User Panel
WDR Today? Or just stack cryo?
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They are discussing it now on dedicated stream. Partial load test probably.
SpaceX Tests the Full Stack of the Fourth Starship Flight Test |
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Closeup of S31 damage at 3:30.
Ready For Launch! Launch License Very Soon! SpaceX Starship Flight 4 Imminent! |
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It's pretty wild that this thread is over 5 years old.
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every gun makes its own tune
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Originally Posted By Hadrian: It's pretty wild that this thread is over 5 years old. View Quote At first I thought it was a joke. A rather patchy looking grain silo with a rocket motor shoved in it We have come a ways since then, haven't we? And I would say we still have a way left to go. Europe’s Newest Rockets!!! Inside RFA & ISAR's Rocket Factories! |
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It’s… probably not as bad as you think it is.
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https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/05/we-take-a-stab-at-decoding-spacexs-ever-changing-plans-for-starship-in-florida/
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https://www.cameroncountytx.gov/order-closing-boca-chica-beach-and-state-hwy-4-saturday-june-1-2024-with-alternative-dates-of-sunday-june-2-or-monday-june-3-from-1200-a-m-to-200-p-m/ |
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Originally Posted By Chokey:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GOOKBTOaAAAwFiD?format=jpg&name=4096x4096 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GOOKEPhakAAX20e?format=png&name=900x900 View Quote Groovy. |
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It’s… probably not as bad as you think it is.
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think im going to drive down there tomorrow finally to see what I can see - heading down from just north of Houston. been itching for a road trip and cant make anymore excuses to not go down there.
any advice for a first time visitor? I'd really, REALLY like to get up close and personal to the rocket garden if thats still possible? Remedios Ave is supposed to be a public road, which drives right by them. im taking my Jeep so I certainly plan to drive down to the beach to check out the launch pad from all angles. is there a gift shop type place? do they do tours? or is it just a fabrication / launch facility? I watch launches and follow somewhat closely, but am going in blind as far as an actual visit down there. I have no plans on where I staying, I just assume I'll find a place once im down there and done exploring for the day. |
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Originally Posted By superspud: think im going to drive down there tomorrow finally to see what I can see - heading down from just north of Houston. been itching for a road trip and cant make anymore excuses to not go down there. any advice for a first time visitor? I'd really, REALLY like to get up close and personal to the rocket garden if thats still possible? Remedios Ave is supposed to be a public road, which drives right by them. im taking my Jeep so I certainly plan to drive down to the beach to check out the launch pad from all angles. is there a gift shop type place? do they do tours? or is it just a fabrication / launch facility? I watch launches and follow somewhat closely, but am going in blind as far as an actual visit down there. I have no plans on where I staying, I just assume I'll find a place once im down there and done exploring for the day. View Quote Sadly, the rocket garden is no longer accessible. No gift shop, tours, or visitor's center of any kind. Most importantly, no restrooms or convenience store, so take what you need and hit the head before you drive out. Watch this for other useful tips. It helped us a lot before we visited last month: Visiting SpaceX's Starbase | Things You Need To Know To See Starship Launch |
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The heat shield needing to be reusable is something that had not crossed my mind. Hell Nasa got lucky if it survived enough to keep the shuttle from burning up and we all know that didn't even always work. This will be interesting to watch in the future. Replacing a few hundred thousand tiles will be time consuming to say the least.
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The heat shield on the shuttle worked. It was the foam and ice on the bipod frost ramp that compromised things.
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Preferred Pronoun: Space Lord Mutherfucker
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Originally Posted By Hadrian: Sadly, the rocket garden is no longer accessible. No gift shop, tours, or visitor's center of any kind. Most importantly, no restrooms or convenience store, so take what you need and hit the head before you drive out. Watch this for other useful tips. It helped us a lot before we visited last month: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPazqKRf9NM View Quote Like Hadrian said, no restrooms. Very bumpy, almost non-existent road. So stop at the Stripes (at 3755 Boca Chica Blvd, Brownsville, TX 78521) and pee before you continue. Even if you see this place and decide you don't need to pee. You fucking will after that road. |
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Life is about choices.
If you make a mistake once, it's a mistake. You make the same mistake again, that's a choice. |
Originally Posted By Chokey:
View Quote Looks like they need to add something back. |
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Life is about choices.
