Starship Is Stacked and Ready To Make Its Second Launch Attempt (arstechnica.com) 89
SpaceX's Starship rocket is fully stacked and ready to launch again. According to Elon Musk, the company is just waiting for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to approve the launch license. Ars Technica reports: That caveat is a big one because the Federal Aviation Administration is still reviewing paperwork and data from SpaceX about the first launch attempt of Starship in April 2023. That flight ended after about 90 seconds due to engine problems and other issues with the booster. The FAA has been reviewing data from that accident, including the environmental implications at the launch site and the delayed activation of the rocket's flight termination system. Following this accident, SpaceX prepared and submitted a "mishap investigation report" to the FAA. After reviewing the report, the FAA will identify corrective actions that the company must make ahead of its second test flight to ensure the safety of people, property, and wildlife near the South Texas launch site, which is surrounded by wetlands and the Gulf of Mexico. [...]
During the upcoming test flight, Starship will carry no payloads but will instead seek to demonstrate the performance of the booster's 33 Raptor rocket engines, stage separation, and ignition of Starship's six engines. Under a nominal flight, Starship will complete nearly three-quarters of an orbit around Earth before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, north of the Hawaiian island of Kauai. The launch date is pending regulatory approval, but it is not expected to occur before the middle of September.
During the upcoming test flight, Starship will carry no payloads but will instead seek to demonstrate the performance of the booster's 33 Raptor rocket engines, stage separation, and ignition of Starship's six engines. Under a nominal flight, Starship will complete nearly three-quarters of an orbit around Earth before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, north of the Hawaiian island of Kauai. The launch date is pending regulatory approval, but it is not expected to occur before the middle of September.
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He disingenuously claims to be "center" .. but only panders to right-wing. If he was truly centrist he wouldn't be upheld and worshipped as a God by the right wing. He claims he hasn't changed his positions, but those are provably false. For example he used to be secular, pro-socialism, universal healthcare, and immigration .. now all he does is post anti-left memes while claiming he's centrist.
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He disingenuously claims to be "center" .. but only panders to right-wing....
Elon is just a master of punching down, then claiming he's the true victim and is being persecuted by "the left" or whatever that means. He punches down in his companies to his employees, and now he wants to do it to the rest of us. It's like a fully-grown adult going into a Kindergarten playground and picking a fight with a five-year-old, then claiming he's the victim of "cancel culture" when the teachers throw him out. So then he has to buy the kindergarten in order to fire the teachers and be able to bul
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I don't know if Elon's just mad, angry, or whatever, but he clearly has some emotional problems and appears to lack basic self esteem, and I think a lot of right-wing types have similar emotional issues, so maybe he fits in better among that particular crowd.
Some people are noting his problems might be based on drug use.
https://futurism.com/neoscope/... [futurism.com]
https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]
It was quickly obvious to me that his one time adoring throngs that resembled a cult more than just fans were going to destroy him. Too much worship can make a mess out of a person.
Years ago, I called that he was the 21st century version of Howard Hughes.
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Once?
I don't think you've been keeping up on current events if you think he's only said stupid shit on Twitter once.
Re:Great (Score:4, Insightful)
Ahh yes, it has to be people working against him. It couldn't possibly be a just little bit related to the last time they granted a license and they did a launch it was a bit of a sideshow with tons of flying debris, a lean due to engine failures, a badly designed launch pad with no diverter of suppression system and a destruct system that malfunctioned and was undersized for the craft. [techcrunch.com]
I want Starship to succeed as well and hope they get their clearance soon but after that first launch I was a bit disappointed at how rushed and slapstick it felt for a process they are going to have to start doing quite a few of. I think they unfortunately earned themselves a bit of extra scrutiny so it would be worth their time to get this next one right.
Let's not forget Starship got a contract worth now close to $4B for Artemis so it's not like NASA doesn't have a vested interest in seeing it succeed. Not everything has to be a victim complex.
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Or it could be that the FAA is looking out for their designated regulatory space, per their charter and existing law. It's not exactly out-of-scope to make sure that a rocketry company is doing everything required under existing regulations before they're allowed to fire a couple hundred tons of explosives and into the stratosphere while shouting YEEEEEE HAWWWW at the top of their lungs.
Re:Great (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure but that's never just one person and that is a pretty strong claim that we would need some sort of evidence to back up and in reality we have lot's of evidence pointing to a neutral or opposite conclusion.
I'm sorry but this claim just smells of an invented problem stemming from Musk's personal Twitter issues (and both his fans and detractors on there. One always looking to deride him and his staunch unwavering defenders wanting to paint him in victimhood) bleeding into things like SpaceX which is to me unfortunate and why I was never a fan of him buying it in the first place, because it's a big fat unnecessary distraction from the actual good things his companies do. It literally has benefitted nobody.
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Not an invented problem, but a hypothesized one. The problem has been proven to exist in other (unrelated) circumstances. Does it exist at the FAA WRT SpaceX? I haven't heard any evidence. But various different companies have definitely experienced it. And, of course, the converse, which is called rubber stamping, but that's only objected to by those who oppose whatever is being proposed. So Boeing was essentially allowed to self-certify the 777 as a good design.
