We're Closer Than Ever to Reaching Mars with Space X’s Starship Super Heavy



It is now more likely than not that humans will reach Mars, which will transform life on this planet and beyond.

Last week, Starship completed its fifth test flight and demonstrated a dramatic mode of booster recovery by catching the enormous Super Heavy first stage on the same launch tower it had left only a few minutes earlier. Less than an hour later, the upper-stage ship successfully reentered the atmosphere and performed a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean. Aside from a hot staging ring jettisoned by the booster on its way back to the launch site, all the components of the rocket made a controlled return to Earth, making this flight a significant milestone on the path to producing a fully reusable launch vehicle. This promises to exponentially increase the amount of mass that can be sent into orbit, beyond even the unprecedented amounts of payload delivered by the partially reusable Falcon 9.

Read more from Peter Hague: https://quillette.com/2024/10/20/catching-the-starship-a-breakthrough-for-humanity-space-elon-musk-starship/
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32 thoughts on “We're Closer Than Ever to Reaching Mars with Space X’s Starship Super Heavy”

  1. … and now we have Space X criticised by the FAA officials trying to restrict Space X simply because they don't like his politics!!! They literally say this! What virtue do these FAA people claim? And then, tonight in his rally in Minnesota Tim Watz threatened the entire businesses of all of Elon Musk's activities (I joke not – he literally made the naked threat) because of his support of Trump… yet Zuckerberg can give $400 Million? So, let's not get too excited…

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  2. Oh Ms Booth, what a lovely floral red dress on such a hot day here where it got t 42*C this afternoon. You certainly know how to dress for the season, even though you are not here and it probably never got to 42*C in your studio today.. That is important but not the reason I comment here now. The reason I comment here now is because in Australia the official language is English English, and the word 'schedule' is pronounced with a silent 'c'.

    You may ask yourself, Why do we say 'skool' but not 'skedule' ? The answer, my dear, is in the etymology! The etymology of the English word 'school' is derived from the Dutch word 'skool', whilst the etymology of the word 'schedule' is derived from German, as in 'schnel' or whatever German word you fancy making fun of right now on such a hot afternoon. I know it is very difficult to understand for modern young people, but just think of how much more respect you will receive no matter what coloured dress you wear on set if you know how to speak English English properly.

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  3. Three things will game changers.
    1. No combustion launch systems like Spin Launch and others, so physical materials can be shot into orbit very cheaply.
    2. Humanoid robots that can assemble RSSs in space, and help build habitations on the Moon and Mars.
    3. RSSs everywhere.

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  4. I hate how all of the channels that I think are reasonable former leftists always end up becoming tech fanboys. As a lifelong Silicon Valley resident, I can tell you that 1. They don’t need you to stan for them, they’re up their own @sses plenty, and 2. They’re not the heros they’ve convinced you that they are. They destroyed San Francisco and now blame it entirely on the “woke left.” The woke left was running San Francisco for decades and yes they weren’t going great, but until the tech libertarians came along and put the nails in the coffin, we were limping along fine. Just stop .

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  5. Hello Quillette: Mass is the real killer when doing space launches. For the U.S. Space Shuttle it cost a person's weight in gold to send that person up. One of the reason why the Soviets sent women into space is that they were smaller, lighter and required less oxygen and water. Have a lovely day.

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  6. The wrinkle in this is we are in a Fourth Turning and a Mouse Utopia/population collapse scenario currently. More conflict or natural extinction level events could EASILY stop this from happening. We may see an increase in global Volcanism that causes famine and chaos globally which thus triggers more wars. The other problem is birth rates have collapsed in many Western countries and many Asian countries too.

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  7. Whenever I think I’m on the verge of becoming right wing I’m reminded of why yall are not it. The predictable worship of fake genius Elon Musk and the ridiculous plan to colonize Mars is just as eye roll worthy as some of the more delusional leftist theories. Enjoy sticking your tongues all the way up Silicon Valley’s bottom.

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  8. We could have been here a decade ago if 1) we didn't have to spend $billions$ every year on crime, and 2) if our schools spent far less time on DEI and political correctness and more on better teaching and giving incentives for students to pursue STEMM instead of worthless subjects.

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