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SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

apnews.com

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Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#611

Post by angelbar »

jackmott42 wrote: post #570
sbuttgereit wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this assessment and probably the biggest problem in the test. After that, they still have a fair way to go on Raptor reliability; I was a bit disappointed with the number of engine outs: clearly the engines have not arrived. I think the big win of the day was the overall resilience of the vehicle. It seemed to handle (what looked to be) possibly explosive engine failures and kept going and stayed intact.…

> but having that gut feeling that maybe there's more to a situation than the numbers would have you believe is still something that humans can do better In my life experience so far, humans having gut feelings it 99% of the time complete nonsense. But people forget the 99 times and that one time their gut was right they tell that story forever about how smart they were.

Like survivor bias.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#612

Post by adamsb6 »

nomilk wrote: post #157

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…

I guess "Largest rocket test in history successfully launched" doesn't generate enough traffic compared to the pessimistic "explodes minutes after launch."

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#613

Post by Aperocky »

CydeWeys wrote: post #385
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…

I was amazed at how resilient Starship was despite how many engines had failed, right up until the point they needed to yaw for stage separation and lost control. They've gotta improve the reliability of those engines (which I'm sure they will), but it's a testament to the quality of their control software how far they got despite having those malfunctioning engines.

Commodity parts are going to run the future. Soon we'll have commodity rocket engines and it's going to be plug and play with software accomodating X% failure per launch.

The Soviets only dreamed of such when they came up with the disaster that is the N1.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#614

Post by sidibe »

dang wrote: post #579
nomilk wrote: post #157

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…

What would be a more neutral and accurate headline?

SpaceX launches Starship Off Launchpad in Stunning Success, Giant Leap for Humanity

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#615

Post by fivestarman »

mabbo wrote: post #61

People want to see 100% success in all things. But that isn't very economical. Compare the SLS to Starship. SLS has had a 100% success rate. One launch, one success. But it costs $2B per launch (and climbing) and has taken 12 years to get here. Plus, it's stealing pieces of the Space Shuttle, which was developed in the 70s over a long period of time. Starship will launch a half a dozen "failures" before they achieve…

starship will always be a failure built on lies. just youtube 'starship debunked'.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#616

Post by perryizgr8 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #309
mabbo wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My point would be that while SpaceX does save lots of money, it doesn't do so by producing cheap or less reliable rockets. It would never accept a failure rate any different than anyone else because, in aerospace, that isn't really a thing. SpaceX can certainly blast forwards with different business practices and different tolerance for developmental risks, but the final product will not be fundamentally different th…

> it doesn't do so by producing cheap or less reliable rockets

I saw in another comment that each SLS launch costs $2B. Do you think SpaceX spent $2B on this launch? I find it hard to believe.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#617

Post by stephc_int13 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #578
stephc_int13 wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like this. I fully understand that rocket launches are going to fail a few times before succeeding, I don't get the need for gaslight. This feels like North Korea style propaganda.

Where is the gas lighting? They said getting off the launch pad would be a win going into it and people are pointing this out after the fact. There is no hypocrisy or doublethink involved

This is not a total success.

Partial success OK.

Calling it a huge success feels super weird for me, but I am not American so maybe this is a cultural thing.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#618

Post by idontwantthis »

bmitc wrote: post #272
ianai wrote: post #189

Let’s not move the goalposts. This company develops differently than historical aerospace. Success was defined as blowing up any point beyond the launch pad. It made it well past max-q which is the point of highest atmospheric stress on the rocket.

Were the goalposts set arbitrarily low? What did the Apollo program define as success for Saturn V test launches?

Well they managed to kill two astronauts in a rocket without even launching it.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#620

Post by wkat4242 »

vannevar wrote: post #575
samwillis wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, the two untested things were stage zero (all the new ground infrastructure) and stage one (booster). I think it's clear one of their biggest lessons is that the construction of the launch mount is wrong, and it REALY needs a flame diverter. Take a look at this photo: https://mobile.twitter.com/LabPadre/status/16490627841670307... That massive hole in the ground should not have happed, and I suspect that was…

>That massive hole in the ground should not have happed, and I suspect that was not an expected possibility. Interestingly, this post predicting exactly this kind of damage was flagged on HN just days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35590279 I think it's unlikely that SpaceX wasn't aware of the damage that would be caused. They have a pretty good engineering team, and that aspect didn't involve an anomaly,…

Interesting article. He doesn't really speak of a large hole in the ground and huge chunks of debris flying around though. More of the effects of the heat and sound energy on wildlife which is not quite as obvious.

He raises some good points indeed, not sure why it was flagged at all.

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