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Elon Musk’s SpaceX set for debut flight of Starship rocket system to space

BOCA CHICA, Texas, April 17 (Reuters) — Elon Musk’s SpaceX made final preparations early on Monday to launch its powerful new Starship rocket system to space for the first time, on a brief but highly anticipated uncrewed test flight from the Gulf Coast of Texas.

The two-stage rocketship, standing taller than the Statue of Liberty at 394 feet (120 m) high, was due for blastoff from the SpaceX facility at Boca Chica, Texas, during a two-hour launch window that opens at 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT).

The test mission, whether or not its objectives are entirely met, represents a key milestone in SpaceX’s ambition of sending humans back to the moon and ultimately to Mars — also the central goal of a renewed NASA spaceflight program intended to integrate the Starship.

Watch SpaceX TEST Starship, the biggest rocket ever, LIVE from the edge of the exclusion zone!!!

Recommended:


This is the first fully integrated full stack test flight of Starship and the mighty Super Heavy booster. At lift off, it will become the largest and most most powerful rocket to ever fly producing over twice as much thrust as the Saturn V that took humans to the moon.

The goal of the test is to get as far along in the mission as possible with a handful of important goals such as; clearing the launch pad, reaching max Q, getting to stage separation, ignition of Starship, burn Starship’s engines for 7 minutes and 20 seconds which would get Starship up to nearly orbital velocities and would place Starship on a suborbital trajectory that will cause it to reenter just north of Hawaii. This would allow the teams to test the reentry profile and heat shields for the first time from orbital velocities.

Want more information? Check out our Prelaunch Preview written by Austin Desisto — https://everydayastronaut.com/starship-superheavy-orbital-flight-test/

Want to know where to watch this live? I made a video on how to visit Starbase and where to watch a launch from — https://youtu.be/aWvHrih-Juk.

Check Out Untold Earth on PBS Terra

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE

Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord!
https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime.

We humans have always been explorers. The great civilizations that have arisen across the world are owed to our restless ancestors. These days, there’s not much of Earth left to explore. But if we look up, there’s a whole universe out there waiting for us. Future generations may one day explore the cosmos and even settle entire other galaxies. But there is a hard limit to how much of the universe we can expand into. So, how big can humanity get?

Episodes Referenced:
Is Interstellar Travel Possible?: https://youtu.be/wdP_UDSsuro.
What If Humanity Is Among The First Spacefaring Civilizations?: https://youtu.be/uTrFAY3LUNw.

The Edges of Our Universe by Toby Ord: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2104.01191.pdf.
A causal limit to communication within an expanding cosmological civilization by S. Jay Olson: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2208.07871.pdf.

SpaceX Readies Starship 24 for Flight | SpaceX Boca Chica

SpaceX crews worked to configure Ship 24 and Booster 7’s flight termination systems for launch, hardware labeled “flame diverter” was spotted at the shipping and receiving area, and foundation work at the production site continued.

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🎥 Video from Jack (@theJackBeyer), Nic (@NicAnsuini), and Starbase Live.
✂️ Edited by Thomas (@_thomashayden).

🔍 All content copyright to NSF. Not to be used elsewhere without explicit permission from NSF.

L2 Boca Chica (more clips and photos) from BC’s very early days to today.

NASA unveils ‘Mars’ habitat for year-long experiments on Earth

Four small rooms, a gym and a lot of red sand—NASA unveiled on Tuesday its new Mars-simulation habitat, in which volunteers will live for a year at a time to test what life will be like on future missions to Earth’s neighbor.

The facility, created for three planned experiments called the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA), is located at the US space agency’s massive research base in Houston, Texas.

Four volunteers will begin the first trial this summer, during which NASA plans to monitor their physical and to better understand humans’ fortitude for such a long isolation.

How Far Beyond Earth Could Humanity Expand?

Check Out Untold Earth on PBS Terra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BVHSUMAWR4&list=PLzkQfVIJun…7&index=85

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE

Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord!
https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime.

We humans have always been explorers. The great civilizations that have arisen across the world are owed to our restless ancestors. These days, there’s not much of Earth left to explore. But if we look up, there’s a whole universe out there waiting for us. Future generations may one day explore the cosmos and even settle entire other galaxies. But there is a hard limit to how much of the universe we can expand into. So, how big can humanity get?

Episodes Referenced:
How Much Of The Universe Can Humanity Ever See?: https://youtu.be/eVoh27gJgME
Is Interstellar Travel Possible?: https://youtu.be/wdP_UDSsuro.
What If Humanity Is Among The First Spacefaring Civilizations?: https://youtu.be/uTrFAY3LUNw.

The Edges of Our Universe by Toby Ord: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2104.01191.pdf.

Incoming hoverboat, morning transport to work at SpaceX

This is pretty cool, I just learned from our Felix Schlang that SpaceX operates a hovercraft, kinda of like the hovercraft that Luke used in the original Star Wars movie.

SpaceX is using this to get between two locations that are about an hour apart by road, but only 15 minutes apart via sea. A hovercraft hovers over land or water and is ideal for this purpose.

Here’s a short video of the hovercraft in action:

Here’s Felix’s video that mentions the hovercraft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiYCL-sgPDA


The morning ride from South Padre Island to SpaceX build site in south Texas.

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