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An 8lb socket dropped 80 feet. That's going to put a heck of a dent in almost anything.
Assuming I remember my high school physics correctly, the socket would be moving ~50mph on impact. Definitely a recipe for a bad day.
During prototype tests you don't have to target 6-sigma, obviously, but I hope we get a post-mortem without spin.
If a government regulator runs the investigation, you might. I don't know if a regulator's going to get involved in this, though.
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You're not wrong that Starship has very thin walls, but they're actually quite thick compared to some rockets. There are rockets in use today that have to be pressurized to avoid collapsing under their own weight.
Any lead on where I can read on starship technical docs? Things like wall width
And that's why they are testing it.
Depends on what kind of test that was supposed to be. If they pumped it until it explodes it would be a kind of test (also called experiment) where it makes sense. If you design something with a margin of safety, then pump it to working pressure and it blows, then it means you made a mistake. If you made a mistake it shows you don't know what is necessary to design a rocket (yet). Seriously, they don't build skyscrap…
Yeah, sure SpaceX doesn't know what's necessary to design a rocket.
During prototype tests you don't have to target 6-sigma, obviously, but I hope we get a post-mortem without spin.
When their entire business depends on very carefully managing their PR, you're not going to get a public post-mortem without spin. If a government regulator runs the investigation, you might. I don't know if a regulator's going to get involved in this, though.
You really think this? My perception is that their PR is fairly blunt and upfront. while they may not tell you everything they dont seem to be trying to "spin" anything
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Starship needs to be reusable dozens of times, with no refit between launches (only refueling). Fuel is cheap; the vehicle needs to survive. It also needs to be reliable enough to carry people. They're not using razor-thin safety margins on it.
Fuel is not cheap. Fuel is heavy and payload reduction is money lost.
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Fuel is not cheap. Fuel is heavy and payload reduction is money lost.
Fuel is very cheap. SpaceX has built their whole business around the idea that it's worth trading payload for re-usability.
_Lifting_ that fuel is NOT CHEAP. See also, the rocket equation.
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Depends on what kind of test that was supposed to be. If they pumped it until it explodes it would be a kind of test (also called experiment) where it makes sense. If you design something with a margin of safety, then pump it to working pressure and it blows, then it means you made a mistake. If you made a mistake it shows you don't know what is necessary to design a rocket (yet). Seriously, they don't build skyscrap…
Rockets are designed to have a vastly lower margin of safety. If they never fail in testing that’s a sign you’re over engineering it and sacrificing cargo capacity, which is a bad thing. That said, these failures should be uncommon.
SpaceX's greatest contribution has been to look at rocketry from the point of view of economics of running a rocket launching business as opposed to a "per launch cost plus" model realizing that fuel cost for launching a rocket is close to trivial compared to the facrication cost of making a rocket.
So their entire design philosophy is around reusability and reusability seems to push costs down low enough that you can get more payload up by simply doing more launches. While SpaceX is famous for not filing patents and instead protecting their IP using the trade secret approach and fabricating everything in-house, you can bet they'll be operating with more engineering headroom to get reliability and reusability.
Evidence for their bet having been right is the fact that they have grabbed virtually 100% of commercial and quasi-governmental launches and some part of US government launches. Other players in this space now almost entirely depend on defence contracts or national prestige contracts to survive.
Is the Starship Mk1 more structurally sound than it looks? From a first glance and having no knowledge of its design, it looks like an empty soda can that would deform at the slightest disturbance. And the way it crumpled in the video doesn't seem far off from what I would expect.
Soda cans are actually incredibly strong for their weight.