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Space

The Falcon 9 May Now Be the Safest Rocket Ever Launched (arstechnica.com) 116

Posted by BeauHD from the consecutive-successes dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Falcon 9 reached a notable US milestone in January, equaling and then exceeding the tally of space shuttle launches. During its more than three decades in service, NASA's space shuttle launched 135 times, with 133 successes. To put the Falcon 9's flight rate into perspective, it surpassed the larger shuttle in flights in about one-third of the time. There is no way to know how many missions the Falcon 9 will ultimately fly. At its current rate, the rocket could reach 500 flights before the end of this decade. However, SpaceX is also actively working to put its own booster out of business. The success of the company's Starship project will probably ultimately determine how long the Falcon 9 will remain a workhorse. Nevertheless, it seems likely the Falcon 9 will fly for a long time yet. That is because it now provides the only means for US astronauts to get into space. And while NASA's deep-space Orion vehicle and Boeing's Starliner spacecraft should come online within the next couple of years, the Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft will very likely remain the lowest risk, and lowest cost, means of putting humans into orbit for at least the next decade.

Speaking of safety, this is where the Falcon 9 rocket has really shone of late. Since the Amos-6 failure during its static fire test, SpaceX has completed a record-setting run of 111 successful Falcon 9 missions in a row. It probably will be 112 after Thursday. There are only two other rockets with a string of successful flights comparable to the Falcon 9. One is the Soyuz-U variant of the Russian rocket, which launched 786 times from 1973 to 2017. The other is the American Delta II rocket, which recently retired. (Eventually, the Atlas V rocket could also exceed 100 consecutive successes before its retirement later this decade.) According to Wikipedia, amid its long run, the Soyuz-U rocket had a streak of 112 consecutive successful launches between July 1990 and May 1996. However this period includes the Cosmos 2243 launch in April 1993. This mission should more properly be classified as a failure. According to noted space scientist Jonathan McDowell, the control system of the rocket failed during the final phase of the Blok-I burn, and the payload was auto-destructed.

Taking this failure into account, the Soyuz-U had a run of 100 successful launches from 1983 to 1986. This happens to be the exact same number of consecutive successes by the Delta II rocket, originally designed and built by McDonnell Douglas and later flown by Boeing and United Launch Alliance. Overall the Delta II rocket launched 155 times, with two failures. Its final flight, in 2018, was the rocket's 100th consecutive successful mission. So the Falcon 9 has now exceeded both the Soyuz-U and Delta II rockets for consecutive mission successes, and apparently its low flight insurance costs reflect this. What seems remarkable about all of this is that the Falcon 9 amassed this safety record at the very same time SpaceX was experimenting with and demonstrating reuse. At the time of the Amos-6 failure in 2016, the company had yet to re-fly a single Falcon 9 first stage. Now it has pushed some of its boosters to fly 11 flights, and SpaceX has never lost a mission on a reused first stage, even though founder Elon Musk and other officials have explicitly said they are pushing the technology to find its limits.
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The Falcon 9 May Now Be the Safest Rocket Ever Launched More

The Falcon 9 May Now Be the Safest Rocket Ever Launched

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  • Bickering incoming (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

    Haters and Fanboys incoming.

    I get the feeling there are few moderates in discussions such as this.

    For me the main is no saint, has done and said questionable things and I'm not sure I'd like him in person.

    He has promised more than he has delivered.

    But he has delivered things most others kept insisting was impossible (no matter the reason, be it unethical PR tactics to protect and industry or a sheer lack of balls or scientific understanding).

    So kudos for that.

    • For me the main is no saint, has done and said questionable things and I'm not sure I'd like him in person.

      Who ever thought he was a saint? Anyway, I figured there were plenty of people who had that side of the equation covered, lol

    • For me the main is no saint, has done and said questionable things and I'm not sure I'd like him in person.

      Galileo was an asshole too, reputedly. But he was still Galileo.

    • Re:Bickering incoming (Score:5, Insightful)

      by beheaderaswp ( 549877 ) * on Friday February 04, 2022 @08:59AM (#62236813)

      Here's how I feel:

      I think: "doing things they said were impossible" qualifies people to acquire Fanbois.

