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Comment by a34729t | Hacker News Reader

They have a much biglier support vessel this time, almost 300ft long IIRC. So maybe they can recover it?

It might be possible. Allegedly they had previously asked the Australian government about towing the ship back to a port.

Marine recovery can be much more difficult than it might seem though. Towing this nearly 200ft structure weighing a decent fraction of the weight of the boat that is not designed to be seaworthy, potentially full of explosive gasses and that could rapidly start breaking up and taking on water, nearly 300 nautical miles back to shore, would be quite difficult and dangerous. I would be impressed if they ever do it.

yeah it's suppose to tip over, explode and sink. Not sure what they're going to do with it now. If some other country comes in and salvages intact Raptor3, flight computers, and all the other ITAR regulated tech SpaceX may have a big problem. SpaceX will probably ask the airforce to gift them a jdam delivery or something.

They can relatively easily sink it, and in fact are required to be able to in order to get their US FAA launch license. As part of the environmental assessment specifically, but I could be wrong on that. For those curious, they have recovery teams on sight who can essentially shoot it to further puncture the hull or attach explosives even. They have experience with their Starship boosters not sinking off the coast of Texas and floating into Mexican waters.

Since I can't edit that message - it seems SpaceX is now intending to recover Starship. I am standing by to be wrong / impressed.

    > Allegedly they had previously asked the Australian government about towing the ship back to a port.

Any sources? I cannot find any. What was their response?

> Any sources?

https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/spacex-talks-land-r...

> What was their response?

Not sure. As far as I know the US is very supportive of SpaceX for space supremacy and Australia would almost certainly go along with what the US administration asks. If it hasn't happened yet it's more likely because SpaceX didn't/couldn't do it than Australia denying the request.

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