Explosions are great, actually
1517.substack.com
1517.substack.com
* Did you see them hold and restart the countdown in the last minute, just the ability to do that at all is amazing
* The full startup sequence which is super complicated for 33 engines worked
* The six second hold down and release system worked - holding down a rocket with twice the thrust of Saturn V
* They found out the limits of the pad, and we know now they were already working on a cover for the pad with water cooled steel that wasn't ready in time
* Stage 0 worked, launched the rocket, and the flight computers on the rocket worked as well
* The rocket was able to maintain stable flight with many engine outs
* The launch tower was cleared, that is a huge milestone to get past. Blowing up the launch tower really sets you back, it's also like too much damage to collect really good data from, as well as it probably would of blown up the propellent farm as well which sets you back with regulatory agencies.
* The engines survived what looks like multiple failures without taking out the rest of the vehicle
* There is tons of data from build and test to correlate all the engines that worked vs the ones that didn't and find all kinds of correlations. Lots of engines, lots of test data.
* It made it past max Q, another big milestone
* The tanks held their pressure the whole way up
* It made it all the way to stage separation, this is where many rockets flown for the first time have their failure so this is par for the course
* FTS (flight termination system) worked, no better way to test it than actually setting it off
* They probably flew with tons risks and unknowns that we'll never know about, but now they have the data to resolve.
Similar to Falcon Heavy, they are cheering because holy crap this thing is actually working
This is Texas. You get a tax break for causing accidental explosions, based on the kilotonnage achieved.
Also I believe equatorial orbits are still possible to achieve from USA launch sites, it just means more fuel/ reduced payload.
Interestingly, the James Webb telescope was launched from French Guiana, which is almost right on the equator.
Also Israel is one of the few countries that regularly launches their rockets to the west, as they only have a West Coast.
For example, even though Rocket Lab was founded in New Zealand it is now a US based company. It operates launch facilities both in New Zealand and the US and pretty sure it builds stuff in both countries.
2) In the case of the rocket, it accelerates eastward. Even if parts fall off, and they slow down because of the drag of the atmosphere, and they slow down all the way to the speed of the atmosphere, the atmosphere is more or less moving eastward at the same speed as the earth's rotation, so any part would be unlikely to land any further west than where it detached from the rocket. And if there was no atmosphere on earth any part that fell off a rocket during its ascent to orbit would fall according to a ballistic trajectory and would most certainly land farther east than where it fell.
I assume we don't launch out of Mexico because rocket technology is tightly controlled by ITAR, so there's no way the government would allow any of it to go to another country's sovereign territory.
I assume shipping to the launch pads is a major issue, especially for the Apollo, Space Shuttle and SLS programs which were/are build all over the place in the continental US.
3 months ago, we started building a massive water-cooled, steel plate to go under the launch mount.
Wasn’t ready in time & we wrongly thought, based on static fire data, that Fondag would make it through 1 launch.
Looks like we can be ready to launch again in 1 to 2 months.
FAA has already grounded Starship from further flights after this event, till they investigate matter on their own. There are also reports of dust clouds triggered by the explosion in Texas dropping dust in a large area in Texas.
I wonder if Texas experiences any natural dust storms.
So this is par for the course, and unless the investigation turns up an issue that entails unacceptable risk to people, natural environment, or built environment we should see a return to flight as soon as the launchpad is rebuilt etc.
SpaceX has specifically told folks in the town not to touch any debris or handle and call them.
They are also VERY careful about handling dragon capsules etc. though I think that’s more for the thruster, rather than the engines.
I know ch4+o2 should convert to co2 and h2o but I’m unsure what other particulate could be included in the dust. Like concrete remnants (concrete dust is really bad to breathe) paint, or other additives or chemicals that were still n the pad and rocket.
Yeah, it seems it did eventually. Yet, I'm surprised that it took a whopping minute (25% of total flight time) to ignite after deviation from the flight plan. Was that intended too?
None of the Twitter drama matters, they'll go back to work on the rocket and it will work or it won't. (It probably will.)
-Billionaire entrepreneur news? Check.
-Biggest rocket ever news? Check.
-Explosion that makes Michael Bay seem like an amateur? Check.
