They will never launch within 8 weeks. That time frame is insane and not enough to repair the damage at the launch site.
Also I don't expect a FAA to give an ok until SpaceX has cleaned up the surrounding area.
Also I don't expect a FAA to give an ok until SpaceX has cleaned up the surrounding area.
Otherwise, why prefix with it?
If the piles under the launch mount aren't damaged (which would surprise me!), it's "just" filling in the hole, pour some concrete and cover with the new water cooled steel plate. Then replace any other stage zero kit that got damaged (the tall tanks particularly)
I think he's probably right the longest thing to solve though is flight qualification with the FAA.
I also love how Elonauts have decided that FAA qualification is a mere trivial formality as opposed to a necessary check on a founder deciding to go ahead with a premature launch because he wants to talk about it on 4/20 for example.
The fact that the FAA check will be the longest is no defense. It’s a reflection of the fact that the FAA gave him an easy way out and all the critics of the FAA’s decision (including flagged stories on HN) turned out to be absolutely right.
So what if it’s not 2x but more? Why are people like you so resentful of someone building something cool you literally can’t wait to point out any flaws. It’s sad tbh.
Maybe it sounds like aggressive and optimistic goals. Maybe it sounds like someone who doesn't understand that nine women can't give birth to a child in one month, and cracks the whip like they could if they tried hard enough.
If I was your neighbor and build a potato gun, but the potatoes kept ending up in your yard, would you be happy for me or ticked off?
You sound like the environmentalists you don’t want to build solar parks in the Sahara because it gets in the way of a few goats.
Take a step back. Perspective.
We are still waiting for all three many years after Musk promised they were coming soon.
Promising 10 awesome things and delivering 2 still gives you more awesome things than you started with.
At best you are a grumpy old man who isn’t happy with anything, at worst a resentful anti success advocate.
What have you created in the last 10 years?
Space shuttle challenger disaster discussed at 17:35.
Nobody is resenting anything cool, they are pointing out that when it comes to packing 4kt worth of explosives into a vehicle and flinging into the air you better take your time to get it right.
This is a private company which is not directly accountable to the government as NASA would be. There won't be a congressional committee holding them to account or removing the people in charge if they fuck up. Sure they might get a good scolding from congress if they make mistakes, but they'll get to pay their way through the courts to shirk accountability.
The fact that the FTS failed on top of all the other problems is cause enough for alarm and indicative that they are not being thorough enough. It was sloppy work, and when Elon opens his mouth about unrealistic timelines he is openly stating that he will continue to apply pressure on the team to rush things and cut corners for results. There is nothing cool about running an aerospace program like that.
Yet somehow they’re still the most successful rocket creating entity ever, and are close to creating a launch system that will reduce launch costs by 100x.
So what exactly is not working here, and why are YOU so upset about it?
There is an adage that people who love sausages shouldn't visit the meat plants where these are made. This is harder to do with the development process that SpaceX uses, given that it is all over the news and you can't easily escape the sight. But please do not confuse the development process with the end product.
As of now, Starship is in the not-even-beta phase. Its current problems have no relation to how the mature rocket will perform.
Note that, unlike other vendors, SpaceX didn't dare to launch human crew with their Falcon 9 until they were very sure that the rocket performs well and has a very good launch record. Compare this attitude to many other human-rated vehicles that actually killed astronauts. Nothing sloppy or rushed there.
It sounds like you are thinking about the water coolant being in or behind the steel plate.
But if you pump water on top of the steel plate there it can instantly vaporize without blowing up anything. If you have sufficient flow then that can keep the steel plate from melting.
> The IOP/SS peak flow rate is 1.1 million gallons per minute, high enough to empty roughly two Olympic-size swimming pools in one minute.
Must be some fair old pumps on that setup!
I admit I've never built a launchpad for the world's biggest rocket, but I'd wave my hands to say it might take a bit longer for that concrete, and it won't get poured immediately.
And the quotes don’t say that they will. In fact they imply that they won’t.
They need do proper failure analysis and engineer a solution so this damage won't happen next time, 6-8 weeks seems way too short. Elon is suggesting just slapping down a shitload of steal, but I really doubt that will meet standards.
I love it when people take one small issue and point out how stupid he’s being, yet ignore how by challenging every point of engineering on rockets he’s almost at the point of making a mars transportation system possible.
The launch pad at Cape Canaveral may not be exactly what Starship needs but it would be a good start. Like flame trenches and placing the fuel storage tanks far enough away from the launch pad.
SpaceX hasn't "started to realize" that, they always knew that some F9 launches would be fully expendable and they've been occasionally expending F9 boosters from the start. Not because there's something wrong with the economics of booster reuse generally, but because expending a booster is sometimes (not usually) worth it to get more mass into orbit (roughly double to GTO with Falcon Heavy if they expend the core stage.)
That extra performance was always known to be required for some payloads, but isn't required for most payloads.
Probably not a whole lot technically. By now we could have had several fuel tanks in Mars orbit and a few on the ground, rather than all those orbiters and ground vehicles.
Trade-offs.
I know they're planning it for Starship HLS to the Moon, maybe it will finally be done then (I'm not holding my breath, Starship HLS's role in Artemis still seems farcical to me.) But until then, it's never really been an idea worth developing.
I agree with you.
Why spend hundreds of millions or in the case of Saturn V billions on a governmentally overspecced launchpad when a launch mount and a concrete pad would do just fine?
Take the SLS crawler looking to cost $1 - $1.5B. What a waste of resources.
https://spacenews.com/nasa-audit-reveals-massive-overruns-in...
Trying to meet wildly divergent, even contradictory goals, is a good way to build a doomed project. Now add schedule pressure to remain the sole vendor for a lunar lander and you get bad project management decisions.
"...following the same formula" of rapid iteration is what they are doing. It worked well for learning how to fabricate a giant rocket out of stainless steel. That formula is bumping up against the cost of iteration. They're trying an Agile-ish approach to making the biggest ever rocket when Agile might be insufficient to, for example, make car software at VW Group.
1. Not giving up project goals or specs when they start to look dubious
2. Sticking with cheap (in time, money, or both) solutions when more-reliable solutions might be called for
3. Letting sunk costs drive bad decisions about the above and other project related decisions
In this case there are unpleasant downstream effects of making safer decisions: Starship might not be the Moon lander Artemis 3 should rely on. All changes made in Boca Chica will have to be retrofitted to Kennedy Space Center.
Lastly, Musk has made pronouncements about Starlink's viability resting on Starship. That could be hyperbole, but Starlink needs 30-100X more subscribers to become a first tier telecom provider, and it can't support that many without the planned constellation of tens of thousands of full-size second-generation satellites.