SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas • Hacker News Board

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#231

Post by mabbo » Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 2:42 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #198

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…

>> 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 ten not-100%-success launches before then.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#232

Post by throwntoday » Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 2:42 PM UTC

eisvogel wrote: post #146

a4isms wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you mean, "Thanks Gwynne Shotwell." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwynne_Shotwell I think HN understands the difference between a charismatic leader who is good at laying out a vision and generating a tremendous amount of hype around it (like Steve Jobs) and someone who is an expert at actually realizing a vision (Steve Wozniak, Tim Cook). They may both be necessary for success, but if you are praising the ro…

Shotwell is also awesome, that is certain. They all are. I personally think the first man down the ladder on mars should be a woman, and it would be great if it were her. However, Elon founded that company (and personally hired Shotwell) and has been a continual source of engineering inspiration, for several decades. His direction has pretty much forced the global automotive industry to go electric. People may not li…

> I personally think the first man down the ladder on mars should be a woman

Shouldn't it just be the commander of the mission?

The way you speak is so condescending to women, as though they wouldn't have the ability to earn their place and it has to be handed to them. I can't speak to your intentions but it's not equality if you thought it was.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#233

Post by akritrime » Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

6d6b73 wrote: post #185

Coffeewine wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn't blow up on the pad. They'll be happy to blow up dozens of these, hopefully incrementally perfecting the design each time.

That's not engineering. What they did is identical to developers copying code from SO and running it to see if it works.

That's exactly engineering. A complex system seldom has a 100% success on first launch, all engineering products are incremental success. There are thousands of small factors that can deviate a live test from their theoretical assumptions. The fact that they have got past the first hurdle for a completely untested product is worthy of appreciation. Just a few years back, everyone would have unanimously applauded the launch. But now, people are letting their personal bias about the CEO cloud their judgement about the achievements of the engineers working on the product.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#234

Post by s1artibartfast » Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #190

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The test was a massive success. So happy to see starship clear the towers. The largest rocket ever built, larger than the Saturn V. Are you kidding me?

If I'm tasked with recording test data for x, y, and z and I only record x, is that a success? Now I need to launch another to try for the y, and z. Edit: What would an unsuccessful test look like then?

As you point out, "success" depends entirely on your goals for the task.

SpaceX said their goal was to get off the launch pad going into this, which indeed may have been setting a low bar for success. However, there is no other alternative definition.

If you are tasked with recording X, and anything else beyond is bonus, doing X is success.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#235

Post by gvb » Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

hindsightbias wrote: post #200

FAA will be wanting to talk to that Range Safety Officer. Waiting for it to break up on it’s own can’t be a best practice.

As long as the trajectory of the vehicle stays within the "safe trajectory box", the range safety officer has no reason to blow the rocket up.

SpaceX acquired a huge amount of data that would have otherwise been lost if the RSO was "quick on the trigger."

Example of a different rocket failure where the range safety officer let the rocket survive until it exceeded the safe trajectory box:

"Astra Rocket 3 LV0006 drifting launch & failure (NASASpaceFlight footage)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxVoBlgzZlQ

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#236

Post by ShamelessC » Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 2:44 PM UTC

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.

What provoked this response? The headline makes no assertions about success or failure. It is extremely literally a description of what occurred.

It’s one thing to feel defensive about a misleading headline. This is just fanboyism.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#237

Post by segasaturn » Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 2:44 PM UTC

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.

I'm wondering what the environmental impact of all of these exploding rockets is though. Surely they won't be able to fish every piece of the rocket out of the ocean, along with all of the fuel.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#238

Post by jjoonathan » Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 2:44 PM UTC

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.

They did have to weld over the pez dispenser, though. Have they sorted that out on the new rockets? A blow-away structural component or something?

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#239

Post by DoneWithAllThat » Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 2:44 PM UTC

a4isms wrote: post #91

eisvogel wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking this as well... It spiraled seemingly forever without failing, while they hoovered telemetry off of it, until pressing the big red button. Massive fault tolerance at play. SpaceX is awesome in so many ways. Thanks Elon.

Perhaps you mean, "Thanks Gwynne Shotwell." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwynne_Shotwell I think HN understands the difference between a charismatic leader who is good at laying out a vision and generating a tremendous amount of hype around it (like Steve Jobs) and someone who is an expert at actually realizing a vision (Steve Wozniak, Tim Cook). They may both be necessary for success, but if you are praising the ro…

I think HN likes to minimize the individual effort and success of great leaders because it plays against their personal beliefs. And I say this as someone who doesn’t like Musk very much.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#240

Post by moffkalast » Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 2:44 PM UTC

tjpnz wrote: post #24

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

One or two engines looked like they actually exploded in flight, it just kept going like nothing happened. Absolutely amazing.