If you make a mistake once, it's a mistake. You make the same mistake again, that's a choice. |
Originally Posted By HeavyMetal: The heat shield on the shuttle worked. It was the foam and ice on the bipod frost ramp that compromised things. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By HeavyMetal: The heat shield on the shuttle worked. It was the foam and ice on the bipod frost ramp that compromised things. They just happened over non-critical areas. And on almost every shuttle flight since, there has been some kind of problem with the tiles, although never in critical areas. "You could actually get a burn-through in some regions and still land safely, and you could just go repair the burn through place. So it is very critical as to where it happens and how it happens," Wiskerchen said. https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=90890&page=1 |
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Life is about choices.
If you make a mistake once, it's a mistake. You make the same mistake again, that's a choice. |
Is June 1st confirmed for flight 4? I am going to be in Corpus June 5-7th and I’ve been praying the test would take place during that window. I would absolutely drive that 3 hours extra just to see the test flight. It’s on my bucket list.
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Originally Posted By RinsableTick: Is June 1st confirmed for flight 4? I am going to be in Corpus June 5-7th and I've been praying the test would take place during that window. I would absolutely drive that 3 hours extra just to see the test flight. It's on my bucket list. View Quote That said, Musk posted this overnight:
So who knows... |
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Now targeting June 5: https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-4
Also of note, they're planning to jettison the hot stage ring after separation this time. |
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Flight 3 Report
https://www.spacex.com/updates/#flight-3-report May 24, 2024 ON THE PATH TO RAPID REUSABILITY Starship is designed to fundamentally alter humanity’s access to space, ultimately enabling us to make life multiplanetary. The third flight test of Starship and Super Heavy made tremendous strides towards this future and was an important step on the road to rapidly reliable reusable rockets. On March 14, 2024, Starship successfully lifted off at 8:25 a.m. CT from Starbase, Texas. All 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy Booster started up successfully and completed a full-duration burn during ascent, followed by a successful hot-stage separation. This was the second successful ascent of the Super Heavy booster, the world’s most powerful launch vehicle. At stage separation, Starship's six second stage Raptor engines all started successfully and powered the vehicle to its expected trajectory, becoming the first Starship to complete its full-duration ascent burn. Following stage separation, Super Heavy initiated its boostback burn, which sends commands to 13 of the vehicle’s 33 Raptor engines to propel the rocket toward its intended landing location. All 13 engines ran successfully until six engines began shutting down, triggering a benign early boostback shutdown. The booster then continued to descend until attempting its landing burn, which commands the same 13 engines used during boostback to perform the planned final slowing for the rocket before a soft touchdown in the water, but the six engines that shut down early in the boostback burn were disabled from attempting the landing burn startup, leaving seven engines commanded to start up with two successfully reaching mainstage ignition. The booster had lower than expected landing burn thrust when contact was lost at approximately 462 meters in altitude over the Gulf of Mexico and just under seven minutes into the mission. The most likely root cause for the early boostback burn shutdown was determined to be continued filter blockage where liquid oxygen is supplied to the engines, leading to a loss of inlet pressure in engine oxygen turbopumps. SpaceX implemented hardware changes ahead of Flight 3 to mitigate this issue, which resulted in the booster progressing to its first ever landing burn attempt. Super Heavy boosters for Flight 4 and beyond will get additional hardware inside oxygen tanks to further improve propellant filtration capabilities. And utilizing data gathered from Super Heavy’s first ever landing burn attempt, additional hardware and software changes are being implemented to increase startup reliability of the Raptor engines in landing conditions. During Starship’s coast phase, the vehicle accomplished several of the flight test’s additional objectives, including the first ever test of its payload door in space. The vehicle also successfully completed a propellant transfer demonstration, moving liquid oxygen from a header tank into the main tank. This test provided valuable data for eventual ship-to-ship propellant transfers that will enable missions like returning astronauts to the Moon under NASA’s Artemis program. Several minutes after Starship began its coast phase, the vehicle began losing the ability to control its attitude. Starship continued flying its nominal trajectory but given the loss of attitude control, the vehicle automatically triggered a pre-planned command to skip its planned on-orbit relight of a single Raptor engine. Starship went on to experience its first ever reentry from space, providing valuable data on heating and vehicle control during hypersonic reentry. The lack of attitude control resulted in an off-nominal entry, with the ship seeing much larger than anticipated heating on both protected