      That's just a perspective that seem reasonable. Most people acquire Fanbois from a cult of personality. Well Elon is on the spectrum, so he's not going to be charismatic, may not be realistic in predicting things, and certainly has an angular interaction with other humans.

      However, he has literally pulled off what was thought impossible. Unfortunately it makes some people emotionally uncomfortable when a guy you really don't like is making real contributions.

      That being said: If you go to space there's a 90% chance it will be on a spacecraft made by Spacex. If you drive an electric car it's an 85% chance it's a Tesla. There's a 95% chance you've used Paypal. If you received a brain implant as an augmentation, in the future, it's a 100% chance it will be from Neuralink.

      The primary reason Musk is successful is that he's willing to fail. So there will be failures that haters can point to.

      However, based on the accomplishments, he deserves Fanbois. A lot of them. It's going to be fun watching old crotchety haters in 20 years driving all electric cars chock full of Tesla patents...

      Oh how will they cope?

      • It's going to be fun watching old crotchety haters in 20 years driving all electric cars chock full of Tesla patents...

        What patents? Tesla produced a better motor, but it wasn't much better, and others have even better motors now (like Koenigsegg.) Tesla co-produced a better battery, by helping to drive electrode design for their purposes, but there are even better batteries coming. No automaker capable of volume needs any Tesla patents.

        You make some good points, but that one was nonsense.

        • It's going to be fun watching old crotchety haters in 20 years driving all electric cars chock full of Tesla patents...

          What patents?

          These patents: https://insights.greyb.com/tes... [greyb.com]

          • As already stated, the automotive industry needs literally zero of those patents. EVs were around before Tesla and other companies are already making superior components.

            Name one specific patent that you think the industry needs, or admit you have nothing.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by XXongo ( 3986865 )

              As already stated, the automotive industry needs literally zero of those patents.

              Well, of course they don't, because the automotive industry is a gasoline car industry.

              They would only need those patents if they intend to make EVs that compete with Tesla.

          • Re:patents [Re:Bickering incoming] (Score:5, Informative)

            by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Friday February 04, 2022 @10:32AM (#62237135) Homepage

            These patents: https://insights.greyb.com/tes... [greyb.com]

            About those: https://www.tesla.com/blog/all... [tesla.com]

            • No automakers have taken him up on his offer and none will because none of his EV patents are particularly relevant. Tesla has the best batteries but that technology moves quickly and that will surely change. They had the best motor but that is no longer true. Etc.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Hodr ( 219920 )

                They don't need to have the best battery or the best motor. They need to have the best motor and battery for a reasonable price. Sure, that koenigsegg is a beast, but no one is putting it in a $25k car.

        • Re:Bickering incoming (Score:4, Insightful)

          by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Friday February 04, 2022 @03:00PM (#62238087) Journal

          What a great logical fallacy: compare "what's coming" from others to stuff Tesla is already shipping in quantity. This is how every new EV that comes out is a "Tesla Killer" and yet none of them actually have.

          You know that Tesla isn't standing still on their own battery and motor R&D, right? Why would you assume that products coming from others Real Soon Now(TM) would automatically be better than what Tesla is working on, when they already have a technological lead and everyone else has proven to miss the mark or not be able to produce at scale?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mspohr ( 589790 )

          Tesla gives free access to all of its patents since its mission is to move the world to sustainable transportation.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hawk ( 1151 )

          It's not that Tesla has a 20% or 30% edge anywhere, but rather 1% here, 2% there, another 1% on this etc., and they add up.

          Last I noticed, Tesla engaged regenerate braking earlier (immediately?) when the "gas" is released, which noone else was doing. Just another 1 or 2%, but part of the mix.

          Most can probably be achieved other ways, but Tesla currently has the biggest stack of these.

      • A lot of them. It's going to be fun watching old crotchety haters in 20 years driving all electric cars chock full of Tesla patents...

        What patents? Here's Tesla's take on patents:

        https://www.tesla.com/blog/all... [tesla.com]

        ie. They don't want them.

