SpaceX Starship SN-1 Fails Pressure Test and Explodes (space.com) 96
SpaceX envisions Starship as a 387-foot-tall (118 meters) spacecraft/booster that can carry up to 100 people to Mars. Pig Hogger (Slashdot reader #10,379) tipped us off to this progress report from Space.com:
SpaceX's new Starship prototype appeared to burst during a pressure test late Friday (Feb. 28), rupturing under the glare of flood lights and mist at the company's south Texas facility. The Starship SN1 prototype, which SpaceX moved to a launchpad near its Boca Chica, Texas, assembly site earlier this week, blew apart during a liquid nitrogen pressure test according to a video captured by SPadre.com. A separate video posted by NASASpaceflight.com member BocaChicaGal clearly shows the Starship SN1's midsection buckle during the test, then shoot upward before crashing back to the ground...
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has hinted that many of these prototypes will be needed to perfect the Starship vehicle... Musk unveiled the first full-size Starship prototype, called the Starship Mk1, in September 2019. That vehicle blew its top during cryogenic testing.
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has hinted that many of these prototypes will be needed to perfect the Starship vehicle... Musk unveiled the first full-size Starship prototype, called the Starship Mk1, in September 2019. That vehicle blew its top during cryogenic testing.
Yikes (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I'm sure the trip will come with one incredible waiver to sign.
Re: (Score:2)
Sends lawyers and politicians to test it.
Re: (Score:3)
"What do you call 100 lawyers on their way to Mars?"
"A good start."
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Yes... but... do the lawyers still end up on Mars?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I used to think Musk was crazy. Why would anyone want to live on Mars, except visiting a scientific base?
But then I realised - his real plan is to build an equivalent of Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B.
Genius!
Re: (Score:2)
Sunsets, Sunrises, the night sky.
And I guess if I was there with the right lady, she would love to fall asleep in my hug after we watched the skyes.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
(Send)
Re: (Score:1)
Well, look on the bright side. The radiation on a trip to Mars would fry your brain like an egg in a hot cast iron pan, leaving you Alzheimer's like dementia and unrelenting terror of commonplace situations.
This way, it's over quickly.
Re: (Score:2)
>I say disconcerting because certainly the trip to mars will test certain conditions that cannot be replicated in testing here on earth.
Re: Yikes (Score:4, Interesting)
Computer models say "with a good weld this seam will hold."
But Elon Musk said they were using the wrong settings for the welder.
They are building this by hand so you end up with hand crafted errors. Each weld is unique and non repeatable. The real rockets will I'm sure be robotically welded and perfect repeatable.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Yikes (Score:5, Interesting)
Before this test, they said that the wrong settings had been used in the welding, so they moved the static fire from SN1 to SN2, so they knew in advance that this one was compromised. Computer models can't account for a human messing up the construction.
Re: Yikes (Score:4, Insightful)
They'll get it right. (Score:5, Interesting)
The issue is that they need to test the boundaries of their models. Rockets need to be as light as possible. Manufacturing processes and materials need to be affordable. Pressure in tanks with larger volumes grows proportionately with the volume(cubic), so its a LOT more pressure than their current tanks are designed for. If they werenâ(TM)t blowing things up during testing I would be concerned.
Yup.
Getting to space is incredibly difficult. There are going to be failures. And yes, humans will continue to die. But Elon is on the right track. He's learning manufacturing and machining from Tesla, and taking those lessons - and Tesla Model 3 motors - to SpaceX. He's bringing SpaceX computers and system engineering like the classic inverted pendulum problem (which is a rocket propulsively landing) and reliability to Tesla Autopilot.
The guy has his fingers in too many pies? No... He has his fingers in all the right pies to meet his goals.
Look at my username. I love cars, I love horsepower, I love knowing I can smoke the tires off the thing any time I want. It's not so different from someone who wants the fastest computer in the store.. and then overclocks and water-cools it. I've driven some seriously powerful musclecars over the years - Buick Grand National GNX, Ferrari and Lamborghini "supercars", Dodge Vipers, every engine Chrysler stuffed into a car from 1960 to 1990 including a 426 Hemi A-body. (No, I didn't get to drive a Chrysler Turbine - but I have seen one running, and I can tell you that it sounds like a vacuum cleaner when it's idling.) I've stuffed a Buick 231 (3.8L, the "3800") V6 into a Chevette and really was scared of what I had built. My fingers are calloused from welding burns and soldering burns so much that people think I'm either a pothead or a guitarist. So I'm not your typical "Yo, I had it tuned!" fan of the Fast and the Furious crap.
