FAA grants SPACE X launch license for Starship test launches

The FAA has granted Space X a launch license for its massive Starship space craft. good for 5 years

www.msn.com...

The Starship stands almost 400 feet tall and its booster with 33 Raptor 2 engines has some 17 million pounds of thrust, twice that of the Saturn V

Space X has said it will attempt a launch on Monday April 17 , with the window from 7 Am to 9 Am local time

Hopefully will be a success

Very cool!

I wish I could watch it in person.

a reply to: firerescue

I still have to wonder about the commercial viability of starship.
Time will tell I guess.

originally posted by: firerescue
The FAA has granted Space X a launch license for its massive Starship space craft. good for 5 years

www.msn.com...

The Starship stands almost 400 feet tall and its booster with 33 Raptor 2 engines has some 17 million pounds of thrust, twice that of the Saturn V

Space X has said it will attempt a launch on Monday April 17 , with the window from 7 Am to 9 Am local time

Hopefully will be a success

That should be a grand launch or a magnificent firework.

a reply to: firerescue

I'll be watching if I can, very telling sentence from Musk though

"If we do launch, I would consider anything that does not result in the destruction of the launch pad itself to be a win."

Here's what I don't get sometimes, if this was the next step why wasn't somebody working on it before now?

and yes I get the costs etc, but this is much of a leap forward just seems this is something somebody could have been working on for a long time

www.bbc.com...

The most powerful rocket ever developed will attempt a maiden launch on Monday.

The vehicle, known as Starship, has been built by the American entrepreneur Elon Musk's SpaceX company.

It stands almost 120m (400ft) high and is designed to have almost double the thrust of any rocket in history.

SpaceX will try to get Starship airborne in an uncrewed demonstration from Boca Chica, Texas at 08:00 local time (13:00 GMT; 14:00 BST).

The aim is to send the upper-stage of the vehicle eastward, to complete almost one circuit of the globe.

Mr Musk has appealed for everyone to temper their expectations. It's not uncommon for a rocket to experience some kind of failure on its initial outing.

"It's the first launch of a very complicated, gigantic rocket, so it might not launch. We're going to be very careful, and if we see anything that gives us concern, we will postpone the launch," he told a Twitter Spaces event.

"If we do launch, I would consider anything that does not result in the destruction of the launch pad itself to be a win."

SpaceX will try to get Starship

It's anticipated thousands of spectators will try to reach coastal locations on the Gulf of Mexico to witness the event.

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Elon Musk is hoping to completely upend the rocket business with Starship.

It's designed to be fully and rapidly reusable. He envisages flying people and satellites to orbit multiple times a day in the same way a jet airliner might criss-cross the Atlantic.

Indeed, he believes the vehicle could usher in an era of interplanetary travel for ordinary humans.

Here's what I don't get sometimes, if this was the next step why wasn't somebody working on it before now?

and yes I get the costs etc, but this is much of a leap forward just seems this is something somebody could have been working on for a long time

a reply to: putnam6


Has to do with thew nature of the aerospace companies and their management - most are run by corporate bureaucrats
finance, accountants, lawyers whose only concern is squeezing every nickel of profit out of government contract to please Wall Street. Their reason is to get cost plus contract where NASA picks up all the costs and guarantee a profit. Companies then milk the contract by stringing it out as long as possible to maximize the profits Most could care less if the projects works at the end - in fact if doesnt work, well gubmint will have to go back to them to get it fixed

Musk is different, he is a visionary, some would say delusional who has a dream of exploring space , building bases on moon and going to Mars. Willing to risk billions of his own money to pursue his dream