Editor: Editorial Office
On the day of the first flight of the "Starship", millions of people around the world waited in front of the live broadcast. Who would have thought that because of the problem of the pressure valve, Musk's Martian dream would be a little further away.
Musk's dream of Mars stopped 40 seconds before launch.
Tonight, millions of people on Earth are waiting for the launch of the starship, and as the countdown gets closer and closer, everyone's hearts are clenched nervously.
However, with 40 seconds to go, the countdown suddenly stopped.
It jumped for 39 seconds and then backed back
Musk said the reason seems to be that the pressure valve is frozen and will not launch today unless it starts working soon.
And Twitter, which had just been on the top for two days, was also taken down in ashes.
Now, his latest tweet is: "Today, I learned a lot. I'm unloading the propellant now, and I'll come back in a few days..."
The $3 billion was not burned in vain, which really made Academician Ma palpitate.
Netizen: I didn't wait to witness history
Previously, Musk had also predicted that the launch had a success rate of 50%. Everyone thought it would fail, but they didn't expect it to fail.
Of course, there are also optimistic netizens who commented: If it does not explode, it is a success.
And the abrupt termination of the much-anticipated live broadcast also made netizens complain, which is simply like an update of a computer system.
"I originally wanted to witness history, but it seems that next time."
Some netizens jokingly said, "Valves rule everything". (Valves rule everything)
"You've learned a lot, and it took me 45 minutes to see the results today."
In fact, before the launch, Musk had a hunch that it would be delayed for three days. I have to say, a little metaphysics is in it.
And netizens also took advantage of the trend to make a meme with a relaunch date of 4.20.
Turn back the clock to today's day
More than twenty hours ago, everyone was flooded by the news that the starship was about to launch.
For this launch, Musk burned $3 billion.
Musk is said to have a 50% success rate, which also implies that the starship is likely to explode like many "predecessors".
Musk wittily said that given that this is the first launch, as long as you don't blow up the launch pad, it will be considered a success.
Can Musk's Martian dream come true? The launch is of great significance.
Several astronomers in the United States predicted that "if the starship is successfully launched, it will greatly enhance our space capabilities and essentially change the way astrophysics missions are constructed." The latter has been severely constrained by the capabilities of the launcher and has not changed substantially in 20 years."
The atmosphere is baked here, Musk is either vigorously successful or vigorously failed this time.
The launch time was repeatedly postponed from the originally predicted 8:00 p.m. Beijing time, as Musk predicted, because "we are very cautious about this release."
According to the plan, the rocket's thrusters will be dropped in the Gulf of Mexico, and the spacecraft will land in the Pacific Ocean to await recovery.
The world's most powerful starship, conjoined launch
It can be said that Musk's "Starship" is the largest and most powerful super-heavy rocket in human history.
Just by looking at the picture, it is enough to see its grandeur.
According to official accounts, the starship is reusable, and the goal is to transport crew and cargo to Earth orbit to help people travel to the moon, Mars, and beyond.
So far, the SpaceX team has completed multiple suborbital flight tests at the Starbase level, demonstrating unprecedented control.
Tests proved that the starship can prepare for landing at a subsonic stage, and then rekindle the engine, flipping to the vertical.
In addition, the team conducted several tests of the super-heavy rocket, including static ignition. The team also built the world's tallest rocket launch and receiving tower, standing 146 meters tall.
At 394 feet (about 120 meters) tall, the Starship is the tallest rocket ever built by SpaceX, nearly 90 feet (about 27 meters) taller than the Statue of Liberty.
The Starship consists of two parts, a Super Heavy booster called Super Heavy, which is 70 meters high and has 33 Raptor engines powering the first stage booster.
The other is the Starship, 50 meters tall and equipped with 6 Raptor engines, which can carry cargo and people.
Starship is even more powerful than NASA's SLS rocket, with nearly twice the thrust and still reusable
Starships use methane as their main fuel, which is cheaper and easier to handle than conventionally used hydrogen.
