spacex is going to launch starships to
orbit after the faa approval or at the
end of this year or never what's up with
all the confusion and how is spacex
going to continue
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my name is felix and i am your host for
today's episode of what about it and as
always there's been a lot going on in
the space industry lately so let's dive
right in spacex starship hold up
delays are a common thing in the space
industry almost every rocket development
faced them at some point during the
design and construction phase spacex is
no different in this regard even though
their delays normally are less severe
currently there are some statements
confusing the space community at large
and today we're going to clear those up
in spacex's case involving the
development of arguably the most
important rocket in human history it's
not entirely up to spacex it's at least
partly been taken out of their hands
right now the faa or federal aviation
administration has yet again postponed
their date for the ongoing environmental
review regarding starbase and bokeh
chica for the second time in a row they
have updated their project page it's
available online and there's a link to
it in the description if you want to
read it yourself the website states that
over 19 000 comments were received
regarding the case and that more time is
needed to account for further review and
ongoing interagency consultation this
doesn't give us much to speculate of
course the internal interagency
communication is not public so the
detailed reasoning behind the delay can
only be guessed on at the last starship
update on february 11th musk said a few
exciting things though which leave much
room for interpretation
he stated that spacex would be ready for
the orbital flight soon after the
approval by the faa he also stated that
this significant flight milestone might
happen towards the end of this year
last but not least he said that if the
permission by the faa for further launch
activity at the south texas launch site
is not given spacex would be ready and
willing to move their starship test
operations towards the kennedy space
center in florida as there already is
valid permission readily available there
that's a big chunk of information that
needs more context for the big picture
to become visible it's unknown if there
are political games in motion to keep
spacex from launching at starbase right
now so i won't make it a topic on my
channel but there are conclusions that
can be drawn from the known facts
chief our y-cam operator at starbase
texas was busy in the past two weeks
almost daily deliveries megabyte
construction to give more room for
prototype construction extensive tank
farm tests to make the infrastructure
ready for an orbital launch mechazilla
has been used for the first time in
preparation for the ship 20 and booster
4 stack after all it was just a backdrop
for musk's 2022 starship presentation
nonetheless it showed that mechazilla is
ready for such ground handling work ship
20 has seen more pressure testing
further validating the construction and
everything seemed to work out just fine
as well the same goes for booster 4 ice
buildup on the outside of such a
prototype means that cryogenic testing
is underway and again booster force
seemed to do just fine on this recent
test conducted on february 18th all in
all there's no visible hold back no
major problem the starship development
is as fast as ever and spacex is not
standing still chief is constantly
moving between launch and construction
site to keep up with all the milestones
this for example is ship 22 it's a
hybrid between ship 21's nose cone and
ship 22's tank section i speculated
about spacex not retiring ship 22 and
instead combining it with the ship 21
nose cone almost two months ago and now
it's happened the stack is done and ship
22 is ready to be fleshed out waiting
for booster 7 to be prepared as well the
megabase spacex's latest addition to the
rapidly growing infrastructure at the
starbase production site has just seen
level 5 stacked on top of the steadily
growing building so in short even though
musk states that he'd be ready to move
operations to the east coast and to
kennedy space center progress at
starbase is arguably even speeding up
right now so what's the plan how is
spacex moving forward and what will the
next couple of months bring
if we connect all the dots the picture
is relatively straightforward spacex is
going to go with the flow if the faa
green lights starbase and orbital
starship flights out of boko chica soon
enough musk and his team want to be
ready construction is ongoing tests are
being conducted and there's no sign at
all pointing towards spacex wanting to
stop anytime soon no matter what
headline you might have been reading on
traditional media outlets musk stating
at the same time that spacex could be
ready for an orbital launch soon after
the faa approval so around the end of
march and at the same time stating that
it will happen until the end of the year
is a bit more complex though those two
statements contradict each other which
leads to a lot of confusion having
researched into the project for the past
three years and having dealt with many
cryptic musk statements and 207 episodes
of why so far my thought on all of it is
a bit simpler musk wants to keep all the
possibilities on the table if the faa
green lights starbase at the end of
march as they stated a few days ago
spacex will do an orbital launch soon
after everything at starbase points
towards spacex being ready and willing
to go the next step needed to reach
orbit on the other hand though musk
stated that it will happen until the end
of this year this statement is likely
not connected to starbase and that's
