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Comment by lasc4r | Hacker News Reader

I think it's a cool achievement, but for some perspective NASA first did a vertical rocket ship landing without chopsticks decades ago.

And the whole point of this thing was to do that on the moon, which is never going to happen at this rate.

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And in 2002 a neuroscientist hooked a camera to a blind man's brain and he could see well enough to drive a car around an empty parking lot without running into things. And yet there are still many blind people.

Doing something cool once doesn't impact civilization. Doing it affordably at scale does. If Space X can do the chopstick landing reliably and integrate it into their operations, then that will be impactful - and change civilization.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Dobelle

Is the whole point of this thing to land the first stage on the moon, or just the Starship? My understanding is that it's just Starship, and the first stage will always return to Earth. I think one of us has a very confused understanding of the whole point of the thing.

They did? I've not heard of that, and a cursory search isn't finding anything. Got any more info on this, which rocket, etc? I'd love to learn about that.

I am assuming they are talking about this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzXcTFfV3Ls&t=3s

Edit: Another link with probably better info

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC1wgWi9WWU

TLDR: DC-X (Delta Clipper X)

Just makes it more humiliating for SpaceX competitors. ESA, China, ULA all playing catchup to NASA tech from decades ago. Why didn't they commercialize it?

Did Apple invent the touchscreen or the cell phone or high dpi displays?

So if we're moving the goalposts from hundreds of successful booster landings and reuses back to a simple technology demonstrator executing a hop in the 1990s, then I propose we go all the way back to propulsively landing a manned capsule on the Moon in 1969. SpaceX is 60 years obsolete!

NASA Landed on the moon in the 60s with an abacus. SpaceX can’t get out of low Earth orbit.

Didn't SpaceX launch Europa Clipper to Jupiter a few weeks ago?

They also flung a Tesla Roadster off into a wayward journey around the Sun. Not nearly as impressive I know, but significantly more amusing.

Yup. Passed by Mars in Oct 2020 which is definitely outside low earth orbit.

Clipper is a massive payload for a planetary science mission as well. SLS was the only other operational US vehicle with the payload capacity.

The Clipper was planned to be launched on the SLS, but due to delays in the SLS program and its massive cost ($2+ billion per launch), it was decided to use the Falcon Heavy to launch it even though the Falcon Heavy is a bit smaller and it will take 5 years instead of 3 to get to Jupiter.

Do you really believe that they “can’t” get out of low earth orbit, as opposed to “haven’t yet”??

I think it's a really responsible decision by SpaceX to not put their StarShip stage into a full orbit until they have demonstrated the ability to get it back out of orbit.

They should be applauded for this, along with their iterative approach.

Note that this next test will demonstrate re-light of the engine in space at micro-gravity. This is the demonstration needed prior to putting the StarShip in orbit. We'll probably see a full orbital test for the flight after this one.

They could have easily put previous tests into orbit - it's a fairly minor change to their existing regime and they have plenty of fuel to use.

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