In addition, and most importantly, there are trace amounts of methane in the Martian atmosphere, which will facilitate future starships to carry out Mars missions.
The Starship Super Heavy was designed on the same principle as the Falcon-9 rocket. 33 Raptor engines power the first stage booster, capable of producing 16 million pounds of thrust at full speed.
It could lift 150 tons of cargo for extraterrestrial travel, far more than the Saturn V carrying Apollo astronauts to the moon.
At the same time, the starship will be fully reusable, and the super-heavy booster will land like SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.
Musk has said that this will ensure that when the spacecraft goes to the moon or Mars, the rocket returns to land to be refurbished for another flight.
Musk's sea of stars
Starships carry Musk's long-held dream of colonizing Mars.
He kept counting down on Twitter, and the starship's cryogenic propellant was loading, 1 hour before launch.
Musk also pinned a tweet posted in September '19, "angry, angry at the disappearance of light."
This quote comes from a poem by English poet Dylan Thomas, "Don't Go Gently into That Good Night" written in the mid-20th century.
In "Interstellar", when the spaceship carrying the hope of human survival flies into space, Brand keeps chanting this poem at the last moment of his life.
This is not only his belief, but more like a nightmare, hoping that humanity will resist and perpetuate the human species.
And what Musk has to do is to save mankind and continue human civilization!
The only way to do this: colonize Mars.
The important goal of Starship is to help humans become a cross-planet species and help humans leapfrog from earth civilization to space civilization.
Musk's deep love for Mars. He spontaneously founded his own Life to Mars Foundation to encourage all kinds of exploration of Mars.
"If you're going to be buried somewhere, born on Earth, it's a cool thing to die on Mars."
Previously, Musk had said that SpaceX plans to send humans to Mars in 2024 and build a self-sustaining human colony city by 2050.
Step by step, to the present
SpaceX's plans to develop a heavy-lift launch vehicle go all the way back to 2005.
By 2012, methane-oxygen engines were being developed, and the program made its public debut in 2016.
Starship development plans generally follow an iterative and incremental approach, involving frequent prototyping, testing, and refinement, including low-altitude and high-altitude flight tests.
That is to say, more than ten years have passed since the idea began to be launched today.
In November 2005, before SpaceX launched its first rocket, the Falcon 1, Musk first mentioned the concept of a heavy-lift rocket called BFR. It is possible to launch a 100-ton rocket into low Earth orbit.
And in July 2010, a year after the last Falcon 1 launch, SpaceX announced plans to continue developing heavy launch vehicles based on Falcon rockets, including various types of super heavy launch vehicles.
Around 2015, Musk is expected to develop the Mars Colony Transport, a rocket used for Mars colonization.
On September 26, 2016, the Raptor engine fired for the first time. A few days later, Musk announced a proposed interplanetary transport system launch vehicle using the Raptor engine, with tanks in both stages made of carbon composites to store liquid methane and liquid oxygen.
In September 2017, at the 68th International Astronautical Congress, Musk proposed a revised scheme for the interplanetary transportation system, called the Great Falcon Rocket (BFR). The BFR will also be fully reusable, but reduced in size, with a low-Earth orbit capacity of 150 tons (330,000 pounds).
A variant of BFR could launch satellites into orbit, resupply the International Space Station, land on the moon, and send humans to Mars. In April 2018, the mayor of Los Angeles confirmed plans to build a BFR rocket production facility at the Port of Los Angeles.
Failed "predecessors"
Previously, the starship had been tested several times, allowing it to fly about 6 miles in the air and then back to Earth.
SN8, SN9, and SN10 all failed to send, and accidents such as crashes and explosions occurred one after another.
In March 21, the SN11 prototype was blown to pieces directly.
And in 2021, SN15 finally landed successfully.
SpaceX noted in a statement on its website that SN15 features "structural, avionics and software improvements" compared to previous Starship prototypes.
Musk tweeted excitedly after landing (nominal is a space industry term used to refer to when things go as planned).
So, let's be patient a little more and wait for the day of 4.20.
Resources:
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-test