Starhopper is being refreshed and restored to its original glory. The careful grinding of the welds, removal of the extra protective skins, custom mounts to transport it. Hoppy is going to continue living its best life. (Spectacular videography by the way.)
Talkies are the best! My guess: I think they are prepping StarHopper for a professional and artistic paint job. Something inspiring and nostalgic at the same time. A real centerpiece for arriving visitors.
I don't think it's getting scrapped. You don't grind down those spot welds like dude was doing at around 1:15 if it's gonna be scrapped. You just put a torch to it and cut it up. Grinding down welds is detail work that is a waste of time if it's gonna get cut up.
Yes, make a map of the camera locations as a .pdf so we can print it and use it when we watch the videos. Don't forget to put a North arrow on it!! Thanks. Great work as usual.
1:10 I hear ya on the concern for scrapping but do you think they would somewhat-meticulously be removing those outer panels if they were going to scrap it?
Yh if you look at how they scrapped the vertical tanks (cutting lance just hacking through it) they definitely don't look to be scrapping it, the fact they are using grinders to individually cut off welded brackets says that. I suppose the question is, what IS the plan then? It could go to the office building (there were suggestions that it might, not sure how realistic they were), might it stay there (They poured concrete pads to put it on, and they've added the supports on each leg at the base)? Whatever the plan, it's a mystery, but they definitely don't look to be scrapping it, more removing all the things added when it sat where it did for years.
do NOT scrap star hopper hopefully getting a make over done a friend told me they tarp the boosters to stop birds nesting in there and putting debri inside them which makes sense thank you media crew you do awesome job as always
This one was actually on B12 but they took it off before rollout. Possibly something to do with the chopstick test they did at the top of the tower? (since a landed booster won't have the ring)
Maybe they are just restoring Star Hopper before moving it into the new Office Building??? Or maybe putting it on display, in the dirt corner in front of the new Office Building???
They wouldn't be wasting time on Starhopper, grinding off mounting tabs and flanges if they were scraping it. They would just chop in large pieces and throw it away. I surely believe they are prepping it museum quality for a show piece somewhere.
I suspect they are restoring the Hopper to its original state and then installing it into their new office building as a centerpiece. Primer-painted chopsticks look like spider legs.
Don’t think they’d be grinding off hardware on Star Hopper if they were scrapping it. Hopefully they are just cleaning up the ship and trimming out the SpaceX fan favorite
Great job Jack! Also, I’ve asked the same question about Twitter. For those of us part of Space Twitter, since it’s now X, do we replace ‘Twitter’ with ‘X’? So would that make us Space….X? Yeah, doesn’t sound right at all.
