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SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

arstechnica.com

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Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

#261

Post by dotnet00 »

ehsankia wrote: post #180
ein0p wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His “antics” is why SpaceX became possible in the first place. If he cared what others think he wouldn’t have started it, and wouldn’t be who he is.

Not sure we're referring to the same "antics". You cannot deny that Elon has changed as a person ever since he got hooked on Twitter. A lot of his personality and how he acts these days is very much focused on trying to get the most likes. Pre-Twitter "fame", it's true that he disregarded what others thought, but he also wasn't so focused on maximizing his likes either. Twitter was like heroine for him, and he now li…

Is it really so hard for you to accept that he's just being like any person and sharing what he finds to be worth sharing?

He was always like this. He started SpaceX because he thought putting a dome on Mars within which plants would be grown would be inspiring. The only reason it wasn't on social media was because it wasn't really much of a thing at the time. He didn't care about the optics and tried to buy an ICBM from Russia for this purpose.

To me that sounds like the same person as he is on social media.

Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

#262

Post by TMWNN »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #183
sneak wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it weren’t for his extremism, none of this would be happening. Maybe stop looking for reasons to hate on him simply because it’s popular to do so? His works speak for themselves.

I don't hate him, I simply find his views on most (?) topics reprehensible, naive and/or delusional. I think he's doing great harm to his businesses by oversharing them. I particularly despise his pathetic bothsidesing of the war in which fascists are invading and murdering my relatives in my country of birth.

> I particularly despise his pathetic bothsidesing of the war in which fascists are invading and murdering my relatives in my country of birth.

As a Ukrainian you ought to be on your knees thanking God that Musk was born. Starlink is that vital to Ukraine, and he had zero obligation to provide it (let alone for free) when the Ukrainian government asked for his help early in the war. The US-funded Starlink subscriptions and Starshield have only increased the value Musk's enterprise provides to Ukraine, of course, but it all began for free.

Let me repeat: Zero obligation. Musk is not Ukrainian. The United States is, contrary to what many subreddits' denizens seem to believe, not actually at war with Russia. Ukraine is not a member of NATO or EU. He can say whatever he wants whenever he wants about anything thanks to freedoms that exist in the US but not in Russia (or Ukraine), and Musk is a lot more entitled to do so than you or me or every bleater on Reddit whose collective actions have saved fewer Ukrainian lives than the results of Musk's capital and innovation and risk-taking.

Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

#263

Post by dotnet00 »

croes wrote: post #214
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way is it not sustainable?

Without constant replacement it's gone pretty fast.

Which makes it sustainable... if it goes away shortly after you stop replacing it, it's not putting debris up there.

Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

#264

Post by TMWNN »

baq wrote: post #142
foobarian wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but freaking first stage landings got routine. Not quite boring yet - I still tear up any time I see one :-)

Yeah they won when insurance on used rockets became less than on new ones. If you said that in public a decade or so ago, you’d be laughed at all the way to the psych ward.

I didn't realize that insurance premiums' costs had changed. Has it gotten to the point where customers prefer used Falcons 9 because they're proven, as opposed to new boosters? Or are there still customers that prefer new boosters?

Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

#265

Post by lmm »

croes wrote: post #214
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way is it not sustainable?

Without constant replacement it's gone pretty fast.

Most things have maintenance costs. If Starlink makes enough money to fund the required satellite replacement rate, that's sustainable.

Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

#266

Post by dotnet00 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #151
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time Elon says or does something cringey nowadays, I just keep repeating the same mantra to myself: "There's no way he can fuck up SpaceX with his antics now, it's too far advanced for his ego to ruin it all and plunge us back into another space exploration winter, stay calm".

> Every time Elon says or does something I remind myself that the real genius at the head of SpaceX is Gwynne, and hope that Elon continues to let her be awesome.

Gwynne is not involved in Starship. She handles the customers and related requirements, while Musk handles R&D and related requirements.

For example, Musk wanted to cancel Falcon Heavy when it started to become clearer how tiny its impact would end up being relative to cost (since F9 had improved so much as to eat up most of the demand they had expected FH to take). It was pretty fair reasoning, but Gwynne insisted that they keep FH development going because they had already started trying to sell it to customers and she felt that cancelation would affect how seriously customers take future offerings from SpaceX for rockets which haven't been fully built ahead of time.

Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

#267

Post by panick21_ »

bumby wrote: post #215
evilduck wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even SpaceX's methods of fail fast (and often explosively) is relatively cheap. SLS is doing it the hard and expensive way.

The downside is that rapid iteration doesn't always give the same insight in terms of scientific understanding. E.g., Design_A fails. We quickly pivot to Design_B, which works. However, we don't spend the time ultimately understanding why Design_A failed. This can be operationally great, but it can also risk conflating being lucky with being good. If you don't fundamentally understand why the thing failed the first t…

That's just your assumption. SpaceX is actually doing all that. They invested early in good simulation tools and they are developing their own. They have great material science teams and engineering teams. They do invest a lot in actually understanding the fundamentals and they make good use of the data from things that failed.

Take for example the work on the failure of Amos 6. They went really deep into that one and its a pretty interesting result from a scientific perspective.

On the other hand, there is no point in doing endless science on why the pad blew up during the first orbital flight test. They solution was already in development anyway and its pretty clear that the solution would migrate the problem. It might introduce new problems but the old one wasn't happening again.

So there is a limited need to the exact detail of underground steam explosion or whatever exactly happened there.

Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

#268

Post by TeMPOraL »

TMWNN wrote: post #264
baq wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah they won when insurance on used rockets became less than on new ones. If you said that in public a decade or so ago, you’d be laughed at all the way to the psych ward.

I didn't realize that insurance premiums' costs had changed. Has it gotten to the point where customers prefer used Falcons 9 because they're proven, as opposed to new boosters? Or are there still customers that prefer new boosters?

That's a shock to me too. SpaceX dubbing reused boosters "flight-proven" started as tongue-in-cheek; I never considered it becoming true taken at face value.

Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

#269

Post by panick21_ »

Animats wrote: post #249
whimsicalism wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure if there is enough profitable space industry. Last I checked asteroid mining was not super feasible, but maybe some like space based solar.

The asteroid Psyche is expected to have a lot of gold content. NASA sent a probe last year, but it's a long trip and will take until 2029 to get there. Even then it just orbits.

That's nonsense. Sure Psyche has a lot of valuable materials on it, but so do mountains on earth, doesn't mean its great way to make money.

There are things far closer to earth that are far easier to get to, and those things are also far smaller then Psyche and thus far easier to mine.

The most serious space mining company right now is targeting near earth asteroids for platinum group metals.

Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

#270

Post by dotnet00 »

TMWNN wrote: post #264
baq wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah they won when insurance on used rockets became less than on new ones. If you said that in public a decade or so ago, you’d be laughed at all the way to the psych ward.

I didn't realize that insurance premiums' costs had changed. Has it gotten to the point where customers prefer used Falcons 9 because they're proven, as opposed to new boosters? Or are there still customers that prefer new boosters?

NASA officials have claimed to prefer flight proven boosters for most science missions (https://twitter.com/Dr_ThomasZ/status/1512459452938534916)
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