Author Topic: SpaceX Starship : Texas Prototype(s) Thread 23 : Discussion  (Read 1165180 times)

Offline clongton

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Re: SpaceX Starship : Texas Prototype(s) Thread 23 : Discussion
« Reply #2400 on: 08/15/2022 09:16 pm »
Ed can be forgiven because he runs (well, used to run) a website that includes orbital or suborbital categorization so he needs an objective definition (I think orbital energy is appropriate actually, but whatever).

I’d pitch in $20 to help keep it running. Was a fantastic resource.

Ed is correct. And as for his web site, count me in as well.
Chuck - DIRECT co-founder
I started my career on the Saturn-V F-1A engine

Offline xvel

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Re: SpaceX Starship : Texas Prototype(s) Thread 23 : Discussion
« Reply #2401 on: 08/15/2022 09:17 pm »
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/pizza-still-a-vegetable-for-u-s-schools-1.1089258

And with that we can end the discussion about the orbitability of the next test flight.
And God said: "Let there be a metric system". And there was the metric system.
And God saw that it was a good system.

Online allins

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Re: SpaceX Starship : Texas Prototype(s) Thread 23 : Discussion
« Reply #2402 on: 08/15/2022 09:26 pm »
Call it whatever you want, then. How ‘bout Almost But Not Quite Orbital But Could Be Orbital If We Wanted To Risk Uncontrolled Reentry Test Flight? Sadly, ABNQOBCBOIWWTRURTF doesn’t just flow off the tongue. 🙄

 I like it. But I think it's already taken by a village in Wales.
Nah, too many vowels!

Online meekGee

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Re: SpaceX Starship : Texas Prototype(s) Thread 23 : Discussion
« Reply #2403 on: 08/15/2022 10:12 pm »
You can mince words all you want, but from an engineering perspective, the planned SS flight profile is equivalent to being orbital. It is intentionally cut short for logistical reasons.

You can have a flight profile that shoots straight up past the moon and comes back without completing a single orbit and yet far exceeds orbital velocity, reentry speed, and therefore difficulty.  Still "suborbital"?  Technically, yes. Practically?  No.
Not mincing words, or making the choice myself.  These suborbital flights are important, and sometimes historic, but they are either given a COSPAR orbital designation or they aren't.   If so, they are on the orbital list.  If not, they aren't.

 - Ed Kyle

Yeah this is circular.
You've made an art of painting incorrect pictures using technically correct terms and statistics.
The opposite of "this is where the facts led me".
I'm out.
ABCD - Always Be Counting Down

Offline alugobi

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Re: SpaceX Starship : Texas Prototype(s) Thread 23 : Discussion
« Reply #2404 on: 08/15/2022 10:56 pm »
Who freakin' cares?

Offline ImperfectSense

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Re: SpaceX Starship : Texas Prototype(s) Thread 23 : Discussion
« Reply #2405 on: 08/15/2022 11:44 pm »
Yeah this is circular.
You've made an art of painting incorrect pictures using technically correct terms and statistics.
The opposite of "this is where the facts led me".
I'm out.

If you think about it... YOU are the one who are shading "the picture" in incorrectly.  YOU think that "suborbital" is a misleading term because it is possible to make a suborbital flight with significantly less energy than it takes to make an orbital flight, so in your mind, you think of suborbital as "low energy" and orbital as "high energy."  But that's not what either of those terms actually means.  Their meaning is very simple, either you complete an orbit of the earth or not.  The rest of the implication of the term is coming FROM YOU, from your own preconceptions.  And then you're getting mad at people whose brains STRICTLY adhere to the dictionary definition, and who don't bother about energy or w/e.

Basically what's happening is that when someone says Marco your brain says Polo, but you're having a conversation with someone who has a friend named Marco, and you're getting mad at them for constantly talking about horse sports.  The issue is in your brain, not theirs, and not in what they're saying.

Offline Nomadd

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Re: SpaceX Starship : Texas Prototype(s) Thread 23 : Discussion
« Reply #2406 on: 08/15/2022 11:53 pm »
Yeah this is circular.
Actually, orbits are never circular.
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who couldn't hear the music.

Online meekGee

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Re: SpaceX Starship : Texas Prototype(s) Thread 23 : Discussion
« Reply #2407 on: 08/16/2022 01:10 am »
Yeah this is circular.
Actually, orbits are never circular.
I put this one out there for anyone to pick up. :)

Staying out...
« Last Edit: 08/16/2022 01:10 am by meekGee »
ABCD - Always Be Counting Down

Online ThatOldJanxSpirit

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Re: SpaceX Starship : Texas Prototype(s) Thread 23 : Discussion
« Reply #2408 on: 08/16/2022 06:56 am »
Who freakin' cares?

This is what always happens when we try and classify complex systems into neat boxes. When you start to see absurdities (like putting New Shepard and the Starship test launch into the same box) you are just seeing the limits of the classification system.

As to who cares: Pluto is a planet, discuss (just not in this sub).

Offline kdhilliard

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Re: SpaceX Starship : Texas Prototype(s) Thread 23 : Discussion
« Reply #2409 on: 08/16/2022 07:30 am »
Do we know if they plan an orbital insertion with a negative perigee (an orbit intersecting Earth's surface) or one with a low perigee inside the atmosphere?

Offline clongton

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Re: SpaceX Starship : Texas Prototype(s) Thread 23 : Discussion
« Reply #2410 on: 08/16/2022 02:05 pm »
Yeah this is circular.
You've made an art of painting incorrect pictures using technically correct terms and statistics.
The opposite of "this is where the facts led me".
I'm out.

What part of "they are either given a COSPAR orbital designation or they aren't. If so, they are on the orbital list.  If not, they aren't" don't you understand? It's not mincing words in any way, shape or form. Either it gets the orbital designation or it does not, based - in it's entirety - on whether or not the object actually enters orbit or not. Delta-v or orbital energy, or any other term you wish to make up, has absolutely no bearing on it. Those actually ARE the facts.

The flight is going to follow a suborbital trajectory - ON PURPOSE. It doesn't mean a hill of beans that it could achieve orbit. The fact is that it will NOT, and therefore it will be a suborbital flight. Again, Those ARE the facts.

When my kids were teenagers they used to try to change the definition of terms because they, personally, didn't like it. It restricted their freedom. They wanted to tell all of officialdom (in other words, people who actually knew what they were talking about) to go to hell because they were going to call it whatever they wanted to, to suit themselves.

Well guess what happened: They discovered that bullcrap doesn't work and they grew up. Good advice.
« Last Edit: 08/16/2022 02:06 pm by clongton »
Chuck - DIRECT co-founder
I started my career on the Saturn-V F-1A engine

Offline abaddon

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Re: SpaceX Starship : Texas Prototype(s) Thread 23 : Discussion
« Reply #2411 on: 08/16/2022 02:53 pm »
In the spirit of this thread I conducted several suborbital launch tests on my front lawn this morning.

Now, can we please move on to topics suitable for "SpaceX Starship: Texas Prototype(s) Discussion"?  Please?

Online Chris Bergin

New thread required given people love to shout "there's off topic posts in here, so here's me posting about it to really not improve things!" ;D

New thread!
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=56960.0
« Last Edit: 08/16/2022 03:21 pm by Chris Bergin »
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