Starship

[LooLooSud33Spider]

Did anyone else watch in awe at the recent Launch of the Spacex Starship prototype . That’s some next level .

[Sud 145]

You can bet Lauren did.

[Spacenut]

Indeed I did. Very impressive. I love the way SpaceX just carry on with their incremental development programme, first with the Grasshopper and then with Falcon 9, initially quite a few failures but now F9 first stage landing is a regular occurance, even the clamshell launch fairings are being recovered.

Cargo Dragon and then Crew Dragon developed and flying, while Jeff Bezos' New Shepard is still doing test hops and New Glenn remains on the drawing board.

Starship is a bold concept, and its amazing how far development has gone so far - first with vertical hops and now flying to 41,000 ft, coming down in a high-drag reentry orientation and then returning to vertical for landing, just a little too late in this case. Already working with 3 Raptor engines (Starhopper only had one), it won't be long before Starship/Super Heavy goes into regular service at this rate.

This is the kind of space programme I've been waiting for since Apollo!