        • A lot of them. It's going to be fun watching old crotchety haters in 20 years driving all electric cars chock full of Tesla patents...

          What patents? Here's Tesla's take on patents:

          https://www.tesla.com/blog/all... [tesla.com]

          ie. They don't want them.

          They're still Tesla patents, even if they give them away for free. Bragging rights are inalienable, sorry.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

        Not saying he doesn't deserve them... just saying a Fanboy probably isn't going to be the most objective participant in a discussion.

        Also about being on the spectrum... You do know that many actors are on the spectrum? Acting can absolutely be your thing as an autist and thus Charisma is not beyond us autists... Not unlike a psychologist, an actor studies human behavior to the point of excellence (one hopes).

        Some autists, especially aspies, do precisely this. I stopped the moment I was good enough to get wh

    • Re:Bickering incoming (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Friday February 04, 2022 @08:59AM (#62236815)

      I follow Musk on Twitter, because Tesla doesn't have an official press team. He posts a lot of stuff, I either disagree with, just don't care about, or giving a vision of a future that I don't feel is right. I get this when I follow any personality, they have their good points and their bad ones.

      But in general I respect Musk, as he seems to be able try to push to a future he wants to see, much better than anyone else had in the past 25 years.
      The Electric car, A car company will every decade or so come up with an electric car just to show the public that it is a bad idea, and then go with more effort into its ICE Cars. Musk helped finance and mold Tesla into making an Electric Car that impresses and is superior to ICE Cars in many factors, forcing the rest of the industry to switch to Electric.
      Space travel was only for the government. Until Space X showed that private company can make and build Space Craft, and do it better than what they had before.

      Out of all the other billionaires out there, he is more apt to use his money towards progress, than the others. But he is still a billionaire, and he is still is human, so he isn't as smart as he thinks, but his wealth and the fact that he has minions puts him in an echo chamber where he feels like the smartest guy who is never wrong. Which can bite back and lead him into a dark place where he is so focused on his vision that he is not looking out to see what the total effect is.

      I can respect people without liking them. I can like people without respecting them as well, some of my friends are complete goofball losers, filled with bad advice and poor planning, but they kind and they try.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

        I can't help but pretty much completely agree with you.

      • I follow Musk on Twitter, because Tesla doesn't have an official press team. He posts a lot of stuff, I either disagree with, just don't care about, or giving a vision of a future that I don't feel is right.

        I think that's why I find it easy to defend Elon Musk on Slashdot. I don't read Twitter, not even for Musk. Which I suppose disqualifies me from being a fanboi, despite defending him at times. I know of his trolling and his memeing and his gaffs from second and third hand accounts rather than reading it all myself. My first hand impressions of him are from long form interviews, not all the foolishness that can fit in 143 characters.

        I think the secret of Mr. Musk's success is his willingness to pay atten

      • You mean like supporting coups in Bolivia in order to get lithium for his batteries. That sort of progress?

    • Haters and Fanboys incoming.

      I get the feeling there are few moderates in discussions such as this.

      For me the main is no saint, has done and said questionable things and I'm not sure I'd like him in person.

      He has promised more than he has delivered.

      And that's your problem. Musk rarely "promises" anything. Mostly he says stuff like "hey, we're doing this cool thing, we're planning to have it ready by ...". If someone thinks it's a "promise" then... that's his problem, not Musk's. Plans are subject to change, to missed deadlines, and to failure, and it's perfectly normal.

  • Elon Musk: (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The most successful African American ever.

  • The Falcon 9 reached a notable US milestone in January, equaling and then exceeding the tally of space shuttle launches. During its more than three decades in service, NASA's space shuttle launched 135 times, with 133 successes. To put the Falcon 9's flight rate into perspective, it surpassed the larger shuttle in flights in about one-third of the time.

    If your goal is to show how wonderfully safe and reliable a launch vehicle is, you do not compare it to the shuttle.

    • Re:wat (Score:5, Informative)

      by XXongo ( 3986865 ) on Friday February 04, 2022 @10:07AM (#62237023) Homepage

      The Falcon 9 reached a notable US milestone in January, equaling and then exceeding the tally of space shuttle launches. During its more than three decades in service, NASA's space shuttle launched 135 times, with 133 successes. To put the Falcon 9's flight rate into perspective, it surpassed the larger shuttle in flights in about one-third of the time.

