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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 an "industry term" :) https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/10022/who-coined-t...
Fail? So much success, the fact that it got off the ground and is providing tonnes of data to ground control. Agile rocket building ftw.
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I think a lot of articles and tweets are focusing on the failure incorrectly. Their views are coloured by wanting to see Elon fail because they don't like his views. This was at least a muted success and not an outright failure and it is just a stepping stone. I was trying to say, yes, Elon has pretty bad views these days, but this is still at least a semi-success, not a set back or failure.
SpaceX is successful despite of Elon Musk, not because of Elon Musk. SpaceX spends a lot of energy keeping Musks's insanity and emotional outbursts at bay. Tesla has also learned how to manage Musk, though not quite as successfully as SpaceX. Twitter is still figuring it out, but I'm sure that they too will learn how to manage Musk. I think it's useful to compare Musk with fire. Fire is useful, if controlled. Fire ca…
It looked just like a regular launch in Kerbal Space Program at the end.
Pretty much, I'm sure most of us have at least once had a tumble at or above max-Q. I'm intrigued as per cause. Lots of Engine failures and spewed parts. It had a real slide on liftoff. An engine violently flashed and went pop about +25s. I do have to say, the thing requiring FTS after a violent flip well above supersonic speaks orders about structural work.
Success was defined as the rocket leaving the launchpad. Suggesting that this test “failed” is at best a mischaracterisation.
That’s the message they choose to use externally. I would guess they had somewhat higher hopes internally, and would have been at least somewhat disappointed if it had exploded just after clearing the launch pad. Whether they’re truly happy with this result probably will depend on their analysis of what went wrong. If they can find the cause and it’s easy to fix, they’ll be a lot happier than when they can’t figure o…
Anyone reading the headline could easily be misled: this was a massive success. Some context: - This was the first "integrated test" of the Starship space craft with its booster - The whole thing together was 120 meters tall - It will be one order of magnitude larger than the current largest rocket in terms of carrying capacity (~150 tonnes if it needs to return the booster, 250 if it doesn't) - There's 5 more of the…
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generic term - lot of time aerodynamic forces rip the vehicle apart and isn't an "explosion"
Well, it wasn’t disassembled either. That implies you can reassemble it. This just a funny phrase designed to cover an embarrassing situation. SpaceX just farted in an elevator.
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?
From the video it looks like the stages failed to separate and the rocket started tumbling. I'd expect the range safety officer to trigger the self-destruct at that point which would make the explosion newly scheduled rather than unscheduled.
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>> People want to see 100% success in all things. But that isn't very economical. That sounds logical, but isn't really a thing in aerospace/space. Complicated high-energy systems have thousands of failure points. So to have any chance of success each failure point needs to be engineered below, by way of example, a 0.0001% chance of failure. That costs lots of money. But say one decides to accept more risk for less c…
I'm not proposing something, I'm describing it. This is what SpaceX is doing , and it's quite successful. And you can look all the way back to their little hopper version of the Falcon 9 and see that this strategy has been the key to them undercutting the launch market significantly. My prediction: SpaceX will have a 5th 100% successful launch of Starship before the SLS has a 5th successful launch. They'll just have…
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Well said. On the other hand, the SLS — having a launch escape system and not requiring sophisticated acrobatics in order to reach land safely — is totally the ship I'd rather be on.
I suspect SpaceX will have to add something resembling an escape system before the thing gets "man-rated". That system could also be used to protect the passengers in case of a failed landing. It will add weight and thus lower the carrying capacity but they seem to have enough margin to allow for such an addition. They already have the header tanks in the top of Starship, adding a number of escape engines and some ex…
There is a section about Space Shuttle's crew bailout at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_abort_modes
Before the "Ejection escape systems" there are a few paragraphs about "inflight crew escape system"
> The vehicle was put in a stable glide on autopilot, the hatch was blown, and the crew slid out a pole to clear the orbiter's left wing. They would then parachute to earth or the sea
But 100 people is a different matter IMHO.
Ejections seats and capsule were not pursued, the Wikipedia page explains the reasons.