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One man turning a dream into reality .. even in science fiction that's usually how it happens.

Today weather is severe at Starbase as tropical storm Francine moves up the coast and strengthens into a hurricane. The road to Starbase started flooding out this afternoon and wind is whipping everything, including a lot of partially constructed stuff. But the giant crane is laid down and they are riding it out.

This morning, before the road threatened to become impassible, a flatbed truck delivered a mysterious object wrapped in plastic to the Starfactory. The geeks identified it as the HLS crew airlock prototype that was previously being evaluated at Hawthorne.

Its arrival at Starbase is exciting since it suggests that an HLS pathfinder might be in the works.

SpaceX photo of the airlock being tried out in Hawthorne some time ago.



nsNS

It now appears that an FAA license for Flight 5 won't be issued until the end of November at the earliest.

https://www.spacex.com/updates/#starships-fly

SpaceX isn't happy. They say,

"SpaceX was founded in 2002 to expand access to outer space...

Starship is paramount to making that sci-fi future, along with a growing number of U.S. national priorities, a reality...

Every flight of Starship has made tremendous progress and accomplished increasingly difficult test objectives, making the entire system more capable and more reliable...

To do this and do it rapidly enough to meet commitments to national priorities like NASA’s Artemis program, Starships need to fly...

Unfortunately, we continue to be stuck in a reality where it takes longer to do the government paperwork to license a rocket launch than it does to design and build the actual hardware. This should never happen and directly threatens America’s position as the leader in space.

The Starship and Super Heavy vehicles for Flight 5 have been ready to launch since the first week of August...

It's understandable that such a unique operation would require additional time to analyze from a licensing perspective. Unfortunately, instead of focusing resources on critical safety analysis and collaborating on rational safeguards to protect both the public and the environment, the licensing process has been repeatedly derailed by issues ranging from the frivolous to the patently absurd. At times, these roadblocks have been driven by false and misleading reporting, built on bad-faith hysterics from online detractors or special interest groups who have presented poorly constructed science as fact.

We recently received a launch license date estimate of late November from the FAA, the government agency responsible for licensing Starship flight tests. This is a more than two-month delay to the previously communicated date of mid-September. This delay was not based on a new safety concern, but instead driven by superfluous environmental analysis...

I can't help wondering if things might have gone smoother in Washington DC if Elon had endorsed a different presidential candidate...

SpaceX might be unable to meet its HLS committments to NASA on time unless they can dramatically increase their Starship flight cadence. Whether intentionally or not, the FAA currently seems to be preventing that. That could set Artemis back years, it might even lead to SpaceX losing the HLS contract for failure to deliver, and it would allow Jeff Bezos and Blue's lander to eventually pose as Artemis' savior. (Bezos and his Washington Post are very much D-team players.)

But exclusion of Starship and total reliance on SLS (and New Glenn) would probably doom NASA's hope of a sustained lunar presence. The cost per flight of SLS is so high that it's hard to imagine more than one flight per year being budgeted, if that. New Glenn doesn't have the necessary capability to make up the difference. So Artemis becomes an obscenely expensive 'flags-and-footprints' stunt designed to put a woman and a "person of color" on the Moon 60 years after Apollo. After that's achieved the political motivation will be gone and Artemis will probably be cancelled.

Which would leave any hope for a Moon base and a sustained human presence on the Moon up to the Chinese, I guess. Or SpaceX working on its own behalf, if the government allows it.

(Sep 10, 2024 09:31 PM)Yazata Wrote: [ -> ]It now appears that an FAA license for Flight 5 won't be issued until the end of November at the earliest.

https://www.spacex.com/updates/#starships-fly

SpaceX isn't happy. [...] I can't help wondering if things might have gone smoother in Washington DC if Elon had endorsed a different presidential candidate...

He's got no one to blame but himself. He needs to quiet down, or else get more savvy about how he phrases things. He's not invulnerable, and he can't rely on Democrats to care more about the future of the country (in competition with China and Russia) than in snuffing out individuals who deprecate them.

It's like Quentin Tarantino spastically erupting on the Bill Maher show: "It's all about winning!" rather than either quality of content or commonsense in a campaign. Maybe an old-time liberal like Maher cares about the big-picture and long-term consequences, but the new breed only narrowly cares about having an annoying pest or obstacle immediately under their thumb. (Instant gratification is everything.)

Interesting things are happening in the Gulf of Mexico, very close to where B11, the flight 4 booster landed.

A deep sea recovery vessel the Hos Ridgewind has positioned itself roughly where B11 landed for the last several days. This ship carries a crane and deep sea diving equipment like diving bells and pressure chambers.

It isn't confirmed what Hos Ridgewind is doing, but given the location it's tempting to speculate. The Gulf is only about 60 meters deep at that point so B11's remains shouldn't be too hard to find.



nsNS

RGV Aerial Photography's latest Starbase Update:

B12, the Flight 5 booster, just rolled to the launch pad last night.

Genna Hammer and B12



They proceeded to lift it higher than they normally lift boosters. My guess is that they are trying to estimate the stresses on the tower in a booster catch.

(Edit) - SpaceX confirms that the lift was up to expected catch height.

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1837167076340863419

SpaceX photo

And this morning, before all the B12 booster business, the workers who have been working so frantically on the arms posed on an arm for a photograph.

Photo by Genna

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And Ship 30, the Flight 5 ship, just rolled down to the pad to join its booster.

I don't know what they are up to, seeing as how the FAA is unlikely to cough up a launch license for another two months or more.

SpaceX photo of 30 reflected in the Starfactory windows

S30 out for a little Friday afternoon drive

Photo by Jack Beyer of nasaspaceflight.com

(Sep 18, 2024 06:47 AM)Yazata Wrote: [ -> ]Interesting things are happening in the Gulf of Mexico, very close to where B11, the flight 4 booster landed.

A deep sea recovery vessel the Hos Ridgewind has positioned itself roughly where B11 landed for the last several days. This ship carries a crane and deep sea diving equipment like diving bells and pressure chambers.

It isn't confirmed what Hos Ridgewind is doing, but given the location it's tempting to speculate. The Gulf is only about 60 meters deep at that point so B11's remains shouldn't be too hard to find.



nsNS

It'll buff out

SpaceX photo posted by Elon