I was doubtful at first and then I got behind the wheel of a Tesla Model 3. Uh.... all I can say is holy shit.
When you get right down to it, an electric car is just a cordless drill on four wheels. That's all it is. The Model 3 is an eerily-silent machine which can outperform almost any vintage American musclecar on the 1/4 mile. And it does it as a 4-door sedan with a huge curb weight (batteries, inefficient body design, weirdness in control arms); in that way, it takes you by surprise the way a Buick Grand National's V6 and heavy body-on-frame does. And it *handles*, the low center of gravity makes it feel stable and the weight distribution is centered right under the passenger compartment so your inner ear feels what the rest of the car is feeling in a way that isn't possible with a 700lb chunk of iron up front. I am sold. The only limitation to Tesla's cars are range (especially in cold climates) and recharge times (especially on long trips). But the Model 3 would probably be a fun (!) upgrade for about 90% of sedan buyers.
Jay Leno is a *huge* car guy, and I like Jay Leno's Garage on YouTube far more than I ever liked his late night show. Jay Leno is not easily impressed by a powerful car, considering he personally owns and drives some of the most powerful cars ever made.
This is Jay Leno's reaction to the 2020 Tesla Roadster prototype. [youtube.com]
Sandy Munro is an expert in automotive manufacturing. You'll see he's a salty no-bullshit guy from Detroit, and he really isn't impressed by Tesla's overall body quality. He loves the Superbottle under the hood of every Model 3 as an amazing example of the integration and ingenuity that conventional car companies simply cannot do because of their organizational structure. He loves the pride that the Tesla engineers took in the idea, showing it off with the Superbottle mascot. As for drivetrain, motor, electronics, batteries, he is clearly very impressed by Tesla cars. The tin can on the outside is mediocre; everything else about the Model S and the Model
Re:They'll get it right. (Score:4)
He's bringing SpaceX computers and system engineering like the classic inverted pendulum problem (which is a rocket propulsively landing) and reliability to Tesla Autopilot.
If he has the same attitude towards space flight as he does towards autopilot then you would be crazy to get on one of his rockets.
The worst thing about autopilot is that he ignores criticism and doesn't fix the flaws in it. It's got to the point now where the government is going to have to regulate it because Tesla have proven that they can't be trusted to do so themselves.
Re: (Score:3)
It's got to the point now where the government is going to have to regulate it because Tesla have proven that they can't be trusted to do so themselves.
I think they jury's still out on that one. But the government was always going to need to step in and regulate this. Firstly in case of accident it's not clear where the liability lies. And secondly without regulation people will not accept it unless it reaches unrealistic levels of safety. Even being 1000x safer than human drivers wouldn't be OK. If anythin
Re: (Score:2)
[...] But the government was always going to need to step in and regulate this. Firstly in case of accident it's not clear where the liability lies. And secondly without regulation people will not accept it unless it reaches unrealistic levels of safety. Even being 1000x safer than human drivers wouldn't be OK. If anything that would be worse because as it is traffic accidents don't make the news, but if self driving cars had only say 10 accidents per year, all 10 would be newsworthy. Not only that but the accidents may well be ones that an alert, well trained, skilled human driver would not have made, because self driving systems will likely have different accidents.
Yup.
The car doesn't need to know or care whether it's a cat or a dog running across the road, only that it should avoid hitting it. Things become more difficult when it's a black cat or a pothole - which is it? Easy enough for a human to decide, hard as hell for a computer.
Now, is that a plastic bag blowing in the wind, or is that a toddler running across the road? Does your computer make a decision to cause an accident with another car (and its relatively-well protected occupants) to avoid hitting a plasti
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think it has to be perfect, just make two changes.
1. Properly monitor the driver with a camera.
2. Less frequent, more consistent updates that are properly tested, not alpha tested on customers.
The systems used by Cadillac, Nissan and Lexus are all much better in these regards.
Re: (Score:2)
The systems used by Cadillac, Nissan and Lexus are all much better in these regards.
and more dangerous than Tesla's AP.
