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Credit: u/hidblyzruled
Elon Musk is a subhuman nazi cunt ๐
No one wants to be associated with that literal Nazi
I prefer the shuttle than Elon's midlife crisis
Maybe audiences actually like the Space Shuttle.
It gets the people going
Starship is the exploding thing in the bottom picture
Assuming it's supposed to fly along with the swarm of missiles in the background, the pitch angle is all fucked up.
If it hasn't ditched the tank, then its still firing the RS-25s and the thrust vector points through the tank and not out the nose of the orbiter.
Also never mind the huge discrepancy in TWR between the shuttle and those missiles.
First thing: These are stills from the 2021 Netflix movie "Don't Look Up".
And yes, the space shuttle was decommissioned by then.
However: (Plot spoilers ahead)
spoiler
As it is used to lead a suicide mission along with all these nuclear missiles to destroy an incoming comet that's about to hit Earth, I kinda accept that they may have had no other option available.
Based on the movie premise I also can imagine them wanting to save the good one and not destroy the brand new ones on a suicide mission.
Its problem is that its useless for its program for anything other then short term
Too expensive with too low launch cadance to do anything alone
Non of the first 3 launches will or have used the same heatshield due to a dangerus flaw only found in artemis 1, despite a launch haveing already happened specifucly to test the heatshield (and ofcource the new heatshield will not have an unmanned test, at least its "just" a reentry from lower earth orbit so if it has anotehr problem its less likely to fail completely and have crew loss).Theres a reason why non of the final HLS options used sls ,you simply arent getting sustained long term presence on the moon while being unable to launch more then once yearly and takeng around 1/10 of the entire nasa buget per launch.
Considering im seeing atlas missile in the background of the first one , may as well "just" take the old saturn 5s from the museums
Facts. It's a multistate boondoggle of epic proportions which only existed because they found a way to spread the money across the entire fucking country.
It's an enormous waste of resources.
Where are the boosters in the first shot?!? And why are there so many other rockets surrounding it?
Also starship has not proven itself to be safe enough for humans yet. Shit keeps fucking up
The rockets are there to hit a comet that's on a collision course with Earth. The pics are in the wrong chronological order.
The shuttle made it to space and back. REPEATEDLY.
Elons monument to compensation can barely make a single orbit
Elons monument to compensation can barely make a single orbit
Unlike with the spaceshuttle there are more regulations for safety. Most of the starship flights could have gone to orbit (exept 1,2,7 and 8, debatable on 9) , but its just that its an unneeded risk
This reminds me of a quote i saw about the spaceshuttle i saw some time ago
"You know you're in trouble when the Russians are adding safety features to your design"
How many flights have landed intact?
None.
But they haven't tried to catch the ship yet, so this is to be expected. The first ship catch attempt could be as early as Flight 14 sometime in August.
So how many have ended up as piles of scrap metal and how much fuel have they used to launch those piles of scrap metal?
And has anyone noticed it's getting warmer these days for some completely unknown reason?
I know this probably isnt a question made in good fait but eh, why not
Both impossible to know exactly (cant exactly inspect a rocket midair) and at least partly irrelevant
Unlike with the shuttle with which they wanted use even he enterprise operationaly , spacex never internded for any of the vehicles so far to be anything other then test articles
Theyve quite litteraly just... not put any heatshielding on some parts on some flights to see how well they survive (these flights have survived suprisingly well)
Lithobraking doesn't count as landing
If everything that can be done safely without going over the entirety of america isnt enough for you then you gotta wait for them to actualy be able to try in the first place (ie faa permission, so 2 to 3 good flights)
...Safely?
How many launch pads have been destroyed?
How much scrap metal, leftover fuel and mystery materials used in the heatshielding have ended up being dumped into the ocean with every test?
All for some pedo trillionaire's ego trip.
How many launch pads have been destroyed?
Due to spacex's starship?
Zero currently
I have to ask
This is at the second time, maybe no3 , someone has "asked" this as if its a gotcha
Where did you get that impression?
How much scrap metal, leftover fuel and mystery materials used in the heatshielding have ended up being dumped into the ocean with every test?
Gonna be honest
In the grand scheme of things , just... not much
The total empty mass(so no fuel or payload) is roughly estimated in the lower-mid to mid hundreds of tons of mostly just steel, by some definitions a vessal with such displacement may not even qualify as a ship
For the propellants? Decent chunck is just liquid oxygen, the rest is methane . By the time a landing can even be attempted most would have been used already and its just methane
Rockets useing UDMH and NTO are still in use (and have hit a village already , thats why the faa is being carefull and america builds launch complexs on the coast. Flying over land just has that inherant danger if something goes wrong, noone wants rockets falling into villages)
While i cant say much on the heatshielding i doubt it matters much , its just too little and i highly doubt its that dangerus considering noone seems to have issues with people collecting it, not only wouldnt it be inline with any other heatshield i know of haveing been used, if it was i would expect it to be plastered everywhere after flight 1
Rockets overall just dont matter
The admiral kuznetsov alone probably has a bigger impact from just staying in port (its engines are fucked due to haveing to be always on to supply it with power and it runs on goddamn mazut)
Frankly this could easly be reconstructed to support starship
All but 1 (thats also under development at a significantly earlier stage then starship, gonna guess they also will have some test flights without the expectation of landing) other rockets do 2 out of 3 of these points and dont have any plans to stop
Most of the starship flights could have gone to orbit (exept 1,2,7 and 8, debatable on 9)
Also, they flew upside down.
What show is it a trailer for?
It's "Don't Look Up", a 2021 Netflix satire of the modern media / post-factualism.
Both screenshots, actually. Don't know what the author means, two trailers for the same movie?
Ah, I see. I even saw that movie. Didn't react to this part of it though lol.
Makes me sad, I associate Shuttles with museums and really bad accidents. Early 80s babies, stand up and be recognized.
It also inspired one of the greatest pieces of music ever made "Challenger part 1: Flight" by We Lost The Sea with a 76 second crescendo
I will absolutely listen to that, thank you! Culture.
one in the early days, one at the end. considering how many flights were made - 135!! - it's doing pretty good considering the inherent risks involved.
considering how many flights were made - 135
it's doing pretty good considering
I'm not sure if I would necessarily classify a 1.5% failure rate on a crewed vehicle as "pretty good"...
show me another reusable orbiter that gets to 135 flights with only two failures and then we can talk.
crew dragon ain't anywhere near there. same with starship.
imho, you have outsized expectations, especially considering it's 1970s designed 1980 tech.
Are you challenging me to remember?
they do know Starship is an option now, right?
An option to blow yourself up.
Well, if they wanted something that doesn't blow up they shouldn't have picked the shuttle either.
Perfect for a Michael Bay directed movie though!
this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2026
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