and unprotected areas. High-definition live views of entry and a considerable amount of telemetry were successfully transmitted in real time by Starlink terminals operating on Starship. The flight test’s conclusion came when telemetry was lost at approximately 65 kilometers in altitude, roughly 49 minutes into the mission. The most likely root cause of the unplanned roll was determined to be clogging of the valves responsible for roll control. SpaceX has since added additional roll control thrusters on upcoming Starships to improve attitude control redundancy and upgraded hardware for improved resilience to blockage. Following the flight test, SpaceX led the investigation efforts with oversight from the FAA and participation from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB). During Flight 3, neither vehicle’s automated flight safety system was triggered, and no vehicle debris impacted outside of pre-defined hazard areas. Pending FAA finding of no public safety impact, a license modification for the next flight can be issued without formal closure of the mishap investigation. Upgrades derived from the flight test will debut on the next launch from Starbase on Flight 4, as we turn our focus from achieving orbit to demonstrating the ability to return and reuse Starship and Super Heavy. The team incorporated numerous hardware and software improvements in addition to operational changes including the jettison of the Super Heavy’s hot-stage adapter following boostback to reduce booster mass for the final phase of flight. The third flight of Starship provided a glimpse through brilliant plasma of a rapidly reusable future on the horizon. We’re continuing to rapidly develop Starship, putting flight hardware in a flight environment to learn as quickly as possible as we build a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond. |
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This is probably a very dumb question.
#1 why are there filters, why not filter on the ground. Extra Mas and components degrade performance and add complexity. #2 are the filters actually filtering anything, or just acting as more of a honeycomb structure to convert turbulent flow to laminar? |
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It’s chunks of water ice.
The water ice is a combustion by-product of the engine. The hot gas pressurization system is a tap-off from the Raptors. |
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Preferred Pronoun: Space Lord Mutherfucker
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made my trip down today and wow - that was an overwhelming experience to say the absolute least.
maybe its because its the week before launch? but holy shit were there soooooo many construction workers. every single spaceX parking spot was full and the entire paved and graveled area on the spaceX side was full of workers cars. trucks, construction trucks, delivery drivers, raw steel deliveries flying up and down the road and equipment / machinery driving around as well. with that being said - really freakin cool stuff to try to take in while also trying not to get into a wreck or in anybodies way. not many tourist at all surprisingly, there were probably 10 cars parked down at the end by the launch pad, and the only people on the beach were a few fisherman. I was able to park in a few spots to get out and walk around. you can tell they have really beefed up their "privacy" with the fencing and big concealment panels. I'd imagine it to keep traffic flowing which I completely understand. no one seemed to care that I was there so long as I stayed out of the way - which I did. the Rocket Garden is sadly unaccesable. Unsure if its b/c they are doing construction on the road that goes by it or if its closed for good but you can walk up to the security checkpoint and get somewhat close - if you can find parking. drove down from north of Houston then back up to Corpus - I am beat. time for some room service beers and a nice spread of food. here's a few of the pictures I managed to take - like I said, very chaotic, hard to keep out of everyones way. edit to add - I was upset to see they had un-stacked it. was really hoping it would be fully stacked, but still - huge. Attached File Attached File Attached File Attached File Attached File |
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Originally Posted By superspud: made my trip down today and wow - that was an overwhelming experience to say the absolute least. maybe its because its the week before launch? but holy shit were there soooooo many construction workers. every single spaceX parking spot was full and the entire paved and graveled area on the spaceX side was full of workers cars. trucks, construction trucks, delivery drivers, raw steel deliveries flying up and down the road and equipment / machinery driving around as well. with that being said - really freakin cool stuff to try to take in while also trying not to get into a wreck or in anybodies way. not many tourist at all surprisingly, there were probably 10 cars parked down at the end by the launch pad, and the only people on the beach were a few fisherman. I was able to park in a few spots to get out and walk around. you can tell they have really beefed up their "privacy" with the fencing and big concealment panels. I'd imagine it to keep traffic flowing which I completely understand. no one seemed to care that I was there so long as I stayed out of the way - which I did. the Rocket Garden is sadly unaccesable. Unsure if its b/c they are doing construction on the road that goes by it or if its closed for good but you can walk up to the security checkpoint and get somewhat close - if you can find parking. drove down from north of Houston then back up to Corpus - I am beat. time for some room service beers and a nice spread of food. here's a few of the pictures I managed to take - like I said, very chaotic, hard to keep out of everyones way. edit to add - I was upset to see they had un-stacked it. was really hoping it would be fully stacked, but still - huge. