{"id":8623,"date":"2024-11-19T18:26:07","date_gmt":"2024-11-19T18:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/?p=8623"},"modified":"2025-03-31T14:55:33","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T14:55:33","slug":"spacex-starship-sixth-test-flight-still-exciting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/spacex-starship-sixth-test-flight-still-exciting\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX Starship Sixth Test Flight: Still Exciting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6yd_cpPP4fE?si=DaeW7ljlB2MDcFNA\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve been watching NASASpaceflight&#8217;s YouTube channel&#8217;s coverage of the SpaceX Starship sixth test flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maybe they don&#8217;t have the polish of old-school broadcast media, but I thoroughly enjoy what they do. That&#8217;s partly because they&#8217;re frankly nerdish. And partly because they actually know what they&#8217;re talking about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pre-launch preparations are going smoothly, so if this keeps up the Ship 31 upper stage and first stage Booster 13 will take off a little over four hours from now: about 4:00 p.m. here in central Minnesota.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then, if all goes well, Booster 13 will land back at the SpaceX facility on the Gulf Coast. It&#8217;s another suborbital flight for this launch system, this time with an in-space relight for one of Ship 31&#8217;s Raptor engines, before &#8216;landing&#8217; in the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m not as excited about this as I was, watching the Apollo missions. Or not excited in the same way, at any rate. That&#8217;s probably inevitable. I was in my teens then. Now I&#8217;m in my mid-70s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I <strong>am<\/strong> excited. And I think the SpaceX goal, &#8220;Service to Earth Orbit, Moon, Mars and Beyond&#8221;, makes sense. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spacex.com\/vehicles\/starship\/\">spacex.com\/vehicles\/starship<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mainly because I think humanity will keep doing what we&#8217;ve been doing for uncounted ages: wondering what&#8217;s over the next hill. And then wondering what&#8217;s over the new hills we found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All that&#8217;s changed is that the new hills are now on other planets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve talked about this before. You&#8217;ll find links under <strong>My Favorite Posts<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/spacex-starship-sixth-test-flight-still-exciting\/#sciencandtechnologyposts\">Science and technology<\/a> in the sidebar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>About SpaceX, Starship, and humanity&#8217;s renewed interest in getting back to the Moon; I think that makes sense, too. And I&#8217;m glad folks from my country are involved:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/skylon-defunct-radian-pfv01-test-flights-begin\/\">Skylon Defunct, Radian PFV01 Test Flights Begin<\/a>&#8220;<br>(November 16, 2024)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/starliner-dream-chaser-and-beyond-the-sky-is-not-the-limit\/\">Starliner, Dream Chaser, and Beyond: The Sky is Not the Limit<\/a>&#8220;<br>(June 8, 2024)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/boeing-starliner-in-context-apollo-shuttles-and-american-history\/\">Boeing Starliner in Context: Apollo, Shuttles, and American History<\/a>&#8220;<br>(May 11, 2024)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/india-fourth-on-the-moon-first-near-lunar-south-pole\/\">India: Fourth on the Moon, First near Lunar South Pole<\/a>&#8220;<br>(August 26, 2023)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/commercial-space-services-and-changing-times\/\">Commercial Space Services and Changing Times<\/a>&#8220;<br>(April 29, 2023)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been watching NASASpaceflight&#8217;s YouTube channel&#8217;s coverage of the SpaceX Starship sixth test flight. Maybe they don&#8217;t have the polish of old-school broadcast media, but I thoroughly enjoy what they do. That&#8217;s partly because they&#8217;re frankly nerdish. And partly because &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/spacex-starship-sixth-test-flight-still-exciting\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"Watching the SpaceX Starship test flight, November 19, 2024. Why I think it matters, and how I see space exploration.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"SpaceX Starship Sixth Test Flight: Still Exciting","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,4],"tags":[16,39,28],"class_list":["post-8623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discursive-detours","category-science-news","tag-america","tag-space-exploration","tag-technology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7Dwtw-2f5","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8623"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8627,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8623\/revisions\/8627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}