      If your goal is to show how wonderfully safe and reliable a launch vehicle is, you do not compare it to the shuttle.

      To the contrary, in its time the Shuttle was without exception the safest and most reliable launch vehicle in history.

      It doesn't seem that way because the failures were spectacular, public, and involved humans. But the Shuttle was the first launch vehicle in history to go for 25 launches before the first loss-of-vehicle failure.

      A record since exceeded (by Atlas-V), but in 1980, when typical new launch vehicles had about a 50% failure rate on the first flight, it was amazing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      When making stuff, experience and previous technique counts for a lot. The steam punk people just want to think that if you can draw it, it can happen, but that is never the case. The second Babbage engine was 8,000 pieces that had to fit beyond the ability of the machinists at the time. I recall one satellite where the biggest issue was finding someone to machine a brittle metal in such a large size. No one had built fuel tanks that large or had to insure electrical interconnects were so reliable before th

    • The shuttle was a fine machine.

      The fact that it's launches were more expensive than expected were due to mismanagement.

      The two tragical losses: both completely avoidable - due to mismanagement and misjudgement.

      Atlantis most likely could have been saved by listening to astronauts and engineers and changing the planned return trajectory. But no, some idiot manager decided he will sleep better if he does not change the plan, in case the shuttle burns up. Instead of changing the trajectory and it burns up anywa

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hawk ( 1151 )

        >Beancounters fault that they died.

        I'm not sure it was the beancounters.

        IIRC, the O-ring that failed had been tested in a range of temperature, etc.m and the decision to launch was made *in spite* of not being in that range.

        One can argue as to whether the charge should have been manslaughter or murder, but is was a known risk outside of tested viability.

        • Most likely the Austronauts did not know the risk.
          And I was more talking about Atlantis anyway. Beancounters removed the rescue equipment. Hence the crew died. Completely definitely 100% avoidable.

  • Tough comparisons (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JoeRobe ( 207552 ) on Friday February 04, 2022 @08:37AM (#62236763) Homepage

    Funny, these comparisons were discussed a last week on a different SpaceX news piece on /. :

    https://m.slashdot.org/thread/... [slashdot.org]

    It's hard to make the comparison to the shuttle program and older rockets given the different intents and technologies involved. SpaceX has learned from those failures, so in a way it's like saying an Airbus A340 is safer than the Wright Model A. Maybe that's an extreme comparison, but the point is that every successor learns from past pioneers. Whoever comes after SpaceX will surely learn from and improve upon their pioneering reusable rocket technology.

    In my opinion what impresses me the most isn't so much the safety/reliability but the speed with which a private rocket company developed their technology (relative to NASA), and the extent to which it has been adopted. I was very skeptical about private rocket development right up until I saw that first booster land itself.

    • Re:Tough comparisons (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Friday February 04, 2022 @08:49AM (#62236789) Homepage

      The main innovation isn't technological, but rather philosophical. The traditional NASA way of development to ensure a given level of reliability is to test every single part and every single subsystem in as close as you can get to flight conditions on the ground, repeatedly, so you can assign every part and every subsystem a probability of failure before you launch for the first time, and then combine them to ensure that the rocket as a whole has an acceptable failure risk. SpaceX inverts the paradigm, focusing instead on testing whole integrated rockets - hold-downs, hops, experimental orbital flights, flying their own payloads, etc, all of where failure distinctly is an option. Each flight provides statistical evidence for the reliability for each component; even on failed flights, every component (failed or not - the vast majority being "not") still accumulates reliability data. Fly things enough and you can prove statistical reliability from the other direction.

      It's not like things go through no testing before they're integrated; rather, it's that pre-flight doesn't get to delay research hops/flights so long as the amount that is expected to be learned exceeds the cost.

      • Re: Tough comparisons (Score:5, Insightful)

        by JoeRobe ( 207552 ) on Friday February 04, 2022 @09:52AM (#62236965) Homepage

        I agree, that philosophical approach is a major difference between SpaceX and, e.g. NASA (or other gov't space agencies). I think that philosophy also allows for more and faster technological innovation.

