It’s like putting them in timeout and telling them to think about what they did. (Is that a good analogy, it’s a bit weird)
It's not the worst analogy in the world.
Seriously, it's actually fairly accurate.
Yup space flight control will be a thing soon.It's not the worst analogy in the world.
Things will get weird when there are significant numbers of people taking flights on rockets and FAA starts having to treat it like commercial aviation.
I dunno--the full stack weighs 5000 t and the max thrust is 7500 tf, so acceleration should only be around 1.5G. If people aren't filling their shorts on roller coasters, Starship should be OK.
I seem to remember it was the X-15 that test pilots couldn't wait for the motors to cut off. Initial startup wasn't so bad, but as the fuel load was burned the same thrust produced much more acceleration. Towards the end of the burn forces were quite uncomfortable. They really appreciated the relief at shutdown.
That said, presumably they can throttle back to keep things reasonably comfortable for the passengers. Though if Starship rides become reasonably accessible (say $10K-20K/person to orbit), I wonder if they'll have "normal" rides at 1.5-2G and "hardcore" rides at 2-3G for people who want a little more thrill in their lives.
I’d be on the 3G ride for sure!
Why were you doing aerobics with no G-suit?! Are in the Air Force or navy?
Raptors can throttle down to 40%, and they can always turn off some of the cluster to reduce thrust. Of course you pay the penalty with gravity loss, the amount of energy required to lift the fuel to the altitude it is burned at.
Civilian. Just for fun
Next question, where did you get a jet? If you bought a ride wouldn’t they have gotten you a G-suite?Civilian. Just for fun
So they can throttle down to ~3000 tf from 7500tf max thrust. Since the weight of the full stack at staging is around 1500t, they'd end up around 2G without shutting down any engines if Starship is at maximum GVW. IIRC on the test flights the main engines ran until almost up to staging, then they shut engines down in sequence until a relatively small number (3? 6?) were still running at staging.
Was a 50th birthday present from my wife. Pay the money and get a ride. Of the 20 minute flight I had stick for about 11 minutes on the L-39. When I learned that the pilot didn't mind if I did aerobatics I just went for it and threw the plane around fairly well. The 4.2G was at the bottom of a loop. Seriously good fun, at about $100 per minute.
And a really cool wife!!
Thanks. It helps clear things up and is more specific than some other reports that have been circulating.
A month? Actually, I think they will be ready to fly in about 2 weeks, maybe 3 at the most. I think they are further along in their changes than hinted at in the FAA report just like they were with IFT-2.
Ars Technica is a pretty good resource in that regard, probably because their space reporters actually know what they're talking about.
“At spaceX we test fast and furious”
