again.. Who was it in the Bible that ascended to the heavens on a pillar of flame?? The best description ever!

    30

  • #
    Mike Borgelt

    Next time you hear some aggrieved feminist whining about the “Glass ceiling” just say “Gwynn Shotwell”.

    01