Mars will kill you

I refuse to accept it

https://gizmodo.com/humans-will-never-colonize-mars-1836316222

 

Go out and watch some meteors tonight

https://lifehacker.com/the-perseid-meteor-shower-peaks-tonight-1837099204

watch it online

https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1163948/Perseids-NASA-live-stream-how-to-watch-Perseids-meteor-shower-online-livestream

 

Hoppy's grand finale flight is apparently on for NET (no earlier than) this coming Monday. It should be pretty spectacular rising some 200 m (600 ft) on a pillar of flame, flying sideways and landing on a landing pad some distance away.

As of Saturday afternoon it appears that they have all the necessary FAA approvals. Elon says...

"Looks like @SpaceX Starhopper flight may be as soon as Monday. FAA support is much appreciated!"

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1165377786338406400

Assuming that it survives this flight, Hoppy's to be retired. (It's already located on a Gulf coast beach.) Its new role will be serving as a Raptor engine vertical test stand (and an inspiration to all the currently-under-construction rockets that come after it). If you want to watch the spectacle (and it will be that) it should be live-streamed on Labpadre's youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFwMITSkc1Fms6PoJoh1OUQ

 

Local resident Bocachicagal informs us that residents of Boca Chica Village have just received these leaflets in the last few minutes:

 

Hoppy's farewell flight (it should be spectacular... if it doesn't blow up... which would be spectacular too) will be livestreamed.

Launch is scheduled for between 4:00 pm CDT and 4:15 pm CDT (I bet that it will run late).

That's 5:00 PM EDT, 2:00 PM PDT, and 9:00 pm UTC for you Europeans. (God knows what time it will be in AUS or NZ, probably Tuesday morning sometime. Google can convert it for you. Five hours from now anywhere you are.)

See Hoppy here:



and here



and here

 

Elon just tweeted that launch time is now 5 PM CDT. (about 90 minutes)

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1166081488648949760

The road closures and roadblocks are up. The pad has been cleared. Fueling doesn't seem to have started yet.

 

Flight was aborted at t + 0.8 seconds when the engine failed to ignite. The problem was probably something upstream like preburners or turbopumps.

 

Standing down for today. The crowd of SpaceX workers that had been outside watching are leaving.

The SpaceX live feed is off the air but before it went, there was a banner at the bottom that said that they will be making another try tomorrow.

Elon Musk's latest tweet makes it sound like the defect was a bad igniter in the engine, which sounds easy to fix. He verifies another try.

"Igniters need to be inspected. We will try again tomorrow same time."

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1166141136198488064

But for now they have to depressurize Hoppy and drain it of the tons of fuel and liquid oxygen it contains. There's a whole safeing process to prevent it from being a really giant pressure-cooker bomb.

(Talk about blue balls... '5-4-3-2-1'...nothing. I bet Jeff Bezos is laughing.)

 

Labpadre's feed shows that the hard roadblock has gone up near the Starship prototype's construction site. Couple of sheriff's vehicles.

Labpadre says the pad is clear. Others verify that the SpaceX firetruck has left the pad and it's always the last to leave.



Some venting, suggesting that fueling may be underway.

Speculation that launch might be within an hour.

 

SpaceX stream is on. Launch shooting for 5 PM CDT. (7 minutes)

Sirens howling in Boca Chica Village

 

HOPPY JUST FLEW!!!

Totally beautiful!!! No fireballs, no explosions, just Hoppy up in the sky balanced on a pillar of fire!

Then it moved over and landed precisely in the middle of its landing pad.

Perfection!

 

Videos of Hoppy's flight.

From SpaceX's stream. Watch this in full-screen:

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1166471587853479936

Another one shot by local resident Austin Bernard. You are gonna want to watch this one in full screen too with the sound on to catch the excitement:

https://twitter.com/austinbarnard45/status/1166476324187332608

And here's something interesting: One of the COPVs on top of Hoppy, the carbon overwrapped pressure vessels that contain pressurized gases, can be seen jetting off on its own right after Hoppy's landing. Not entirely surprising, considering how Hoppy is Frankenstein's spaceship seemingly held together with duct-tape. (Which is probably why it flew so well. You can accomplish anything with duct-tape.)

https://twitter.com/TrevorMahlmann/status/1166491420158545920

 

Two words . . . moon goo

https://bgr.com/2019/09/02/moon-gel-material-china-lunar-rover-mission/

 

Going up? This is one elevator where you don't want to push all the buttons

https://observer.com/2019/09/moon-space-elevator-lunar-exploration-columbia-study/

 

The Texas space cowboys took some big strides today.

The Boca Chica Mk.1 Starship prototype has been stacked. (It was built in sections.)

This is what a spaceship is supposed to look like, damn it!







Elon plans to make a big presentation on it tomorrow afternoon in Texas. Rumor has it that the presentation will be livestreamed tomorrow, perhaps starting about 4 PM PDT here:

https://www.spacex.com/

 

SpaceX starship - the new design

https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-final-starship-prototype-design

 

I’m still holding out hope that they’re able to pull this off during the next decade.

 

Researcher considers Musk and Bezo delusional, for thinking we can move people to another plant.

DO NOT LIKE.

 

We discovered a bunch of moons around Saturn. They all need names. Get busy

https://www.foxnews.com/science/saturn-new-moons-discover

 

If you're feeling inspired by this thread perhaps you'll consider enrolling in the International Space University

http://www.isunet.edu/

Sadly, it's not located in outer space. You'll have to go to France as there are no DL programs