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SpaceX is planning to attempt its highest hop ever of its new Starhopper prototype. This rocket is designed to test out certain capabilities and performance characteristics that will inform the development of SpaceX's upcoming Starship rocket (formerly known as BFR — Big 'Falcon' Rocket).
It looks like Elon Musk's Starship prototype, dubbed "Starhopper," has the green light to make its highest hop yet as soon as Monday.
SpaceX had planned to test the single-engine version of its eventual Mars vehicle with its second short flight last week, but the launch was abruptly canceled. Musk later tweeted that the Federal Aviation Administration required a bit more "hazard analysis" and Starhopper "should be clear to fly soon."
Now the FAA has posted a new airspace closure for the area around the SpaceX test facility in Boca Chica, Texas, beginning Monday afternoon and running through Wednesday night.
So it looks like we could finally see Starhopper make some serious maneuvers. Its last test hop was a short, nighttime 20-meter (66 feet) liftoff, hover and landing that was mostly obscured from view by fire, smoke and darkness.
This time the hope is that Starhopper will reach an altitude of around 650 feet (198 meters) before returning to the ground.
The NOTAM (Notices to Airmen) linked above specifies:
Reason for NOTAM : TO PROVIDE A SAFE ENVIROMENT FOR ROCKET LAUNCH AND RECOVERY
[...] Altitude: From the surface up to and including 8000 feet MSL
[...] Effective Dates:
From August 26, 2019 at 1900 UTC To August 27, 2019 at 0500 UTC
From August 27, 2019 at 1900 UTC To August 28, 2019 at 0500 UTC
From August 28, 2019 at 1900 UTC To August 29, 2019 at 0500 UTC
Also at: space.com.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday August 23 2019, @12:03PM (3 children)
No. That's the same idiotic argument that has been thrown around a million times before, only with an irrelevant Epstein twist.
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(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Friday August 23 2019, @04:37PM (2 children)
People like me have been pointing out wealthy people squandering their wealth in parasitic immoral ways for a long time, as well as the true nature of the parasitic immoral alliance with israel, but now we have the ultimate proof, proof beyond anything I would have ever dreamed of, that the people who claim they deserve to be on top of the pyramid are actually little half-witted degenerate shits running high school blackmail pranks. (see also jeff bezos 'alive girl' texts)
And you are unphased.
Would you care to debate this in a friendly civil manner? I am starting a thing called globaldebate.net and I'm looking for people to argue with in an orderly, bounded format.
How would you frame the dialectic, 'We need mega-rich people even if they kidnap a given number of children annually so that we can have things like hedge funds and spaceships.' And you take the kidnapper side?
Or maybe just explain how my argument is idiotic in greater detail plox thx, I love hearing why I'm wrong.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday August 24 2019, @12:35PM (1 child)
NASA offers a great return [nasa.gov] on investment even if you place no value on astronomy. SpaceX has developed Falcon 9, Heavy, and now Starship on a shoestring budget. The end result will be a fully reusable rocket that will decrease the cost per kg/ton to get things into low Earth orbit by orders of magnitude. Yes, this capability can improve people's lives, and turbocharge an agency like NASA.
You could look to Blue Origin if you want to see some wealth squandering ($1 billion a year from Bezos), but even they are producing real rocket engines that they are selling to ULA.
Bezos had an affair? Incredible! Normal people never do that. He's paying for that mistake.
The burden is on you to prove that these specific mega-rich people are kidnappers. No, being seen with Epstein or even on his plane or sex island is not evidence. Although it would be funny to see the Stephen Hawking sex tapes.
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(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Saturday August 24 2019, @02:33PM
The finer point of my assertion is that we are just banning rich people from space, not space development. Which is to say Bezos could build his rockets just not ride one. I know it would be difficult to enforce this law on someone who has spaceships, but this I think just illustrates the point further.
What when Bezos could kidnap his wife into space? Or you? If Epstein could call off the police and fbi for 20 years so he could be the gatekeeper for victoria's secret's modelling talent agency, how would you or anyone expect to get justice in a world where he couldn't just go to an island, but a moonbase or space station?
Anyone who is like, 'well we have heard the worst of what epstein has done' is truly naive. We have heard what he was unable to keep silent, which is almost nothing about what he has actually done. If you don't think he had some blood to clean up with the tile and carpet removal devices he quietly ordered to his mansion, then I think we can rule you out as a candidate for detective or investigative reporter, or appropriate legislator of space laws. He was active in eastern europe, where there are even fewer people who have to be paid off to kidnap someone.
It's also the plot of Avatar and the entire Aliens franchise, if we let this bizarro corporate system loose on the universe, we are all going to be made responsible for it one way or the other while the wealthy gain the absolute, infinite ability to evade that responsibility.
No justice, no peace, is an absolute law, and justice is in crisis on our planet not due to the masses of poor people, but due to handfuls of rich people. And yes it is a crisis, and you'd definitely think so if your granddaughter had been seduced and manipulated by a 60 year old creep who is above the law with some bogus promise of a modeling career that turned nearly immediately into a prostitution gig.