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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral

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Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral

#121

Post by ars »

gist wrote: post #76
tomjen3 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were no personal injuries, so I can't really be sad about a piece of electronics.

Agree. "Sad" is the PC thing to say when something like that happens. In most people's lives it's a big "who cares". [1] The fact that you were downvoted (at least when I saw your comment) indicates people don't agree with what you are saying and is an example of trying to enforce a particular type of thinking on someone else as far as what they should think or feel. [1] Of course I wouldn't say "who cares" directly…

He was downvoted for only looking at first-order effects: People harmed during the fire.

And ignoring second-order effects: People harmed because of the results of the fire.

The second group of people is not less important than the first.

Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral

#122

Post by Gracana »

ygra wrote: post #114
mabbo wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do the tests to validate that this rocket won't turn into a cruise missile, headed for the nearest residential area. Not an impossible scenario. Lots of energy stored up in one of those rockets. Just like when we test software, they want to have everything as close to what they would expect on launch day as possible (2 days from now). All the stresses, the structure, etc. That means putting stage 2 and the paylo…

> They do the tests to validate that this rocket won't turn into a cruise missile, headed for the nearest residential area. In that case the rocket has a flight-termination system, though, which should activate as soon as it veers too far outside the planned/expected parameters of the flight.

This discussion reminds me of the failure of the first Ariane 5 launch. The flight-termination system was activate erroneously, and the payload was not insured. Ouch.

http://www.esa.int/esapub/bulletin/bullet87/cavall87.htm

https://around.com/ariane.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_%28spacecraft%29

Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral

#123

Post by dmix »

ygra wrote: post #80
nateberkopec wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know nothing about space - why are they doing tests, where the rocket could possibly explode or fail, with the payload on board?

Same reason anyone else does tests: Find potential and actual issues earlier than in production. The static fire they were doing is sort of a short integration / smoke (pun not intended) test whether the rocket as a whole (whether the payload is attached already depends on the customer; it reduces time between test and launch, though) works properly. Other tests are part of sort of a pre-flight checklist directly bef…

Is launch pad designed to take a hit like this? Or do you think it would have caused a lot of damage to Cape Canaveral.

Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral

#124

Post by dr_zoidberg »

BatFastard wrote: post #49

For all developers of anything. Repeat this mantra. This is why we test, this is why we test, this is why we test. It is especially important to repeat this mantra around management types who want last minute builds before going in front of important customers, because the light blue button looks SO much better then the dark blue button...

The Antares explosion footage should accompany that mantra.

Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral

#125

Post by Phlarp »

ygra wrote: post #114
mabbo wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do the tests to validate that this rocket won't turn into a cruise missile, headed for the nearest residential area. Not an impossible scenario. Lots of energy stored up in one of those rockets. Just like when we test software, they want to have everything as close to what they would expect on launch day as possible (2 days from now). All the stresses, the structure, etc. That means putting stage 2 and the paylo…

> They do the tests to validate that this rocket won't turn into a cruise missile, headed for the nearest residential area. In that case the rocket has a flight-termination system, though, which should activate as soon as it veers too far outside the planned/expected parameters of the flight.

For more context, all (edit: American!) rockets for decades have had onboard self destruct systems and a "Range Safety Officer" on the ground whose entire job is to determine if and when to deploy this self destruct system.

The cruise missile scenario is highly unlikely as the rocket itself would be destroyed soon after leaving its intended trajectory.

Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral

#126

Post by snowwrestler »

300bps wrote: post #105
db48x wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The money didn't disappear, it paid the people working on the project all the way down to the miners who dug up the minerals and the fast-food workers who made the cheeseburger that engineer bought that one time. It did fail to earn a return, however.

You're advocating the Broken Window Fallacy. http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/broken-window-fal...

Not really, since he did note that the money will fail to earn a return.

Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral

#127

Post by intopieces »

300bps wrote: post #105
db48x wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The money didn't disappear, it paid the people working on the project all the way down to the miners who dug up the minerals and the fast-food workers who made the cheeseburger that engineer bought that one time. It did fail to earn a return, however.

You're advocating the Broken Window Fallacy. http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/broken-window-fal...

Not quite. The Broken Window Fallacy hinges on the fact that the son breaks the window for a reason that doesn't further any other economic cause. That is, he didn't break the window for research, so nothing new was gained from it. Resources were merely shifted from the shopkeeper to the glazier.

When it comes to innovation, however, failure is often the impetus to more efficient design. Not only was that $200m shifted from Musk/Investors to SpaceX, et al, but it also went to informing the process and improvements for the entire project, and future projects by other companies.

We wish we could learn these things more cheaply, sure. But that doesn't mean the world or company would have been better off in the long run had the incident not occurred -- it's too soon to tell, and we might never know.

Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral

#128

Post by [deleted] »

ygra wrote: post #114
mabbo wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do the tests to validate that this rocket won't turn into a cruise missile, headed for the nearest residential area. Not an impossible scenario. Lots of energy stored up in one of those rockets. Just like when we test software, they want to have everything as close to what they would expect on launch day as possible (2 days from now). All the stresses, the structure, etc. That means putting stage 2 and the paylo…

> They do the tests to validate that this rocket won't turn into a cruise missile, headed for the nearest residential area. In that case the rocket has a flight-termination system, though, which should activate as soon as it veers too far outside the planned/expected parameters of the flight.

[deleted]

Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral

#129

Post by pmarreck »

Symmetry wrote: post #62

The payload was apparently on the rocket at the time[1]. A $200 million loss there, which sucks for the insurance company but better than losing a $2b custom government bird. [1] https://twitter.com/SpaceflightNow/status/771352977315684352...

One has to wonder why it was thought to be a good idea to keep an expensive payload onboard during a live-fire test

EDIT: Did some research, it seems that those tests (without the payload) already ran successfully, and that this accident happened during the fueling stage at T-3 minutes... that's super unlucky :/

Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral

#130

Post by martindevans »

Klathmon wrote: post #82
yawz wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my first reaction. I thought they could create a dummy payload with the same dimensions and weight. But, then... unless the weight distribution of the payload is important.

Loading the payload isn't a quick thing, it takes time and a lot of careful work to do. So doing it before the tests can save a lot of time and I'm guessing money.

Loading the payload also requires a load of work moving the vehicle about etc. If you want to be certain you didn't damage the vehicle in any way during all of that then you need to test again once the payload is attached.

Of course normally a failure during a test would be something like minor thrust fluctuations - not a complete loss of vehicle and payload!

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