Elon Musk Shows off Fiery SpaceX Starship Heatshield Test:
[...] After successfully sending the first commercial crew capsule to the International Space Station in early March, Elon Musk's spaceflight company is on a hot streak and it's looking to continue that with an upcoming test launch of its much-discussed Starship.
But before Starship gets off the ground, Musk has given spacefaring fans a glimpse of the hexagonal heatshield tiles that will eventually protect the craft from searing heat.
Testing Starship heatshield hex tiles pic.twitter.com/PycE9VthxQ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 17, 2019
Musk explained that the hottest parts of the heatshield, glowing white in the short video above, reached a maximum temperature of around 1650 Kelvin (approx. 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, approx. 1,375 degrees Celsius). He suggested this could withstand the extreme temperatures associated with returning to Earth, but it is slightly lower than the temperatures NASA's Space Shuttles were built to withstand (approx. 1,500 degrees Celsius).
Also at Teslarati.
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[...] According to Elon Musk, the SpaceX CEO will present an update on the company's progress designing, building, and testing Starship and Super Heavy soon after Starhopper's first successful flight, meaning it could potentially happen within the next week or two. Additionally, Musk deemed Starhopper's July 25th flight a success and indicated that SpaceX would attempt to put Starhopper through a more ambitious 200m (650 ft) hop in a week or two, continuing what is expected to be an increasingly arduous serious of tests for the prototype.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Monday March 18 2019, @12:23PM (7 children)
Next Falcon Heavy launch could be as soon as April 7. It would use Block 5 boosters instead of the Block 2s + 3 used for the maiden launch [teslarati.com].
The first BFR hop tests could happen within a week or two [reddit.com]. Orbital launch tests within 3-4 months.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday March 18 2019, @02:57PM (6 children)
I had been wondering how they were going to achieve putting someone on the moon by year end or at latest next year, didn't realize orbital tests were a few months away.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday March 18 2019, @06:50PM (5 children)
The plan is to do that in 2023, not by late 2020.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday March 18 2019, @07:13PM (4 children)
Err, it's also a joyride around the Moon.
NASA's own lunar plans are pretty fluid, but could happen by the late 2020s.
SpaceX wants to get people on Mars by the mid-2020s, but even if the schedule slips by a few years, they should be far ahead of anybody else.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday March 18 2019, @07:49PM (3 children)
https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/584788/ [theatlantic.com]
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Monday March 18 2019, @07:59PM (2 children)
1. Don't link AMP. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/03/nasa-moon-bridenstine-spacex/584788/ [theatlantic.com]
2. NASA's EM-1 mission [wikipedia.org] would send the Orion capsule around the Moon without any crew. Plans to send crew on this mission were squashed in 2017. They are not "putting someone on the moon" as you said.
3. When I refer to NASA's lunar plans, I mean this package of stuff, which could include a manned landing towards the end:
https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/swooshchart-879x485.jpg [spacenews.com]
https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Screenshot-2018-11-15-13.03.44.png [spacenews.com]
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/774/nasa-announces-new-partnerships-for-commercial-lunar-payload-delivery-services/ [nasa.gov]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday March 18 2019, @08:24PM (1 child)
Sorry, link was not to refute what you told me, it was to back up what you told me. I was totally btfo never recover. I thought I heard they wanted to put a person on the moon by the end of next year, but can't recall from where.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Monday March 18 2019, @10:17PM
AMP = Accelerated Mobile Pages, a Google-pushed standard that behaves very badly on desktops.
Kill Google AMP Before It Kills the Web [soylentnews.org]
Google Attempting to Standardize Features of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) [soylentnews.org]
Google AMP Can Go To Hell [soylentnews.org]
Google Moving to Relinquish Control Over Accelerated Mobile Pages [soylentnews.org]
8 second delay [soylentnews.org]
So if you see cnn.com/amp/whatever the link probably behaves like crap and should be fixed.
But yeah, no astronauts on the Moon's surface anytime soon.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Monday March 18 2019, @03:22PM (11 children)
Though it's technically and mathematically valid, Kelvin shouldn't be used like a temperature degree unit. It's to be used to tell the difference between one temperature or the next. For instance, if something turning red at 450°C and you're asked "Won't it evaporate?", a possible answer could be "It's 20K short" or "When it reaches 470°C" but never "When it reaches 743.15K". It's terribly pedantic but NASA lost a lot of money and even lives over unit conversion errors involving this issue specifically as Fahrenheit got thrown into the mix.
compiling...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Monday March 18 2019, @03:51PM (4 children)
[...]
If everyone uses Kelvin, then the no unit conversion issues. Kelvin has a couple of powerful advantages over the other stuff in that zero Kelvin is an absolute constant that doesn't depend on any material and second, that many gases act closely enough like ideal gases that effects scale with the Kelvin temperature (like pressure scaling with Kelvin temperature in a constant volume vessel).
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Monday March 18 2019, @09:48PM (3 children)
You'll have references saying stuff like 273.2 K @ +/- 5% margin of error and people will start rounding...
compiling...
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday March 19 2019, @10:31AM (2 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday March 19 2019, @10:43AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 19 2019, @04:14PM
Two informative posts worth of caveats and not the insight to understand that's OP's whole point.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday March 18 2019, @04:15PM (5 children)
Fahrenheit shouldn't be used as a temperature unit. Especially not in science and engineering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by istartedi on Monday March 18 2019, @05:33PM (4 children)
If you don't eliminate C then you're just a hypocrite. C is still a conversion. If you hate conversions, eliminate them all. C is used for the same reason that F is used--because it's more intuitive in every day use than K. F is even better at that, more in tune with human experience than C, so I hope we continue using it. The adjustment to seeing liters and such in the grocery store is pretty much pain free, weights and lengths are also creeping in; but you can have my F when you pry it from my cold dead hands, whatever their temperature may be.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by RamiK on Monday March 18 2019, @09:34PM (1 child)
Then you're a hypocrite for not using 1.380649×10−23 J/K instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin#2019_redefinition [wikipedia.org]
That's numerology. Both are equally convenient scales for everyday life. It's just that Celsius scales linearly with Kelvin so there's almost no room for conversion errors when reasoning numbers.
As for Celsius vs. Kelvin in papers, it's pretty simple: Wherever people go, water comes along. So, every item we design and use needs to account for water freezing or boiling. So, until absolute-zero become a daily concern for engineers, I opt for Celsius for the vast majority of papers and documentations.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday March 19 2019, @10:24AM
That's horribly misleading wording. With "scales" in there, whether you want it or not you're implying that doubling one doubles the other (that's what scaling is, after all).
Better: Celsius is a constant offset from Kelvin. (Though I'd make it wordier to make it cleaner English, I'm mirroring your form.)
And the redefinition is irrelevant for this kind of engineering by several orders of magnitude.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday March 18 2019, @10:44PM
Countries that use F: the Bahamas, Belize, the Cayman Islands, Palau and the United States.
About 95.5% of humans are better in tune with Celsius:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday March 19 2019, @10:27AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves