SpaceX Starship : First Flight : Starbase, TX : 20 April 2023 - DISCUSSION

[rdale]

they rely on National Weather Service entirely.

That's a new one for me - that would be highly unethical for the NWS to be their sole weather provider, plus that would mean their weather criteria are available for public viewing and we know that's not the case

Where have you seen that publicized?

How so?  NWS can supply the data.  It is up to SpaceX to determine the criteria and it doesn't have to share it.

NWS cannot provide specific forecasts for private sector organizations. They only way around is if they are supporting something with a large public safety threat - such as an outdoor concert, large sporting event, etc.

But they don't have a hotline to SpaceX mission control Those decisions are made by SpaceX meteorologists.

[joek]

All this discussion about He vs. autogenous begs the question - how are the propellants going to be pressurized for engine restart on the surface of the moon or Mars?

Speculation: They'll use He for Earth launch until they figure out how to make it work in situations where He is not an option. Again, they are buying down risk. One step at a time.

[alastairmayer]

Is it me or has bickering about semantics become a trend here? With what "faulty" means, how long 48 hours is, what "orbital" means, and others, going on for pages and pages, it feels like being trolled.

It is solved on other sites by threading comments, so those who enjoy it can go down their silly rabbitholes but normal people can just skip over those threads. It also makes quoting much less necessary.

Unfortunately this site seems to use technology from the 90s that cannot do comment threads.

The 90s?  Heck, the software I wrote back in the early 80s (CoSy, used for BIX among others) could do threads.  Mind, it was purely text based, so there's that.

[rdale]

Can you provide an update on the potential for shear at high altitude? AIUI, that is/was the main concern for a Thursday launch.

Not bad - after the low level directional change they look fairly benign through upper levels. Not "quiet" but not much different than what Monday looked like.

[envy887]

All this discussion about He vs. autogenous begs the question - how are the propellants going to be pressurized for engine restart on the surface of the moon or Mars?

I imagine they will forgo subcooling on Mars. Without subcooling, LOX and LCH4 will self-pressurize while just sitting there, and then once the engines are running add in autogenous.

[Hog]

All this discussion about He vs. autogenous begs the question - how are the propellants going to be pressurized for engine restart on the surface of the moon or Mars?

I imagine they will forgo subcooling on Mars. Without subcooling, LOX and LCH4 will self-pressurize while just sitting there, and then once the engines are running add in autogenous.

that sounds sporty for the Raptors.

[wannamoonbase]

All this discussion about He vs. autogenous begs the question - how are the propellants going to be pressurized for engine restart on the surface of the moon or Mars?

I imagine they will forgo subcooling on Mars. Without subcooling, LOX and LCH4 will self-pressurize while just sitting there, and then once the engines are running add in autogenous.

that sounds sporty for the Raptors.

If they are qualified for fuels at a range of temperatures it should only be a difference in performance, which should not be a problem for Mars gravity.

However, I'd be much more concerned with an unprepared launch pad. 

[whitelancer64]

All this discussion about He vs. autogenous begs the question - how are the propellants going to be pressurized for engine restart on the surface of the moon or Mars?

I imagine they will forgo subcooling on Mars. Without subcooling, LOX and LCH4 will self-pressurize while just sitting there, and then once the engines are running add in autogenous.

that sounds sporty for the Raptors.

If they are qualified for fuels at a range of temperatures it should only be a difference in performance, which should not be a problem for Mars gravity.

However, I'd be much more concerned with an unprepared launch pad.

Soon after people are on Mars, there will be prepared launch / landing pads.

[Chris Bergin]

By the way, I saw people quoting numbers for yesterday, and totally wrong.  It was a lot more.

SpaceX got 5.2m views.

NSF got 3.3m (on a longer stream of course).

That's crazy,  almost 1:1 sub/view ratio

I was also curious about the concurrent viewers since the chat just lagged my browser tab (with 32 GB system RAM) and the most viewers I saw were about 250.000 on the NSF stream. Mind you, that's concurrent viewers at the same time. Not individual viewers over the whole stream. And I was seriously impressed by that number. More than Tim Dodd's stream when I checked.

This was attempt one:

[rsdavis9]

All this discussion about He vs. autogenous begs the question - how are the propellants going to be pressurized for engine restart on the surface of the moon or Mars?

I imagine they will forgo subcooling on Mars. Without subcooling, LOX and LCH4 will self-pressurize while just sitting there, and then once the engines are running add in autogenous.

At mars pressure lox and lch4 are subcooled.

[kdhilliard]

On spacex stream was clearly stated multiple times that it was "first stage issue"

Yep.  From T-17m15s:

The clock is coming up on T-17 minutes from liftoff.  We're continuing to click towards zero, however right now we've just begun listening in, the first stage team is working a pressurization issue.  They're troubleshooting that right now.  Now we do have the option if need be, if we can't solve this, then we would hold the count and probably treat today as a Wet Dress and not be able to launch.  However we are continuing to do propellant loading on both the Superheavy and the Ship stages. ...  But as a reminder, T-15m10s and counting, we are working an issue on the first stage and will bring an update as we get more insight into that issue.

[alugobi]

Which could mean the qd for the booster, and not on the vehicle itself. 

[ChrisC]

The TFR for a Starship launch attempt on Thursday has been removed. Awaiting an update from SpaceX.

Right now the next TFR is for a possible launch attempt on April 21.

Poor Elon, he must be soooo disappointed.  But I'm impressed that he listened to the team and let it slip past his juvenile joke date.

EDIT: I may have spoken too soon

[Oersted]

I response to the post in updates asking for feedback regarding the SpaceX webcast:

I think more Kate and John would have been good. The other dude, well, for example when he talked about Super Heavy, he goes on to say its "Super" and its "Heavy". Well, why not explain what is the scale that people use, such as medium, heavy, super heavy, etc.

I think that is enough to get an idea how to improve things.

As someone working in the voice business, I think they should give a bit more thought to which voices they use. Insprucker has a fantastic "1960s rocket engineer" voice. Content-wise he is good and getting better. Most of the others... not great. A California valley girl voice (plus intonation), as well as a high-pitched adolescent boy voice just wonīt keep audiences happy. They will get annoyed after a while and turn off the feed.

It is harsh, I know, but it has been the reality in broadcasting for decades. Lots of excellent journalists are tested for their screen personality and no matter how good they are content-wise, by far the majority of them just donīt have the necessary on-screen charisma, of which the voice and intonation play a huge part. Think Walter Cronkite for somebody who had the voice and the personality.

We canīt demand the same level from youtube feed presenters but broadcast quality voices are what they are being judged against by the viewers.     

[chopsticks]

I response to the post in updates asking for feedback regarding the SpaceX webcast:

I think more Kate and John would have been good. The other dude, well, for example when he talked about Super Heavy, he goes on to say its "Super" and its "Heavy". Well, why not explain what is the scale that people use, such as medium, heavy, super heavy, etc.

I think that is enough to get an idea how to improve things.

As someone working in the voice business, I think they should give a bit more thought to which voices they use. Insprucker has a fantastic "1960s rocket engineer" voice. Content-wise he is good and getting better. Most of the others... not great. A California valley girl voice (plus intonation), as well as a high-pitched adolescent boy voice just wonīt keep audiences happy. They will get annoyed after a while and turn off the feed.

It is harsh, I know, but it has been the reality in broadcasting for decades. Lots of excellent journalists are tested for their screen personality and no matter how good they are content-wise, by far the majority of them just donīt have the necessary on-screen charisma, of which the voice and intonation play a huge part. Think Walter Cronkite for somebody who had the voice and the personality.

We canīt demand the same level from youtube feed presenters but broadcast quality voices are what they are being judged against by the viewers.   

Disagree. My favourite presenters are John Innsbrucker, Jesse Anderson, and Kate Tice. They are all great. That's my opinion and you are entitled to yours.

(BTW, I wonder when Chris G. will popup on screen ha.)

[Echo_Jex]

Snip...
We canīt demand the same level from youtube feed presenters but broadcast quality voices are what they are being judged against by the viewers.   

With enough celebrity youtubers now, i think there is enough data to show that cable "Broadcast Quality" patterns dont perfectly parallel internet livestreamer quality expectations. With a wider target age range for livestream platforms i think different resonators are chosen. So a 20's year old might not resonate with a strong voiced sharply dressed charismatic guy, but instead with someone that would fit in within their own friend group, what some would call a flawed voice others might call relatable. Is there an NSF thread we can take this to for discussing how well NSF adapted to on screen presence?

[Alberto-Girardi]

...
But wasn't the problem on the booster?

Do not think that was stated-confirmed? Do we have a reference?

In any case, need to be careful speculating about what we are see now vs. what is likely in the future. SpaceX appears to be taking some short term tactical steps in order to buy down (or gain more knowledge of) longer term strategic risks. Not unusual given their MO.

Now on the NSF livestream the commentator said the problem was on the booster.

[sdfasdfasd]

As someone working in the voice business, I think they should give a bit more thought to which voices they use. Insprucker has a fantastic "1960s rocket engineer" voice. Content-wise he is good and getting better. Most of the others... not great. A California valley girl voice (plus intonation), as well as a high-pitched adolescent boy voice just wonīt keep audiences happy. They will get annoyed after a while and turn off the feed.

That was me for one!
I could not continually watch the Spacex broadcast because of those two's voices.
The "boy"'s voice was particularly nasal and jarring, I thought.

NSF have a couple of guys with great voices, surely Spacex can find a couple more!

Edit: What's Ted Williams doing these days :-)

[Hog]

I response to the post in updates asking for feedback regarding the SpaceX webcast:

I think more Kate and John would have been good. The other dude, well, for example when he talked about Super Heavy, he goes on to say its "Super" and its "Heavy". Well, why not explain what is the scale that people use, such as medium, heavy, super heavy, etc.

I think that is enough to get an idea how to improve things.

As someone working in the voice business, I think they should give a bit more thought to which voices they use. Insprucker has a fantastic "1960s rocket engineer" voice. Content-wise he is good and getting better. Most of the others... not great. A California valley girl voice (plus intonation), as well as a high-pitched adolescent boy voice just wonīt keep audiences happy. They will get annoyed after a while and turn off the feed.

It is harsh, I know, but it has been the reality in broadcasting for decades. Lots of excellent journalists are tested for their screen personality and no matter how good they are content-wise, by far the majority of them just donīt have the necessary on-screen charisma, of which the voice and intonation play a huge part. Think Walter Cronkite for somebody who had the voice and the personality.

We canīt demand the same level from youtube feed presenters but broadcast quality voices are what they are being judged against by the viewers.   

Agreed, voice makes all the difference. Grating when it's wrong.

[RDMM2081]

Some of these critiques are starting to sound a little like personal insults.  I appreciate the various hosts for their differences, their passion, and the connection they have with SpaceX in addition to just being some "hired newscast blob" but that's all just my opinion and I'll leave it at that.