        Part of the problem (I think) is the fact that NASA is living on taxpayers dollars. If they launch a rocket and it explodes, regardless of why or what the payload is, it's perceived as a waste of taxpayers money. So every component must be tested and characterized thoroughly on the ground (failure rates, etc) before ever going "live". Add in bureaucratic red tape and this means that every new NASA technology takes a really long time to develop, but has a high probability of success when the public/congress is watching.

        Private investors are generally more willing to accept financial risk than congress, so SpaceX failures (which of course are the best learning moments) are more acceptable. Musk may be jerk-ish, but he talks a good enough game to keep those investors calm, and it looks like it's paying off.

        That's not to say NASA is becoming irrelevant, but that its focus can shift (further) away from building rockets. To me as a scientist and space/planetary exploration enthusiast, that's awesome news. Now NASA can focus on the science and exploration that makes headlines, and leave the "how to get there" part to SpaceX et al.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by XXongo ( 3986865 )

          I agree, that philosophical approach is a major difference between SpaceX and, e.g. NASA (or other gov't space agencies). I think that philosophy also allows for more and faster technological innovation.

          I love the philosophy of "try something, see how it fails, fix that and try something again." This is a great way to advance quickly: failures are the fastest way to learn (as long as you are ready to learn from your failures.)

          With that said... SpaceX didn't start succeeding until they joined forces with NASA. The successes now tend to make us forget that their first rocket, built before they had NASA onboard, failed three launches in a row (and overall, the vehicle was discontinued with a 40% success rec

          • I love the philosophy of "try something, see how it fails, fix that and try something again." This is a great way to advance quickly: failures are the fastest way to learn (as long as you are ready to learn from your failures.)

            Works great on unmanned rockets not carrying precious one of a kind scientific instruments sure. Not so good if you can’t afford to lose a bunch of rockets before the bugs get ironed out. The problem is NASA has needed crewed missions for most of its history, it’s only been in the last twenty or thirty years that this approach is feasible with modern telemetry and control architectures.

      • Iterative design is not something SpaceX invented. The problem with it is so risky that it was never attempted for something like a rocket. SpaceX took a very big gamble which might have very well ended up in failure. I believe Musk himself admitted that they were one failure away from having to make difficult decisions about the future of the project. NASA being taxpayer funded is much more limited in the risk they can take compared to a private company. I can imagine the backlash from Congress and the pub

    • I seem to go through Estes Argents, Mega Der Red Max clones and Semroc Mars Landers at quite a clip.

      I've got nothing that's survived even 50 flights. They burn up in CATOs, drift away to chronosynclastic infindibula, or get hung in trees.

      Rocket science is hard.

  • A suprise to slashdotters... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Friday February 04, 2022 @08:39AM (#62236767)

    New Technology is actually safer and more reliable than old technology is.

    The Falcon-9 is packed load with all the new technology, that will allow it to do micro adjustments is real time, monitor nearly every piece of equipment on board, provide real time fixes and adjustments if there is a failure.

    My parents had cars, and my dad was always fixing them. They often wouldn't start quickly in the cold, and the idea of turning the key once without pressing the gas petal was nearly unheard of. When I was able to buy my cars. My first one lasted 100k miles still much better than the 75k miles limit on my parents cars, then my next car got 150k miles, My current car is about 175k miles. And with all my newer cars, nearly all the fixes and repairs were around the older tech stuff in them, breaks, wheels, suspension however I never had a problem with the electronics or the computer system. Which Slashdotters seemed to be the most worried about it constantly failing.

    I think the big holdup is confusing advance with complex. While the computer is a complex piece of equipment, it has been mass produced in a way that it is now just considered 1 part in engineering, so we end up with more advanced products while keeping the KISS approach in play. In stead of that complex wiring to a massive sets of manual controls that we see on the shuttle, we now have a touchscreen with a few buttons, with an industrial cable working like USB to connect all the other component.

