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SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

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Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

#141

Post by natch »

ineedasername wrote: post #123
ineedasername wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that it's a rocket, "nearly land" could mean it kept going in some way, towards space or simply not yet touched down. So when I read the HN title and thought "what do they mean by nearly landed?" I then saw the article and realized "oh, it crashed". I'm not sure where the balance should be... "Crash" has a negative connotation, but "nearly lands" is a pretty soft euphemism.

To add to my comment-- I think the CNN headline got it better without the softening euphemism by pointing out it was a success: "A SpaceX Mars rocket prototype just exploded. It was still a success"

I don’t think it exploded. It broke up by hitting the ground (not by exploding) which caused fuel and oxygen to leak out, which then ignited in a large fireball. But maybe this is splitting hairs. It sure looked like an explosion.

Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

#142

Post by Kliment »

aardvarkr wrote: post #116
thelittleone wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that the progress is not at all slow. It's the opposite, particularly when compared to the usual development speeds the worlds space program and aerospace contractors. Someone asked a question on one of the live feeds. Would SpaceX learn more from a successful landing or from a failure. I can't answer that, but it seems they proved the concept.

Failures point out flaws to be fixed but also stop you from gathering more data through the rest of the experiment. The earlier SN5 had a huge list of failures but at least landed in one piece which meant they could extract data from their equipment, tear down systems to understand how they handled the stresses and strains of the launch, and then they could launch it again to see how their fixes worked. Thankfully th…

As I understand it the landing legs didn't deploy because velocity was too high and angle was wrong. All this stuff gets reported by telemetry because they know exactly how likely it is that a first attempt flight will fail catastrophically (very). So these test rockets are heavily instrumented and networked. Watching it the first time I also thought one of the engines had failed but then that engine had a successful relight and another did not, and the fuel mix ratio appeared to be wrong on one of the engines. This is all consistent with loss of propellant (there was a quite significant leak after the first fire in engine bay) and not consistent with "engines ate themselves alive".

Your greater point about it being better to land than not land stands, but these are experimental rockets. They're expected to fail catastrophically and you plan accordingly.

Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

#143

Post by anovikov »

hpoe wrote: post #3

I remember watching the Tesla going into space and the rockets landing on the platform. I remember thinking "Wow this man has restarted the space race for my generation." It was a hopeful and wonderful feeling, I figured with the budget cuts, the politics, and the general "been there done that" attitude that was prominent for much of my life space was closed. To see it opened again, gives me some sort of hope, some i…

Except he didn't restart the race itself: there are no opponents.

Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

#144

Post by Tepix »

gt565k wrote: post #75

Lmao at all the people hating on a test launch. If this was even 10 years ago, you wouldn't even get a live stream of the launch and attempted landing. Perhaps Elon shouldn't even live stream this, so negative trolls wouldn't be able to assert and express their chair philosopher opinions. The fact that there are another 8-9 SN vehicles being readied at this time for testing tells you exactly what is happening. Slow p…

I haven't really seen any hater comments, just hundreds of people in awe and admiration, cheering SpaceX

Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

#145

Post by nitrogen »

marricks wrote: post #124
nynx wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a young person (21), I feel the same way. Space exploration and a beautiful future suddenly seems achievable with hard work and a lot of engineering instead of just feeling impossible.

I'd really think a bit more about it. We have so many problems here and none are solved by leaving. Climate change, wealth inequality, hungry, poor. None of the billionaires (Musk/Bezos) building rockets treat their workers terribly well now, and their end game will just be exploiting workers around the solar system. Coming as a past fan of space exploration is was pretty devastating to realize...

Earth's problems are largely political, bureaucratic, and cultural. The people who love and are good at those areas have very little overlap with people who love and are good at tech, science, or space. The best we can do is provide something that magnifies our aspirations as a species, so that we and others will be inspired to improve our lot.

Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

#148

Post by Tepix »

someperson wrote: post #65
areoform wrote: post #54

I make efforts to add to discussions instead of subtracting with negativity. Recently, I've broken my rule quite a few times, fretting over the future of general compute. I'd vowed to not break it again, but the discussion about Starship lacks a vital perspective. . I don't understand the hype behind Starship. It's confusing to me. It is touching and nice; it's great to see people excited about space. However, the ex…

> It's at least half-a-decade to a decade away from initial reusable testflights, and perhaps more given the under funding of the Artemis program SpaceX is not dependent on Artemis funding other than lunar Starship. Yusaku Maezawa's Dear Moon also provides $500 million in Starship funding (presumably tranches get released for successful milestones including this test). SpaceX are otherwise self-funding the Starship t…

> Yusaku Maezawa's Dear Moon also provides $500 million in Starship funding

Source?

Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

#149

Post by nine_k »

Kliment wrote: post #142
aardvarkr wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Failures point out flaws to be fixed but also stop you from gathering more data through the rest of the experiment. The earlier SN5 had a huge list of failures but at least landed in one piece which meant they could extract data from their equipment, tear down systems to understand how they handled the stresses and strains of the launch, and then they could launch it again to see how their fixes worked. Thankfully th…

As I understand it the landing legs didn't deploy because velocity was too high and angle was wrong. All this stuff gets reported by telemetry because they know exactly how likely it is that a first attempt flight will fail catastrophically (very). So these test rockets are heavily instrumented and networked. Watching it the first time I also thought one of the engines had failed but then that engine had a successful…

The video shows us the wreck site at the end. The rocket is mostly one piece though damaged by hitting the ground too fast and from a (relatively minor) explosion.

It must be possible to find most pieces, and certainly check the engines, even deformed, for overburn signs.

Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

#150

Post by nine_k »

new_realist wrote: post #84
gt565k wrote: post #75

Lmao at all the people hating on a test launch. If this was even 10 years ago, you wouldn't even get a live stream of the launch and attempted landing. Perhaps Elon shouldn't even live stream this, so negative trolls wouldn't be able to assert and express their chair philosopher opinions. The fact that there are another 8-9 SN vehicles being readied at this time for testing tells you exactly what is happening. Slow p…

I, for one, can’t wait until Musk leaves Earth.

...then returns, then leaves again, etc — it's hard to handle Mars colonization fully remotely!
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