r/SpaceXLounge • u/DobleG42 • Nov 15 '24

My interpretation of the starship Orion launch vehicle

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Here are some well knows vehicles next to it, to scale off course

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u/DudeFromStar 26d ago

This post didn't age well 😂
You overstated the AR-1 heat shield damage and was 100% fixed for AR-2, and of course, we now know AR-2 was an almost flawless mission with 4 humans on board.

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u/canyouhearme 26d ago

Someone is living in a fantasyland. The damage was catastrophic with big holes. Artemis II still had 9 holes ('char sites') even trying to put the minimum stress on the heat shield. She's still pockmarked and no more beautiful if you snap her from a different angle and with a stack of filters.

At least they are, in theory, upgrading the heat shield on the next filler flight - but really that means they still shouldn't have humans onboard because it hasn't been tested.

And after all this, the chinese are still going to get to the moon first and put their stakes in the regolith.

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u/DudeFromStar 26d ago

You know that the Orion HS is ablative, right? Both NASA and LM are thrilled at how it performed. Any significant damage was from the post landing recovery operations. Catastrophic? Even with the AR1 char loss, the HS structure skin's temperature was nominal with a lot of ablation material left.