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/327444/IMG_8531_jpeg-3222554.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/327444/IMG_8536_jpeg-3222555.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/327444/IMG_8540_jpeg-3222556.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/327444/IMG_8563_jpeg-3222557.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/327444/IMG_8567_jpeg-3222558.JPG View Quote At 5:06 of this video, you can see the construction that is cutting off access to the rocket garden. In terms of traffic, parking, and the general level of activity around Starbase, I spent a week visiting at the end of April and it was like that every day. They are working at a furious pace. |
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Originally Posted By Hadrian: Glad you made the trip down. Surreal, isn't it? At 5:06 of this video, you can see the construction that is cutting off access to the rocket garden. In terms of traffic, parking, and the general level of activity around Starbase, I spent a week visiting at the end of April and it was like that every day. They are working at a furious pace. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By Hadrian: Originally Posted By superspud: made my trip down today and wow - that was an overwhelming experience to say the absolute least. maybe its because its the week before launch? but holy shit were there soooooo many construction workers. every single spaceX parking spot was full and the entire paved and graveled area on the spaceX side was full of workers cars. trucks, construction trucks, delivery drivers, raw steel deliveries flying up and down the road and equipment / machinery driving around as well. with that being said - really freakin cool stuff to try to take in while also trying not to get into a wreck or in anybodies way. not many tourist at all surprisingly, there were probably 10 cars parked down at the end by the launch pad, and the only people on the beach were a few fisherman. I was able to park in a few spots to get out and walk around. you can tell they have really beefed up their "privacy" with the fencing and big concealment panels. I'd imagine it to keep traffic flowing which I completely understand. no one seemed to care that I was there so long as I stayed out of the way - which I did. the Rocket Garden is sadly unaccesable. Unsure if its b/c they are doing construction on the road that goes by it or if its closed for good but you can walk up to the security checkpoint and get somewhat close - if you can find parking. drove down from north of Houston then back up to Corpus - I am beat. time for some room service beers and a nice spread of food. here's a few of the pictures I managed to take - like I said, very chaotic, hard to keep out of everyones way. edit to add - I was upset to see they had un-stacked it. was really hoping it would be fully stacked, but still - huge. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/327444/IMG_8531_jpeg-3222554.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/327444/IMG_8536_jpeg-3222555.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/327444/IMG_8540_jpeg-3222556.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/327444/IMG_8563_jpeg-3222557.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/327444/IMG_8567_jpeg-3222558.JPG At 5:06 of this video, you can see the construction that is cutting off access to the rocket garden. In terms of traffic, parking, and the general level of activity around Starbase, I spent a week visiting at the end of April and it was like that every day. They are working at a furious pace. no where else in the world can you get that kid of access to literal space hardware - its incredible. I work in steel fabrication (procurement for a large fab shop) - we build oil rigs, large LNG projects, even provided tons and tons and tons of steel for the Tesla building in Austin - so I was fascinated by the massive, massive scale of all the fabrication and construction there. Elon / SpaceX's crane is impressive Attached File |
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Originally Posted By Hadrian: Now targeting June 5: https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-4 Also of note, they're planning to jettison the hot stage ring after separation this time. View Quote That seems like a departure from 100% reusable. |
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Originally Posted By Obo2: That seems like a departure from 100% reusable. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By Obo2: Originally Posted By Hadrian: Now targeting June 5: https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-4 Also of note, they're planning to jettison the hot stage ring after separation this time. That seems like a departure from 100% reusable. I imagine it's a kludge to deal with the fact that the boosters weren't originally designed for hot-staging. If they keep hot-staging, future boosters designed with it in mind will be built and not require jettisoning the ring. It's heavy and probably causes center-of-gravity issues; at least, that's my completely uneducated guess. |
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At the moment the rocket is 100% expended. Even if they make it through re entry on the next flight it's probably going to be awhile until they start reflying hardware.