    • This is part of it certainly, but there are other things also. One is that reuse actually increases safety. Some of the design changes they did were based on inspecting landed Falcon 9s. So that means they had a lot more engines and other parts where they saw the actual wear and tear and then were able to adjust them, as opposed to just predicting things from inspecting parts of tests and then use telemetry data. This also happened a bit with the Shuttle, but they were very hesitant to change things on the

    • New Technology is actually safer and more reliable than old technology is.

      Eh, sometimes. Literally no modern light duty engine is as reliable as a 1994-1998 6BT (with the P-pump) or an OM617.951A. And I mean that literally. The former needs a dowel pin staked and the latter needs periodic valve adjustments, to be fair, but neither process is expensive. Also, the most modern automotive engines have a new and stupid problem, GDI motors have valve fouling problems. A couple of them have two fuel injection systems so that they can sometimes run with indirect injection in order to bur

      • If we don't mind the pollution, we could have stuck with engines like that. We'll have to see if the engines in Teslas are just as reliable. Wait a minute, they don't have engines!

        • If we don't mind the pollution, we could have stuck with engines like that.

          The discussion was about reliability, not pollution. You're handwaving.

          We'll have to see if the engines in Teslas are just as reliable. Wait a minute, they don't have engines!

          No, they have a bunch of electronics naively designed and produced as if they were laptops instead of automotive components. And many, many of them have had to be serviced even when they were delivered, that is they had faults right out of the gate; And getting service for a Tesla is a PITA, with many owners having to give up their vehicles for weeks or months because Tesla is the only volume source of service.

          • However "The former needs a dowel pin staked and the latter needs periodic valve adjustments" you are pointing out how your favorite engine fails rather regularly. The fact that you don't know how to fix the problem on newer engines, doesn't say about their reliability.

            Your 6BT example dowel pin, if not known by the owner could indeed cause the entire engine to actually just die to a point where it couldn't be repaired. While the new engine may give you a check engine light, where a sensor will need to be

      • That's OK, diesels don't have a gas pedal.
        Is that some silly nitpicking over gas(oline) versus Diesel?

        • Is that some silly nitpicking over gas(oline) versus Diesel?

          It's not nitpicking because the GP wasn't talking about diesels. It's pointing out that they were ignoring diesels entirely, where the actual reliability was (albeit not all of them.) That's not a nit, it's a gross omission.

        • Gas engines don't have gas pedals either. They have air pedals.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by nagora ( 177841 )

            Gas engines don't have gas pedals either. They have air pedals.

            What about petrol engines?

            • What about petrol engines?

              Same. They have air pedals. You press the "gas" pedal, and more air is allowed into the engine. It does nothing to the gas (petrol).

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by hawk ( 1151 )

              >What about petrol engines?

              they have someone speaking a silly variant of English behind the wheel . . .

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by nagora ( 177841 )

                >What about petrol engines?

                they have someone speaking a silly variant of English behind the wheel . . .

                You mean the English variant of English, perhaps?

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by hawk ( 1151 )

                  no, just the *modern* British variant.

                  Dialects in the northeast US are closer to what folks on that island spoke 200 years ago than what they speak today.

          • Actually they have accelerator pedals, and so do diesels. But on a gasser it is common to call that the gas pedal. And it's not wrong, either. It does more than just controlling airflow, and that's true even with a carburetor.

            • It is called Gas-pedal in every car, even in an EV.
              So no idea about your nitpicking (yes, I read your other answer).

              (And yes again: even in German it is called Gaspadal, except for the capitalization: the exact same word)

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by hawk ( 1151 )

              with a carburetor, it is a very direct line to the plates in the carb restricting airflow through the carb.

              It doesn't affect fuel in a gasoline engine, excpt

              * pushing all the way down usually operates a pump, adding fuel to the bowl--thus the "push three times"

              *on some models, holding all the way down can affect fuel flow while cranking (I forget how at the moment; it may block it or override the choke)

              but once started, it runs the plates, and opens the secondaries on a four barrel if depressed far enough (

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by robbak ( 775424 )
            For the purposes of the original comment, it is a gas pedal. The driver had to push the pedal down to operate a small pump that squirts a measured amount of fuel into the throttle, providing the fuel-rich conditions needed to start the engine.
            • That's a priming operation. Completely different than regulating fuel.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by robbak ( 775424 )
                This priming operation was the subject of the original post:

                and the idea of turning the key once without pressing the gas petal was nearly unheard of.

