Yeah, now that we know Starlink is led by a nazi, it changes from “a good idea to fund the Starship program” to “a means of controlling people, killing the net neutrality, and giving even more spying capabilities to the US military”. The nail in the coffin for me was when I learned that a senior SpaceX employee (who joined in 2003) was actively taking part in the DOGE thing. Looks like SpaceX might be rotten at its core too, and this is very very sad to learn.

Really looking forward to tomorrow! I’ll set my expectations low and think that they won’t attempt a catch, so that I can be pleasantly surprised if it happens. Also, I hope the work on the ship’s TPS will be enough to avoid any burn-through this time!

No sure that’s already pretty great. It’s just that given their objectives and their fly-break-fix methodology, they really need to crank up those numbers!

(And also, I’m a bit impatient haha.)

Well fuck, I’m speechless. Amazing test flight!

I will set my expectations pretty low as usual haha, so that I’m at worst satisfied with the outcome, and at best, pleasantly surprised.

So, I’m thinking the ship is not going to make it to splashdown. If Flight 4 is a repeat of Flight 3 minus the tumbling and with the ship going a bit farther into the reentry, then it’s already progress. For the booster, from the SpaceX article they published some time ago, it seems that the issue requires a redesign, and that the fix applied on Booster 11 is only partial. I wouldn’t be surprised if it still RUDs during the landing burn, but who knows?

What I’m more interested about is the flight rate, which is not so great at the moment.

Yep, could be a multitude of factors. And as others said, he has flown to the ISS now, so maybe it quenched his desire for spaceflight.

Again, it’s fair speculation, and I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but it’s just that, speculation.

Can’t wait for Thursday, it’s going to be great!

Musk sure has derailed since COVID, but making a link between this and the cancellation of DearMoon is… a stretch, at best. Unless you have some source to back up that claim. I’m just nitpicking about the form, since you kind of presented it as a fact while it’s pure speculation (to my knowledge).

We’re getting close, very exciting!

Now with an overpressure notice for tomorrow, I’m hopeful it’s a good sign that even if something major happened, the booster did not take a serious hit.

Really hoping for no major setback after what happened during the last tests with the booster.

Might make sense to post space_rocket_builder’s words here as well, given his past record.

Thanks for the daily updates, much appreciated.

If the launch happens on 13th of Nov (which is a big if), I won’t be able to watch it live, sadly. Well, c’est la vie.

Didn’t think we would see a delay because of regulatory processes… that was not on my bingo card.

I think right after the last static fire, u/space_rocket_builder correctly predicted the number of engines that were lit up and ran correctly, before we got an official statement. So at least, there is that.

I agree with other people regarding Musk’s statement about Starship readiness: he’s probably trying to pressure the FAA into giving a launch license as soon as possible. But that doesn’t mean SpaceX is actually ready to launch.

I remember that day, good memories.

Interesting read, thanks for sharing. Well, it’s no secret that Musk derailed during COVID, and never came back on track.

This thread maybe… ok, maybe not haha.