How SpaceX Taught Starship to Fall Like a Skydiver

Business Onion · Part 2 - The Skydiver · 2:57

On December 9, 2020, SpaceX flew a 50-meter steel prototype about 12 kilometers up, shut off its engines and let it fall flat on its belly. Four ships were lost learning how to land that way. Before one had landed and stayed standing, NASA chose Starship, alone, to put its astronauts back on the Moon. Part 2 of BUILDING STARSHIP. Numbers & sources: SN8's 12.5 km was the target altitude; SpaceX did not publish the height reached. NASA selected SpaceX on April 16, 2021: an evaluated price of $2.94 billion (announced contract value $2.89 billion), firm fixed price paid on milestones, against Blue Origin's $6.0 billion and Dynetics' $9.1 billion. NASA's selection statement says SpaceX planned to fund more than half of the development and test work itself. Blue Origin protested the award to the GAO and sued in the Court of Federal Claims; both were decided against it in 2021. Musk's "genuine risk of bankruptcy" email (November 26, 2021) was conditional on Starship not flying at least once every two weeks in 2022; four days later he publicly called bankruptcy "still unlikely". Sources: NASA Source Selection Statement (April 16, 2021); GAO decision B-419783; SpaceX and Elon Musk statements; Spaceflight Now flight reports; Space Explored / CNBC / SpaceNews (the November 2021 email). Some scenes are cinematic reconstructions of documented events. All quotes, dates, and figures are verified.