                • If the engine (gas, petrol, ICE) was warm, there was no need to prime the carb or even lightly press the gas pedal. In fact, it would almost always be detrimental. Of course, what is warm? If I have been in the grocery store for 25 minutes, how much do I need to press the pedal? Some? None? Once? Fuel injection has made these types of starts far more reliable.
    • The thing is many of us have grown up in an era in which there was not visible progress in rocketry for decades on end. The payloads (such as the mars missions) got more advanced, but to the layman anyways the launch vehicles sure didn't seem to make much progress. And for manned spacecraft, we had the shuttle, then nothing for several years after it blew up, then more shuttle for a couple decades... then we had nothing at all and we were hitching rides to space aboard Russian rockets.

      So the expectati

    • Re:A suprise to slashdotters... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Xylantiel ( 177496 ) on Friday February 04, 2022 @12:38PM (#62237601)

      Um, your example is basically just "systems designed to require less maintenance require less maintenance." There was actually pretty significant incentives in the US in the 60's and 70's to design cars that required regular maintenance because of vertical integration between the dealers (who provided maintenance) and the manufacturer. This resulted in US-built cars requiring far more maintenance than even the technology of the time really required. Only when foreign manufacturers came in and started selling vehicles designed to be low-maintenance did this change.

      This is a good analogy in the opposite way for spaceX. Before SpaceX, rockets were produced by defense contractors, purchased by NASA and then flown. This meant that there was actually a counter-incentive for the rocket manufacturers to make their rockets cheap and robust. With the COTS program that SpaceX came out of, NASA wanted to change the market so that the contractor was providing a launch service rather than hardware. Then the contractor would have an in-house incentive to make a launch system that is both cheaper to operate and more reliable, because they would reap the benefits of doing so.

      This also worked out for making flights safer. NASA had the problem of political considerations constantly interfering with safety. The shuttle was never safe, even by the standards of earlier NASA missions. But it was pushed forward because of the way defense contracting worked. If the system failed, it was NASA's fault, not the contractor. But with SpaceX, if the system fails, it is SpaceX's problem to fix. So, again, the incentives to have a safe system are not just on NASA's side.

      The somewhat startling thing about all this is that SpaceX seems so far ahead of every other provider.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hawk ( 1151 )

      >and the idea of turning the key once without pressing the gas petal was nearly unheard of.

      To start a 1927 Cadillac:

      * use pump on dash to pressurize fuel tank
      * pull lever on dash once (maybe twice) to squirt some fuel into cylinders
      * pull lever to left of steering wheel down all the way to fully retard spark advance
      * put lever to right of steering wheel somewhat above bottom to regulate fuel flow
      * pull out choke lever
      * turn key to activate electrical system
      * angle right foot to be able to push starter bu

  • If the next million launches all fail catastrophically then it may be the most unsafe rocket ever. Why is the title indecisive about it's safety when it's a matter of public record? Are they afraid of jinxing it?

  • How valid are these statistics, with such a small number of launches to go on? To give an absurd example, after its second launch, Ariane 5 had a 50% success rate. While that was an accurate summary of the first two launches, was it a valid basis for a risk assessment on the third launch?

    • Although it's interesting that the Falcon 9 already has more launches than the Shuttle program did during its entire existence, from 1981 to 2011 (30 years).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )
      What "small number of launches" are you referring to? Certainly not Falcon 9. It's not only had over 130 successful launches, [wikipedia.org] it's had over 100 successful booster landings too. They've only had one in-flight LoV, a ground LoV, and one or two where an engine failed and it couldn't reach the desired orbit. And a few booster landing failures too, some of which resulted in design tweaks.

      • I consider 130 to be a small number, compared to pretty much every other complex piece of technology.
        There are thousands of aircraft in use worldwide, and each of them makes hundreds of flights per year. For cars, the numbers are another 4-5 orders of magnitude higher. Those are numbers you can apply statistics to.

