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SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

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Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#101

Post by jlmorton »

bhouston wrote: post #5

[flagged]

I'm sorry to be pulled into commenting on a Great Culture War issue in a space thread, but this is really unfair framing.

When someone, or a group refuses to ban something, that doesn't mean they support it.

Just because the United States allows literal Nazis to speak about anything they want does not mean the United States supports Nazis, or is anti-Semitic.

The exact same principle is true of Twitter. If you allow people to post anti-trans rhetoric, that does not in any way mean you are anti-trans.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#102

Post by elil17 »

bushbaba wrote: post #94
elil17 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that it is a successful test based on the goals they set out, but the cheering seemed staged to me. If that was my rocket, I'd be very upset that it came so close to total success but didn't make it. Maybe everyone at SpaceX is just super emotionally mature

It’s smart PR. Most the public audience won’t realize how each of these steps is a huge success in of itself.

I mean sure. Companies can do PR, I don't really have a problem with it. And it was a technical success, I'm sure. I just think it seemed staged.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#103

Post by TT-392 »

panki27 wrote: post #11

It looked just like a regular launch in Kerbal Space Program at the end.

Yup, if they hadn't terminated it, surely they'd have just waited until they entered a less dense part of the atmosphere, stabilized, and continued the flight. Just with some delta-v lost. And if that wouldn't have worked, they could have just throttled the engine up when pointy end up, and down when pointy end down, waited until exiting the atmosphere, and then time warp to stabilize.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#104

Post by mcculley »

simondotau wrote: post #6

Success was defined as the rocket leaving the launchpad. Suggesting that this test “failed” is at best a mischaracterisation.

> "Success was defined as the rocket leaving the launchpad."

I am confused. Everything I read before the launch said that it was intended to reach orbital altitude and make it around the Earth.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#106

Post by tjpnz »

dmix wrote: post #59
tjpnz wrote: post #24

Parts falling off, engines going out, something getting inside the interstage. That ship was an absolute fighter.

> something getting inside the interstage What does this mean?

Based on the feed there was either some gas or debris flying around in the section between the two stages. At that altitude I don't think it could've been air.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#107

Post by ravenstine »

shadowgovt wrote: post #70
ravenstine wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if this is true, it's going to get more and more difficult to explain away rocket explosions as succeeding the more decades we put between us and the dawn of the Space Age. If SpaceX is still blowing up rockets in 2033, it's going to become a PR problem, especially as the MSM further turns its back on Musk.

That doesn't make any sense for prototypes. It's been slightly fewer decades since we've been doing consumer software. Does anybody expect version 1 to be bug free?

You're thinking about this like an engineer rather than a PR consultant or a journalist looking to write a hit piece on Musk.

Even now, it's not hard to ask the somewhat specious question of how we can be 70+ years into aerospace tech and we still need our rockets to blow up.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#108

Post by weberer »

koliber wrote: post #47

Congrats on hitting the test goal. The double speak is funny though: > SpaceX call this a rapid unscheduled disassembly What would a regularly-paced scheduled disassembly look like?

RUD is more of a joke term than doublespeak. Like FUBAR and SNAFU.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#109

Post by ClarityJones »

ravenstine wrote: post #65
simondotau wrote: post #6

Success was defined as the rocket leaving the launchpad. Suggesting that this test “failed” is at best a mischaracterisation.

Even if this is true, it's going to get more and more difficult to explain away rocket explosions as succeeding the more decades we put between us and the dawn of the Space Age. If SpaceX is still blowing up rockets in 2033, it's going to become a PR problem, especially as the MSM further turns its back on Musk.

It would be absolutely reckless for SpaceX to not blow up rockets. How could they credibly claim to know the limits and abilities of their spacecrafts if they did not test those limits to the breaking point?

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#110

Post by mwint »

somenameforme wrote: post #82

One interesting observation here is how long it took the ship to get off the pad from the T-0 mark. This is undoubtedly because some of the raptors on it apparently failed to ignite. I thought they were about to make a mess on the launch pad! I'm also curious about what technically finally got it off the ground - was there a sufficient, but low, level of acceleration, was it a matter of reducing the rocket's mass (by…

More likely, holddowns on the pad until everything was stabilized. Probably takes a few seconds to vector/throttle the other engines to compensate for the lost ones.

E: convery's reply below makes much more sense.

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