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SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

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Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#441

Post by szoszon »

fastball wrote: post #394
szoszon wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there are 5 more of these being built, how they will incorporate anything they learned during this failed attempt? Isn't that just a waste of money?

From watching the launch, my absolutely pulled from my butt guess is that something went wrong with the stage separation system, and that the explosion was deliberately triggered by the SpaceX team / triggered by automated guardrails when the mission didn't go according to parameters. If that's true, then they can just fix whatever is wrong with the stage separation. And if it's something else, they can probably fix…

There was a lot of wrong with the launch from the start - failed engines, destroyed pad, parts of the rocket flying off during the start. Yes, it's amazing that it went for as far as it did, but there is no way they can fix all of it quickly.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#442

Post by DoughnutHole »

version_five wrote: post #315
bumby wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Fail fast" applies to more than just software. Yes, but let's not take the analogy too far. For people who work in safety-critical design (including software), it takes a different mindset than what is often prevalent in silicon valley. When the stakes are high, you don't really want to "move fast and break things". You can actually see this in SpaceX. In development when stakes are relatively low (e.g., no payloa…

I agree with everything in your comment. One thing I've wondered about re space exploration though is how we reconcile what I think is pretty much universal acknowledgement that we have to do everything possible to avoid loss of life with the inherent danger of space travel, and the "drag" that a zero-tolerance safety focus can have on culture. Put another way, what would global exploration have looked like if sailor…

Early modern sailors were uneducated manual labourers with few economic prospects in a world where simply living as a lower class individual was more dangerous than nearly any job that exists in the developed world today. Sailing often paid better than jobs on land which made up for the risk, and it offered the potential of massive reward to the high class leadership of the vessel.

There is no consummate economic incentive for being an astronaut. The incentive is the experience and making some impact on science, and while that motivates many people the probability of attracting the best and the brightest goes down as the probability of exploding goes up.

I'd say there's unlikely to be enough of an economic incentive to justify riskier manned space travel until the earth becomes a whole lot less habitable.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#444

Post by baq »

mhandley wrote: post #332

I'm really interested to see the hole it dug under the launch mount. The NASA SpaceFlight van took a direct hit from a fast moving chunk of concrete. https://twitter.com/JerryPikePhoto/status/164905272269878477... https://twitter.com/LabPadre/status/1649053476276797440 Edit: it really did dig a crater (this was flat concrete under the pad before): https://twitter.com/LabPadre/status/1649062784167030785

Why dig a flame trench if you can have your test article make one for you. Efficiency!

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#445

Post by flippinburgers »

cryptoz wrote: post #17

People always joke that a success like this will be blasted by the media as a failure, but it's the most predictable thing ever. Massive success today for SpaceX but the story is massive failure. So silly. I'm as anti-Musk as the next, but it's also weird to see so many people gleeful that Musk must be so embarrassed at this 'massive failure'. Like, how uninformed do you have to be to think that Elon would be humilia…

[flagged]

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#446

Post by rhacker »

Denvercoder9 wrote: post #345
rhacker wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes, what's the chance just enough rockets will cause the next one to crash and blow up in Miami?

Zero, given that the launch corridor doesn't pass over land, and all rockets are equipped with a Flight Termination System that blows up the rocket if it deviates from that corridor.

Cool, thanks for letting me know.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#447

Post by lttlrck »

destitude wrote: post #322
bitL wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It almost blew up on the launchpad (see the debris flying after a few seconds), then at around 30 seconds you can see some explosion at the bottom, throwing away some surface parts. Multiple failed engines. Then it went into an unsurvivable "tailspin" if there was any crew around. Cheering for failure was the topping.

What evidence do you have it almost blew up at launchpad? That most likely was concrete chunks flying off away from the rocket and nothing with the rocket itself. You really don't seem to have a grasp what was trying to be done or how any of the previous SpaceX rocket programs functioned.

There seems to be some collective amnesia as to how SpaceX operates. The pedantry over the meaning of "failure", toward the negative, is disappointing.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#448

Post by Retric »

nunuvit wrote: post #418
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…

Completely agree. I've worked in "old space" and the fundamental problem is that they can't afford to experiment. SpaceX has the option to physically test an idea that's holding them up before investing in fully bringing it up to production quality, only to have to redo all that work next iteration. That's why they can make new things and do it cheaper and faster.

Except SpaceX’s failure rates are similar with every other successful launch system. Rather than looking at failure as a constant rate you need to consider these numbers change with every flight. Initially major design flaws are identified and workers become more skilled at a process, eventually new errors creep in etc etc.

They have greatly benefited from being able to use modern tools and seen where other systems failed. Many rocket companies have failed when trying to go fast and break things because it isn’t an easy shortcut. Instead SpaceX has used the normal approach used by other successful organizations and simply executed it well.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#449

Post by dbrueck »

aziaziazi wrote: post #211
haunter wrote: post #8

Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1wcilQ58hI&t=2920s (the cheering is actually really funny cause the launch was already a success)

> clearing the tower was all we hoped All, really ? What about the flight plan ? I like the American philosophy to see the good part of experiences even when thinks don’t go as planned, but IMHO I feel like it's drifting more and more from « there’s good in failure » to « let’s call everything a success ». May be wrong, just my European point of view through the transatlantic optic fiber.

They're required to file a flight plan with the FAA or they can't launch.

If the plan says they'll go all the way into orbit and they abort early, that's ok.

If the plan says they'll get 100m off the ground and go no further, and they instead manage to make it all the way into orbit, they'd be in a huge amount of trouble.

Given the above, what sort of flight plan would you recommend they file?

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#450

Post by foxyv »

kawfey wrote: post #389
foxyv wrote: post #368

I can't believe it made it off the pad! The fact it made it up to stage separation is crazy. That was the first flight with all the Super Heavy engines at once. I'm just blown away right now. 33 Raptor engines firing all at once without a single failure! The original hoppers had trouble running 1-3 raptors at once! There is just so much that could go wrong with this design and they knocked it out of the park! I'm bet…

> without a single failure well..at least 8 engines failed on the way up. At least a majority of them were lit! There was lots of very heavy debris that left the pad and flew hundreds of feet away upon ignition; I have a feeling that some debris came back up and hit an engine or two.

I kind of meant the kind of failure that results in the engines going off like a bundle of dynamite sticks when their neighbors get frisky. But yeah, 8 is a bit much. Any idea what the debris was?
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