From: snidely.too@gmail.com   
      
   JF Mezei wrote on 7/16/2021 :   
      
   > As SpaceX has stopped testing the Starship in preparation for n orbital   
   > flight later this year, I would have expected the Starship to have   
   > advanced to a point where it is ready for orbital flight with its   
   > components having been tested.  Can it really do orbital flighst and   
   > re-entry with externally mounted naked thrusters?   
      
   Starship does not have externally mounted naked thrusters.   
      
   The externally mounted naked thrusters seen in some pictures have been   
   mounted on booster segments.  Those were a new design, and they were   
   preparing to test them on what are stages still under development, but   
   then decided they weren't ready to test them in flight.  Perhaps   
   plumbing issues.  And the hot gas thrusters were/are, AIUI, to use the   
   same fuel as the Raptors.   
      
   As for the landing legs, it was already known that the Falcon legs   
   wouldn't scale to the weight of Starship, and external legs might be a   
   problem for full re-entry, anyway.  The legs seen on the SN flights   
   have been iterated (after SN6, IIRC), but were still considered early   
   test models.   
      
   Perhaps the leg problem has taken more design time than expected, and   
   with Raptors no longer being the long pole in the tent (in the context   
   of Gantt charts for the project) and the tanks having iterated so   
   quickly, the leg design delays are more noticable now.   
      
   I've certainly been on projects where the hard problem of the design   
   was done on time because it got enough resources, but other parts of   
   the design became the barrier to shipping, because you still need to   
   have all the screens done (user interface) and you still need to have   
   the packaging.   
      
   I expect that the heat shield tiles are stable design-wise by now, but   
   the mounting methods are still being checked out.  So far, we've only   
   had "can they survive fueling temperatures? can they survive the   
   shaking of liftoff and landing?"   
      
   /dps   
      
   --   
   "What do you think of my cart, Miss Morland? A neat one, is not it?   
   Well hung: curricle-hung in fact. Come sit by me and we'll test the   
   springs."   
   (Speculative fiction by H.Lacedaemonian.)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)