581–590 of 1001 posts
But it got off the pad and through max Q. Awesome achievement regardless!
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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…
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.…
Who knows if they were controlled tests, you need failures to understand the reliability domain. Engineering is about handling failure, not success. You learn very little from success, esp with so many free variables.
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The thing that bothers me about this rapid unplanned disassembly development methodology is all the environmental damage that this thing is doing. It was bad enough blowing up next to a wildlife preserve, but now they are (with some degree of certainty) blowing it higher up and scattering fragments across a huge area. The rockets are not getting any smaller. > so the only way to test x is with a starship on top. Why…
The road to the coast likely did more damage than blowing up a hundred vehicles.
It sounds like they achieved what they were officially hoping to achieve. Everyone was cheering but Musk didn't look super happy imo.
Elon is on the record as saying that launches cause him massive anxiety so I'm sure it was difficult to be outwardly happy
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The issue is that that dirt and rocks flying around damages all the other expensive equipment at the launch site. There is going to be some very dead kit down there. They can't do that every time. But big dust clouds also upset people, and SpaceX can't afford to fall out with the locals.
Locals? Don't they own 99% of Boca Chica by now?
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That doesn’t apply here because they have no opportunity to change anything after the mistake, right?
Well, yeah. In this sense, it's the second-worst thing that could have happened, with the worst outcome being injured or dead people. But they probably didn't expect such a bombastic finale so quickly.
Is this some mind game you are playing? They said they don't expect the test to go smoothly, and that their goal is to learn as much as possible. They did this multiple times, before the test, during the test, by the CEO, on the stream, everywhere.
They told us that if they can learn from the test that is success, if the rocket on top of that clears the tower that is a win.
And then you comment that they didn't actually mean any of that. Why? Why is it not easier to take them at their word?
> it's the second-worst thing that could have happened,
Not at all. As you say the worst thing would be injured or dead people. Second worst would be damage to third party property. Fourth would be breaching their allowed airspace. Third worst would be a failure where the telemetry and tracking also failed and that prevents them from learning.
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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.…
The Raptor issues may well be just a symptom of the concrete issue; large chunks flying up into complicated plumbing isn't ideal.
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They defined success up front as being able to gather information. They did that.
Isn't this such a low bar that almost anything could clear it (e.g. Goodhart's law)? To me, more interesting than how the company itself defines success would be how domain experts outside the company perceive it.
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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.…
> After that, they still have a fair way to go on Raptor reliability I suspect the debris from blowing a whole in the ground was the biggest contributing factor for the engines out. It looked like at lease 4 we're gone before it left the pad.
This write-up is so bad. It’s almost like a caricature of bad takes. If I wanted to show someone an example of why journalists suck at their jobs, I think this would be exhibit A. This rapid unscheduled disassembly was a huge success for SpaceX and everyone involved should be so proud. What a kick ass display of engineering prowess. That’s what the take should be, not “they tried to fly for an hour but it blew up aft…
But an actual kick-ass display of engineering prowess in recent memory was launching and deploying the Webb telescope.