Re: (Score:1)
No, they are a lot safer. They use HD maps to locate the car to within a few centimetres on the road and a camera to make sure that the driver is paying attention, so the driver can go hands free. This has two advantages that Tesla would do well to copy:
1. It only works on specific roads, you can't enable it where it isn't safe to do so.
2. You can't fool the driver attention monitoring system with a bit of fruit, or any known way.
Re: (Score:3)
If he has the same attitude towards space flight as he does towards autopilot then you would be crazy to get on one of his rockets.
The only thing Tesla Autopilot is guilty of is a very poorly chosen name for the feature.
They make it extremely clear it's a driver-assistance system. The driver is still expected to pay attention, and Tesla has even built in some features to help ensure that as much as possible.
That being said, they really, really should rename it.
Re: (Score:1)
In that case, they should rename airplane autopilots as well. Do you seriously think airplane pilots are not expected to pay attention? When the autopilot crashes a plane (and they do, occasionally), it's almost invariably classified as pilot error because they should have caught the error and intervened.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Small airplanes, flown by hobbyists with barely any training, have autopilots too. The earliest autopilots could simply fly an airplane straight ahead. Training has nothing to do with it. it's simply a term widely used for automated systems that assist in controlling an airplane, boat or other vehicle.
Straight from Wikipedia:
An autopilot is a system used to control the trajectory of an aircraft, marine craft or spacecraft without constant manual control by a human operator being required. Autopilots do not
Re: (Score:2)
Those few ppl who have died while using AP, in each case, it was because they had gotten complacent and trusted a system that they were TOLD was not ready. In each time, it was not the drive simply sitting back, relaxing, but active
Re: (Score:2)
As an owner of Tesla and we recently traded our 2013 MS for a 2018 MX, which includes AP, I can now say that I am impressed by it. I see over and over that it does a better job than the average driver. And the fact that it does not get tired is amazing.
If I did not have young kids, I would happily go in a SX rocket.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. There's a *reason* that "rocket scientist" is universal shorthand for: "pretty much the most brilliant person imaginable", after all. Rocketry is HARD. Like... it's really, Really, REALLY hard; at every level of the endeavor from the design, to the assembly, to parts manufacturing, to sourcing the materials (Or even developing new materials entirely.), to the infrastructure so you can actually launch the thing once it it's built. If it wasn't, everybody could do it. And as much as I enjoyed th
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Yikes (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect that many more books will be re-written as SX does more and more R*D.
Re: Yikes (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
I know they expect some of this but it's slightly surprising/disconcerting that with computer models they still can't avoid it.
If computer models were infallible there would be no need for physical testing. Unfortunately, computers only model what you tell them to model and if you forget to tell them something important or don't make something exactly how you told the computer you made it bad things can happen.
Re: Yikes (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I would think that welds are quite chaotic in nature. The heat changes the crystal structure of the steel, the welds are not uniform, etc.
Steel is really complicated stuff. It's a matrix of iron alloy and hard nonmetallic crystals like carbides. The iron alloy can have five different crystal structures, and can transition between them through heating - which welding does. There is also thermal stress from welding, which you can
Re: (Score:2)
It is also why Nuke reactors need to be SMRs so that they can be automated welded.
Re: (Score:3)
This isn't the SLS, they're not going to put people on one of the first few flights. A manned trip to Mars will come after probably at least a hundred unmanned orbital flights. The high unmanned flight rate is what will prove safety -- at least as far as not exploding. All the other dangers of going to Mars, like radiation and muscle loss and lack of medical facilities and surviving once you get there, are another matter.
Re: (Score:2)
like radiation and muscle loss and lack of medical facilities and surviving once you get there, are another matter.
Which is exactly why it should be a 1-way trip to mars until we iron out a number of those issues. Going to mars is less dangerous in terms of radiation, then coming back. The reason is that you can use H2O to shield the radiation. As you get further in the trip, you lose H2o, but your radiation does also goes down. Coming back it is the exact opposite.
Re: (Score:2)
Computer models don't account for craftsmanship defects. All it would take is to have one weld fail and all that pressure goes out of it, causing it to rip the hole bigger and bigger until you get what we see in the video - all the pressure rushing out so fast that it actually causes negative pressure inside the rest of the vessel, which the atmosphere crushes like a giant empty can of Coors Light.
