SpaceX Starship 28 as skipped the cryotesting and went directly to the spin prime test of the engines. The static fire of the six engines would then enable stacking onto the Super Heavy Booster for booster testing.
This rapid testing, pad and launch tower readiness could enable a third orbital launch in as little as 11 days. Even if a yearend launch is missed, the rapid work makes a launch in the first half of January as likely.
SpaceX and Starship will need a lot of testing in 2024 in order to keep the NASA Artemis moon program from badly slipping. There will need to be a lot of refueling and orbital fuel storage tests.
Multi-year NASA Artemis delays would likely end up costing the US government many billions of dollars.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
I think there is a good question what is free speech and what is using free speech as pretext to harming others, weaponize speech and use it as a weapon to seduce, control, manipulate, harm.
Nazis also promoted their harmful propaganda. Is it right to lie, pit one group of Germans against other races, Jews, Slavs and promote violence? Nazis claimed “rich elite Jews” are the problem, what is common tactics of populists.
Because their speech other people were harmed, killed.
If someone does criminal actions, harms others should he do as he pleases, because freedom of movement? They restrain him from doing harm, what is normal. If someone says things that are harmful then they punish him accordingly. Freedom of speech is great, until speech is used as a weapon.
I think Elon was smart to relocate to Texas. Ted Cruise, John Cornyn, Greg Abbott, and a host of other Texas politicians exert extreme influence on local federal officials to get moving. Thankfully, Florida (Marco Rubia, Rick Scott, and Ron Desantos) and many Southern States are also eager to curry favor with Elon. Most of NASA’s administrators and management live in the Florida-Alabama-Mississippi-Texas corridor.
There is a reason Elon opened up Twitter/X to conservative voices. His loss of influence in California is minimal compared to what he gained elsewhere. And the Tesla/SpaceX/Twitter complex is one of the largest employers in California. Elon still holds that over their heads.
Elon is playing the long game. He needs the middle class, working class, and rural populations to buy his model 2, model 3, model y, pickup trucks, and delivery vans. (yes model 2, smaller pickup trucks, and delivery vans are coming, trust me.)
The Midwest, Great Plains, South, and Southwest used to hate Elon. They considered him an Elitist Liberal who wanted to destroy oil and petrochemicals. Now, with the purchase of Twitter – and opening it up to moderates and conservatives (coupled with his criticism of Wokesters) – middle and southern citizens have warmed up to him.
Why not just keep out of politics all together? That would have been a lot better still.
Technically, ending Twitter’s political censorship WAS keeping out of, (Or rather getting out of) politics. This is one of those, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us!” things, really: The demand wasn’t that Twitter/X be apolitical, but instead that it continue to intervene in politics in favor of the Democrats.
Really, the big X plan was keeping out of politics. Is this the reason that advertisers fled the site? Could it be opening the flood gates of racism and crackpot conspiracy theories that caused the problem? Have you read Trump’s Agenda 49, which includes closing unsympathetic news sites?
Didn’t Kathy Leuders who manages Starbase say it’s February? FAA still has to sign off on the mishap investigation first.
I think that competition has some people on the payroll, so they fight Musk with bureaucracy. They can’t compete.
IMO we will see next launch in February. Let’s hope for the best and faster launch.
It would be waste not to launch more often and test more, because they have a few of them already build.
Blue Origin is also making progress:
“Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital vehicle lifted off from the company’s West Texas site on Tuesday around 11:44 a.m. EST (1644 GMT) after brief holds on launch day. (Blue Origin also tried to launch the mission on Monday (Dec. 18), but scrubbed the attempt due to a “ground system issue” at its Launch Site One pad.)”
See:
https://www.space.com/blue-origin-return-to-flight-mission-ns-24
BO: still zero ounces to LEO but in the eyes of some this is progress.
This its basically, falcon 9,only,which Musk mastered it, years ago. Bessos it’s still decades ago of Musk
Realistically, the launch schedule isn’t being set by SpaceX’s having something ready to launch. It’s being set by the regulators jerking SpaceX around as the fight between stakeholders who need Starship for their plans, and the regulators tasked with making Musk’s life a living hell, nets out.