# SpaceX Starship Orbital Flight Test

**URL:** <https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/spacex-starship-orbital-flight-test/3042>\
**Category:** The Happening World\
**Tags:** starship, super-heavy, orbital-flight-test, spacex\
**Created:** [14 April 2023 13:04 UTC](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/spacex-starship-orbital-flight-test/3042 "2023-04-14T13:04:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 73

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**Author:** ![jabowery](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/user_avatar/scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/jabowery/32/5478_2.png) [@jabowery](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/u/jabowery)\
**Post date:** [21 April 2023 01:10 UTC](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/spacex-starship-orbital-flight-test/3042/73 "2023-04-21T01:10:45Z")

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> [@mister\_average](#):
>
> [This](https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/superheavy-starship-clears-tower-but-fails-at-stage-separation/#comment-1408913) comment says that the flame trench was abandoned because of environmental paperwork. The comment contains a link to a PDF that is now only on [archive.org](http://archive.org):

I vaguely recall something about this being due to the shallow water table, but its pretty hard to believe the trench construction and regulatory hurdles couldn’t have been overcome during the 3 year lag before first test flight. Then again, Musk was pretty aggressive about pushing for that first _tranche_ of test data so I can see why he’d risk what we have now witnessed: An environmental outcome worse than the EPA bureaucrats would have imagined: Spewing a hundred tons of concrete debris all over the wetlands. At least Musk got his data!

That said, I’ve never seen any satisfactory explanation for why Musk didn’t [just build Truax’s Sea Dragon and be done with the whole mess](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/scale-of-the-problem/417/33) – not just “stage 0” but also the Starship tile problem, which IIRC Truax said he would solve by rotisserie rotating the steel reentry vehicle. Maybe I misunderstood him but that’s what I recall him saying would solve the reentry problem without tiles.

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