Re:Yikes (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's the thing - if nothing happened, then the test didn't really do anything. All it tells you is that under the conditions you did the test, nothing happened.
That really doesn't tell you much - it doesn't even tell you if your models are corrrect - if the model says your rocket will explode if the pressure reaches X PSI, and you test it to Y PSI (Y X), you learn nothing - what if there was an error and it explodes at Z PSI (Y Z X).
So by having it explode, all of a sudden there's a lot of interesting data. Especially if it's something that was overlooked.
The truth is, you learn more from failure than from success
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Yikes (Score:2)
...they still can't avoid it.
Fuck, you people don't get it. They're not trying to avoid [destructive] testing; they're trying to determine limits, not take guesses at them by running software simulations.
Re: (Score:2)
Do it again! (Score:1)
And? (Score:3)
Isn't this why you run tests in the first place?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
So for safety you're proposing we launch unfueled rockets, which can pick up their fuel once they reach orbit? Brilliant.
Who cares? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Are there uses of taxes that you approve of?
Re: Who cares? (Score:2)
Space ex steals from the tax payer.
If I had my way, shills would be charged as traitors for taking money from ULA to spread their lies.
ULA may as well be a Chinese conspiracy; they're certainly as good as one.
I am sure it was planned (Score:1)
SpaceX ships don't "explode" (Score:5, Funny)
They undergo rapid unscheduled disassembly.
I am curious about what testing Boeing does (Score:3)
Or if they even bother with pressure testing. Since, "It's ok, no problems here"
Break - Fix - Repeat (Score:2)
Making an omelette...
SpaceX learn from their mistakes. The cylinder / hemisphere boundary is constantly the problem. Sure they know this and sure they'll figure it out. I suggested this:
https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.c... [sketchup.com]
but it probably won't fly... ;)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe they could use the opportunity to change the spaceship's shape to one that looks decent.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure that spaceflight is the ultimate example of function over form. Who gives a shit what it looks like, as long as it performs the way it's supposed to, and meets or exceeds all planned specifications?
The Apollo LM was sure not a spacecraft that "looked decent" but not only did it perform exactly as it was supposed to even with several computer failures along the way during the landing of Apollo 11, but it exceeded design specification when it saved the lives of Apollo 13 doing what it was nev
Re: (Score:2)
"with several computer failures along the way during the landing of Apollo 11" - this was a human error that left a radar pinging the command module while another radar was measuring the distance to the ground. This caused the lunar module's flight computer to react to a higher processing load than expected due to 2 radars running instead of 1 radar running. The flight computer was working as designed and reported alarms that the "executive" was attempting to process too much information. Sufficient altitud
AGAIN?! (Score:1)
Explode? (Score:4, Insightful)
The article says "explode" but when you watch the video it seems the body of the structure actually seems to implode. Crushed like a beer can with the air sucked out of it. Check the slow-mo repeat.
Could someone explain what the pressure mode being tested actually is?
Re:Explode? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Explode? (Score:2)
The force of it rushing out creates a vacuum.
That doesn't quite make sense; are you sure it's not the sudden cooling-effect that accompanies depresserization? FYI, IDNWTV (I did not watch the vid).
Re: (Score:2)
Here. [howstuffworks.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The Explostion Starts On The Side (Score:2)
A blowout on the remains [twitter.com] may correspond to this.
Careless (Score:1, Troll)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
You are kind of an idiot. Do you think Elon was out there with a really big red button yelling "YEEEEEEE HAWWWW" as he mashed it as hard as he could, while fanboys just cheered on?
They knew it would fail. They wanted it to fail, because in failure you get valuable data. So, you plan for it to fail, and fail safely. They did this by using a non-combustible gas (nitrogen) and clearing everybody well beyond expected hazard zones. Roads get shut down, FAA warns aircraft to stay miles away. The county poli
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Fail? (Score:3)
Isn't a pressure test exactly that, increasing pressure until it makes boom?
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't a pressure test exactly that, increasing pressure until it makes boom?
Yes. They'll learn a lot more from this "fail" than if it hadn't goon boom.
Test often and fail early (Score:2)
Good job! (Score:2)
Test, break, repeat until success.
Unlike certain aircraft makers, they're not hiding their process.
Really careless (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)