Even if they do drop the hot staging ring I would imagine it's a much cheaper thing to replace than the second stage of a Falcon 9. Those engines aren't cheap. Theres a reason why the vacum Merlins sometimes have those stubby little nozzles. Attached File Hafnium doesn't exactly grow on trees. |
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It’s… probably not as bad as you think it is.
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Originally Posted By Obo2: That seems like a departure from 100% reusable. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By Obo2: Originally Posted By Hadrian: Now targeting June 5: https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-4 Also of note, they're planning to jettison the hot stage ring after separation this time. That seems like a departure from 100% reusable. |
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Tom Sawyer.
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Originally Posted By Houstons_Problem: Meh. It's not a very sophisticated part and it does carry a bit of weight. Something to optimize much later. Better to focus on more important things right now View Quote I get the logic, just surprised musk didn't outright veto the idea on principle. |
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Originally Posted By Obo2: I get the logic, just surprised musk didn't outright veto the idea on principle. View Quote A temporary allowance of a non-reusable component to allow testing of the rest of the launch system to continue, instead of putting the test program on hold while an alternative to that component is designed? Makes perfect sense for the rapid development process. He probably wasn't happy about it, but he'd be even less happy about putting the test program on an extended hold. |
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Earthsheltered house - a reinforced bunker that even the treehuggers consider to be socially acceptable.
Earthbag house - like an earthsheltered house, but cheaper and easier to DIY. |
Originally Posted By Obo2: I get the logic, just surprised musk didn't outright veto the idea on principle. View Quote SpaceX isn't obstinate. The initial plan was carbon fiber. Thrown out for 300 series stainless. Cold staging, now hot staging. Fancy concrete, now retrofitted stainless deluge system. Dagger is always misinterpreting Elon statements as dishonesty when they are really just the result of extremely rapid acceptance of new realities and developments without any sort of misguided shame or cover up. That's a sign of compete honesty, not deception. |
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Preferred Pronoun: Space Lord Mutherfucker
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Originally Posted By Hesperus: At the moment the rocket is 100% expended. Even if they make it through re entry on the next flight it's probably going to be awhile until they start reflying hardware. Even if they do drop the hot staging ring I would imagine it's a much cheaper thing to replace than the second stage of a Falcon 9. Those engines aren't cheap. Theres a reason why the vacum Merlins sometimes have those stubby little nozzles. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/383325/20240415_122043_jpg-3223156.JPG Hafnium doesn't exactly grow on trees. View Quote It’s not Hafnium they are saving with the nozzle reduction, it’s Niobium. |
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Preferred Pronoun: Space Lord Mutherfucker
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"“If the landing on the virtual tower works, then we will actually try on Flight 5 to come back and land on the tower” at Starbase, he said, part of the company’s plan to rapidly reuse Starship vehicles."
Source With only one launch structure, that is way too risky and stupid. |
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Originally Posted By AmericanPeople: "“If the landing on the virtual tower works, then we will actually try on Flight 5 to come back and land on the tower” at Starbase, he said, part of the company’s plan to rapidly reuse Starship vehicles." Source With only one launch structure, that is way too risky and stupid. View Quote If they make a hash of it the FAA investigation will allow plenty of time to rebuild. |
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Originally Posted By HermanSnerd:
In reality, those two hot chicks that you just met that want you to come home with them for "a good time", are merely the bait for the huge guy hiding in the closet wearing a Batman suit. |
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Originally Posted By Chokey: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GObqWlZXgAAmYCw?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GOcfkjeW4AACxNh?format=jpg&name=large View Quote newly engaged with this thread so apologies if its covered - where is this? |
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Originally Posted By HeavyMetal: It’s not Hafnium they are saving with the nozzle reduction, it’s Niobium. View Quote Whatever it takes. Attached File |
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It’s… probably not as bad as you think it is.
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honestly other then the arm hardware and hydraulics which they probably have spares of, there not much to hurt on the tower. its heavy massive steel. on landing theres not much fuel on board and the ship is aluminum foil compared to the tower.
Tank farms more the risk. |
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