-Environmental disaster news? Check.
The list could probably go on for a while.
I just wonder how the public perception, explicitly including on HN, would have been if SLS had blown up. I remember some people calling them out for delaying the initial launch.
Personally I think the budget of NASA is inconsequential to say the defense budget. Not sure what the general HN vibe is, but probably mostly leaning towards “waste of my tax dollars / inefficient”
Maybe actual space rockets arw different, after all those used to be expandable anyway, but still launch failures, and failing to get out of the atmosphere is a failure, shouldn't be seen as sucess of any kind.
As a co worker of mine once out it: Everything flies if you apply enough thrust to it. Doing so in a controlled in safe manner is the trick.
"The ... Failure happens ... Before anything flies the first time" I'm no aerospace engineer, but I doubt this was the case in the early days of jet engines(if that is the case, then I stand corrected). The new raptor engines are full flow staged combustion, only the second of their kind. Having this many light right next to each other and burn for that long at high altitude is a huge milestone.
If this was a sales pitch "the rocket destroyed the launchpad, and got damaged in the process - once we fix that it'll work" is a much better pitch then "we need another 2 years minimum of permitting in order to build the flame diverter to launch it" (though I'm content to put this one on Musk: once Starship started being delayed, building the flame diverter should've just been a time cost they ate immediately).
The stupider takes on this are the people doing the "this is so incompetent! This company can't be trusted" spiel as though the Falcon 9 hasn't been quietly throwing things into orbit and landing this entire time.
And yes, depending on aircraft, a lot of components are tested until failure before they are installed in actually flying aircraft.
All that tumbling? The flight was lost so why wait? I think they really really wanted stage separation to happen and "kept trying".
> There is a sharp difference between those who play status games, and those who are interested in creation and exploration. That difference can be measured in explosions.
I found the article enjoyable and quotable.
Throwaway designs should be considered a serious option in any formal engineering thought process. Especially ambitious high-risk high-impact projects. So many compounding benefits.
A) Launch one rocket with a 90% chance of success
B) Launch two rockets each with a 70% chance of success
We should do (B) because it has a 91% chance that at least one of the rockets succeeds, and a 49% chance two rockets succeed--an outcome that is impossible under scenario (A). With the right telemetry, the 51% chance that at least one fails will give us valuable knowledge that helps us improve our rockets the next launch.
Of course, the calculus changes if we let failure-averse marketing people run our rocket company.
It seems obvious now why SpaceX is able to build better interplanetary rockets than NASA for faster, better and cheaper.
Yuri Gagarin's launch on Vostok 1 and the launch of Apollo 11 are 8 years 3 months 4 days apart. Or, 3,017 days. For reference, it took 11 years between SLS' announcement and an uncrewed launch. It'll be around twice the time difference between Vostok 1 and Apollo 11 before the SLS delivers humans to the moon.
Humanity progressed so quickly during Project Apollo because they were accepting of "failure" and willing to embrace the associated risk. Post-Apollo and post-Challenger, this willingness and risk appetite completely disappeared leading to paralysis.
When we call something as awesome (in the traditional sense of the word) as yesterday's test a "failure," we are implicitly rejecting the Apollo paradigm and embracing the SLS one. I think it's harmful for humanity, in the long run, to do so.
We should build and launch more rockets. Some of them will explode. Such is life.
People are mad about whatever dumb thing Elon did with Twitter this week.
Even when applied to Twitter, the question presents itself:
Are you really happy with what it was before?
The only path from "then" to "better" is through "doing lots of stuff, some of it stupid".
IIRC Apollo cost around a quarter trillion dollars in today’s money.
* (Admittedly a little too groundbreaking.)
Sometimes it is worth looking past the obvious interpretation. I thought the article was a good read, kudos to the author.
Do you go around whenever a new album is about to drop and tell people the single is meh and they should in fact not be excited? What is your actual motivation here to take the wind out of peoples sails?
If the spin is unwarranted gravity, as we saw, will take care of it without your input. If the hype is unwarranted it will evaporate on its own even without your input.
So what are you contributing here? How does your attitude benefit anyone/thing? Pessimism is perfectly fine don't get me wrong - but if you are so pessimistic why even bother to make this sort of remark..