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Posted on 05/08/2026 9:48:26 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
SpaceX's Starship megarocket may indeed get off the ground next week.
The company is apparently targeting May 15 for the test flight, which will be the 12th for Starship overall but the first for the new, more powerful "Version 3" of the giant vehicle.
SpaceX cleared a big hurdle on the path to liftoff on Thursday (May 7), conducting a static-fire test with Starship's Super Heavy first stage at its Starbase site in Texas. The company lit up all 33 of Super Heavy's Raptor engines while the booster remained anchored to the pad — and everything apparently went well.
"Full duration and full thrust 33-engine static fire with Super Heavy V3," SpaceX wrote in a Thursday post on X that shared two videos of the 14-second-long test. (One video is about a minute long, but it seems to be a slow-motion version of the trial.)
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
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SpaceX conducted a full-duration static fire test of its Version 3 (V3) Super Heavy booster at Starbase in South Texas on May 7, 2026.SpaceX fires up Starship 'V3' Super Heavy rocket booster in preparation for launch | 1:25
VideoFromSpace | 2.12M subscribers | 112,164 views | May 7, 2026Credit: SpaceX | edited by Space.com
Transcript: "ROOOOAAAAAR!"
Hurricane Milton seen from space station hours before Florida landfall: An external camera aboard the International Space Station captured Hurricane Milton over the Gulf of Mexico on Oct. 9, 2024. | edited by Steve Spaleta (https://x.com/stevespaleta)Credit: Space.com | footage courtesy: NASA
Looks like some serious horsepower!
One of the science/pad watcher groups had a Chevy SUV parked about 200 yrds away... Blew the side windows out and BENT the frame of the truck.
The POWER of this thing is on a completely different level.
I have no idea how that launch pad is going to handle that blast repeatedly. Even with the deluge system running at max.
I would like to have just one of those Raptor engines in my car. Not that I would speed or anything.
Is this enough power to launch every Democrat into space?
I think having 33 engines is a problem...to many pipes to many and hope that none will fail in order to get your ship up there. If they can do it and manage to keep doing it then good for them!
Serious hold down hardware.
Living ones. Add in the dead voters, including the cremated ones, who still vote straight ticket, that may be a stretch. But it’s going to be reusable, so...
“Any idea how fast you were going.”
“Officer, what happened to the front of your cruiser?!?”
Depending on what’s in the UFO files, it might not be needed
They’ve done it before, and when they had failures, a lot of fun trying. 😁🚀
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Super_Heavy#Flight_testing
“Why do we even use the term ‘horsepower’? Is that to further humiliate horses? The space shuttle rockets have 20 million horsepower. Is there any point in still comparing it to the horses?” — Jerry Seinfeld
I’m sure that our efforts are good for some laughs among extraterrestrials.
33 engines give a lot of engine out capacity. They could lose 5 on launch and probably half way through the booster burn finish it with only the central 13 gimbal engines as the propellant mass is expended. That’s a lot of redundancy which makes it safer not less safe. The Saturn V could only lose one engine and not at initial launch only well away from the pad could it do 4 to orbit.
Falcon 9 can lose an engine at launch pad and still climb out. So can falcon heavy with 27 engines under three total boosters.
SpaceX got this multiple engines turning and burning is old hat for them.
I think we should be talking about thrust in kilonewtons. At 1 meter/second: 1 kN ≈ 1.341 hp.
“The SpaceX Super Heavy booster generates a maximum thrust of 80,800 kilonewtons (80.8 MN) for the Block 3 configuration, which utilizes 33 Raptor 3 engines. Earlier versions, such as the Block 1 and Block 2 boosters equipped with Raptor 2 engines, produce approximately 73,500 to 76,000 kilonewtons of thrust. This makes Super Heavy the most powerful rocket booster ever built, significantly exceeding the thrust of previous super heavy-lift vehicles like the Saturn V, which produced roughly 34,500 kilonewtons.”
https://search.brave.com/search?q=spacex+superheavy+in+kilonewtons&summary=1
Car and Driver did a test of fast cars on an airport runway in a 0 to 150mph to 0 timed test. The model of car I have did the run in 24.8 seconds. But, you know, it is never enough. With a Raptor engine I could win the 0 to Speed of Sound to 0 run. And then what? Strap three Raptors? I don't see how to do it. I would have to start increasing fuel flow and hope it did not explode.
i think that you would need a nuclear powered jet engine
(or maybe 3 nuclear powered jet engines)
More! More! More! Sock it to the firewall! 😁
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