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JumpCrisscross • yesterday at 7:08 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

> this has zero practical value. No this will not trickle down to Y or 3, how would it?

You’re that confident none of the materials or techniques aerospace engineers used to lighten this car are relevant to the rest of the lineup?

> I imagine the cold gas thrusters and control software are all from spacex, this is what starship uses to orient itself in the air

Not really, it uses grid fins and gimbals. The closest cold gas comes to air on Starship is in the upper atmosphere.


Replies

NetMageSCW • yesterday at 11:53 PM

No, both F9 and Super Heavy have cold gas thrusters - you can see them firing in onboard videos during the landings to orient them for re-entry.

grey-area • yesterday at 8:08 PM

Yes, confident none of this belongs in a budget car. It’s not even useful in the roadster, it’s a gimmick, not flying but falling in a controlled way.

Nice pedantry on the thrusters in air, but I imagine the software here to orient the car quickly using thrusters was borrowed from spacex, the thrusters certainly were.

Again, none of this has a practical application - it’s like the flamethrowers- Elon thought it would be cool, so they made it.