where a lot of the confusion comes from
end of the year means ksc it means
spacex continuing their already ongoing
efforts of building a second pillar of
the starship program a rescue plan if
the faa does not approve further
launches in texas musk also stated at
the recent starship update that spacex
would be ready to launch starships out
of kennedy's space center in roughly
half a year six months would get us to
august that is well within 2022 and i
guess this is the reason for musk
seemingly contradicting himself by
saying april but at least this year i
hope i was able to clear up at least
some confusion with this first news
topic as that's the main reason why i am
running this channel what is the space
industry's next move and why to help us
do our work even better and for a wider
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spacex polaris missions
our next topic is directly connected to
the last how is spacex working towards
crude starship flights how is musk's
team preparing for longer duration
flights what's needed for that first
trip to mars
to find answers to all these questions
and more spacex has announced the
polaris missions on february 14th the
space flight community is buzzing about
it and rightfully so polaris is at least
somewhat comparable to the gemini
program which was a preparation for nasa
and its subsequent apollo program
jared eisekman the commander of the
recent inspiration 4 mission which was
the first ever entirely private
spaceflight is helping with funding and
will be a part of all three missions the
first of three missions will be polaris
dawn it will feature a crew dragon
launch on a falcon 9 rocket it will
travel out to the van alien belt a high
radiation zone extending around earth
from around 640 to 58 000 kilometers
it's unknown how high the orbit of
polaris dawn will be but spacex already
announced that they intend to break the
height record for crude orbits around
earth
spacex also plans to test starlink laser
communication on polaris dawn
communication between earth moon and
mars will be needed for spacex's
colonization efforts and it can't be
nasa's deep space network alone the dsn
is currently used by nasa for all its
deep space efforts but it won't handle
all of what spacex is planning so
starlink will be extended towards moon
and mars and for long distance links it
will utilize laser communication expect
some incredible live stream quality from
the capsule and the evas
most importantly spacex will conduct the
first civilian eva during polaris dawn
for this they won't use a nasa eva suit
but instead an upgraded version of the
spacex pressure suits the goal is to cut
down preparation time for evas as much
as possible and make the suit as mobile
and easy to use as possible now let's do
a bit of speculation as to how spacex
might be able to do this current nasa
eva suits have one big problem they are
incredibly clunky so much so that a suit
even can't be put on by a single person
the astronaut planned for the eva needs
help it takes around an hour just to hop
into the suit and preparations for such
an eva often exceed a day of tasks
needed for the faa to play out as
planned so if spacex wants to reduce all
this what's needed essentially the only
problem with an eva suit is that it's
technically a soft spacecraft it needs
almost every system that an actual
spacecraft has to keep an astronaut
alive the giant backpack the thick suit
all this comes from those systems life
support cooling communication there is
no practical way to shrink these systems
down by much either the only way to
accomplish a sleek and easier to handle
eva suit would be to take those systems
out of the suit it all comes down to
gaining mobility and cutting down on
setup time this is all speculation but
why not create an external system that
follows the astronaut a drone so to say
that supplies the astronaut with
everything needed attached by a lifeline
court in a minute would enable spacex to
build an easy to handle and relatively
lightweight suit it would get rid of all
sorts of problems at the same time it
would allow spacex to base their eva
suit design on the current iva or
intravehicular activity suit and it
would be a typical spacex think outside
the box approach
it's impossible to say what spacex will
do to improve conventional eva suit
designs still it's relatively safe to
say that it will be a surprising and
radical approach something no one has
thought of yet so maybe not my idea
either polaris one is slated for a
launch no earlier than the fourth
quarter of 2022 so this year polaris 2
has no launch date yet but it will be
the preparation flight for the most
significant project announced by spacex
so far polaris 3. the mission will be
the first crewed flight of a starship in
human history it's been confirmed by
jared isaac man himself that the flight
will be crewed all the way ascend orbit
and re-entry with crew on board isekman
is planning to be a part of the mission
and it will demonstrate starship's crew
flight capability before this mission
spacex will conduct numerous starship
flights delivering payload to low earth
orbit landing re-flying hardware and
making sure that the rocket itself is
safe for a crude flight so it's very
safe to say that spacex's starship
program is not on halt musk's plans are
taking shape more and more and even if
the faa does not green light starbase
for orbital flights launches will occur
at kennedy space center good times to be
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our glue arguably said this wrong pace
involving the develop development of
course the inter inter inter
over nine thousand he also stated that
this significant flight
is named
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