        So, my question remains: can you do meaningful statistics on such a small number of flights?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by caseih ( 160668 )

          Maybe if we were launching civilians on a regular basis on their way to work then statistical significance would mean something. Despite the headline, no one has ever said rocketry is inherently safe. Far from it. It's inherently dangerous. However it is a fact that the safety record of the Falcon 9 exceeds that of any rocket before it, with the possible exception of Soyuz.

          Is the Falcon 9 safe? Of course not. I don't think the article is making that claim either. It's just safer than what came before

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hawk ( 1151 )

          >So, my question remains: can you do meaningful statistics on such a small number of flights?

          Speaking as someone with a Ph.D. in Statistics?

          Yes.

          30 is a "large" number for most statistical purposes.

          For the confidence levels we would want for this, it is not--but you can't get 30 observations before your first observation.

          And if you want to set your head *really* spinning, look at unit root solutions where you only have five or so observations . . . I took that 600 level class that most folks avoided (well

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by robbak ( 775424 )
        One launch really early in the piece, an engine failure left it with reduced fuel margins, causing NASA to prevent them from doing a second burn to push a secondary payload to a higher orbit.

        There was a second one, a Starlink flight, where a failure either in the latter part of the first stage burn, or during the later entry or landing burns, prevented a successful landing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by caseih ( 160668 )

      Small number of launches? I'm curious how may you think they need before the numbers have statistical significance, and over what time frame? If SpaceX's successful launches are not significantly significant, than neither are just about any other rocket's numbers, including the Space Shuttle, save maybe the Russian Soyuz rocket with its 700+ launches.

  • Amazing what taxpayer dollars can do (Score:4, Insightful)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Friday February 04, 2022 @12:48PM (#62237643) Journal

    How many trillions have been spent on developing rocket technology before this? Not just in the U.S. but Germany (where we got the Nazi rocket scientists from), Russia (formerly USSR), and yes, even China. How much money have the people spent to get where we are to launch rockets?

    Now imagine if Musk, or anyone, had to start from scratch. No idea what materials to use, no idea what fuel to use, no guidance controls, etc. It would be like trying to develop a nuclear weapon without Einstein's formula.

    Yes, it is impressive his rockets don't explode when lifting off, but that is only because he was able to use the accumulated knowledge of decades of work done by government workers and paid for by the people (who pay taxes).

  • Now it has pushed some of its boosters to fly 11 flights, and SpaceX has never lost a mission on a reused first stage,...

    Given that the failure rate of many things follow a bathtub curve [wikipedia.org], reuse might well be beneficial for reliability. You can try to get past the burn-in period with ground testing of components, but for most rockets, their only mission is the first time the components have come together as a system. It shouldn't be surprising that a rocket that has survived one mission could be more reliable than a brand new one.

  • The Starliner is never going to fly. It has a bunch of really critical problems with its fuel system. Meanwhile, the Dragon 2 is flying routinely, reusabley, and much more cheaply. Space X could likely double or triple the flight rate without much trouble. It's a fixed cost contract and if Boeing doesn't get off the ground in the next two years, transferring their contract to SpaceX might happen. The only reason it hasn't happened yet is all Boeing's lobbyists in government.
  • The F9 has had at least two very notable explosions so far. Those flaws were seemingly worked out and the rocket is quite reliable, it's just not the safest ever built.
  • You mean doing stuff that was already done. Wow that's really futuristic.

    Now do it without a government contract. When you are not suckling at that old government teet, how far will you go...

  • Would you classify that as a launch problem or a design problem?
    But seriously, this success rate has me wondering about their process. Do they study each flight in detail to try to understand why what they built works so well or do they assume that their design is good and pray that they haven't missed anything?

  • Because he has a tolerance for attentive listening, and properly financing technical development. He takes risks with his own capital (skin in the game) and knows he can outspend cheapskates like Boeing, because he knows they cut corners. He is intolerant to information filtering and sucking up management kinds who refuse to digest technical information. He pays more, to get the best. And punishes the fools that are able exaggerate real ability. Musk is no Wernher von Braun, but as a program manager, he ha

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