There are good reasons for the processe
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Sure but there's a pretty big line between hypothesis and just rote speculation, especially when int he example case given is one of the FAA not being too strict but being too lax and friendly with contractors. Considering the FAA and SpaceX have a long history together why would we assume they are adversarial as opposed to too chummy?
Re:Great (Score:4, Insightful)
Not an invented problem, but a hypothesized one. The problem has been proven to exist in other (unrelated) circumstances. Does it exist at the FAA WRT SpaceX? I haven't heard any evidence. But various different companies have definitely experienced it. And, of course, the converse, which is called rubber stamping, but that's only objected to by those who oppose whatever is being proposed. So Boeing was essentially allowed to self-certify the 777 as a good design.
The fact that the FAA got sledgehammered with criticism for crediting Boeing's assurances that the 737 was safe rather than digging down into the details is likely to mean that they are going to be overly cautious here.
There are good reasons for the processes, but they sure aren't perfect.
They are also aware that the failures of the process are asymmetrical. If they are slow in approving but could have been faster, the result is the launch takes longer. If they are fast in approving but should have taken their time and looked at the details (instead of just rubber-stamping), the result is people dying.
Re:Great (Score:5, Insightful)
IMHO, it felt neither overly rushed nor overly delayed last time. And nor does it now.
There is a significant balance to be struck between protections and the rate of progress. And the rate of progress matters. But so do protections. So you strike a balance in your approval process as well.
The launch pad design last time wasn't a secret. The documents filed with the FAA were hundreds of pages long, in great detail. The FAA spent ample time going over it, and in the end, decided to clear SpaceX. Nobody, neither the FAA nor SpaceX, intended for that past pad to be permanent and behave without fault. They had already shed material during tests, and while they had improved the design, it was only intended to last for one launch. The scale of the pad failure - excavating a crater 7 1/2 meters deep and launching chunks of concrete the size of buses over significant distance - is what came as a surprise. As far as I can tell, to both parties.
The original idea was a gamble, as was known from the start: use the advancements in concrete over the past half century, plus significant elevation of the rocket, to avoid the need for a diverter and suppression. Which was had the goal of not simply making cheaper / faster turnaround pads, but in particular were based on Starship being intended to be used on Mars, and you're not e.g. going to have a water deluge there. But the plan was a failure.
That said, you don't find out without trying - most of what SpaceX has done has been things that you could easily find tons of naysayers about at the time. The main setback for SpaceX in this regard is not so much the need to build more complex pads on Earth (they're already planning to focus on sea launch and landing), but what to do about Mars. Starship is lower thrust than Super Heavy, but it's still a lot of thrust; even Starship's test launches were chipping their pad. At this point, I don't know what they'll do. Try to engineer a pad that can at least stand up to Starship? Maybe tip-mounted angled engines like on the Lunar Starship design? (though that's mass- and thrust inefficient - and at this point, we can't even guarantee that will work)
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All that tells me though is that the idea that the FAA is playing politics here is unfounded. I think the fact that approved the first launch with so many unknowns one could make the opposite claim with even a bit more evidence, that the FAA was playing preferential to SpaceX. Maybe they were under pressure by NASA to get this project rolling?
I don't think they were and I think both SpaceX and the FAA owe it to themselves to make sure this launch goes without similar hiccups. The idea that any delay or ac
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IMHO, it felt neither overly rushed nor overly delayed last time. And nor does it now.
The whole "vehicle was operating under inadequate control for 40 seconds because its FTS was undersized" thing seemed a bit slapdash to me. It's good that no one got hurt, but that's definitely enough time for the rocket to enter populated areas in a worst-case scenario.
Having rocket failures is fine (good, even!) and should be way more normalized than it is now. Having rockets endanger the uninvolved public is very bad, both from a "it's fundamentally bad to hurt people" a "killing some random person in Po
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The FTS seems to have unzipped the rocket pretty effectively. I'm still unclear on why the thing didn't explode. Both tanks were outgassing like crazy, and I don't get how an explosion wasn't an ignition source. Was pretty weird.
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Mars isnt an issue. At 30% gravity and only 6 engines (9?) A mars launch wont have the booster. The pad easily withstood that.
Stop thinking about mars withput making certian you know what you are taliing about. Starship boosters are never leaving earth orbit. There is no need.
Starship i hope leaves earth orbit in a couple of years
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Why are you responding as though I didn't write "Starship is lower thrust than Super Heavy, but it's still a lot of thrust; even Starship's test launches were chipping their pad." ?
Re:Great (Score:4, Interesting)
Ahh yes, it has to be people working against him. It couldn't possibly be a just little bit related to the last time they granted a license and they did a launch it was a bit of a sideshow with tons of flying debris, a lean due to engine failures, a badly designed launch pad with no diverter of suppression system and a destruct system that malfunctioned and was undersized for the craft. [techcrunch.com]
I want Starship to succeed as well and hope they get their clearance soon but after that first launch I was a bit disappointed at how rushed and slapstick it felt for a process they are going to have to start doing quite a few of. I think they unfortunately earned themselves a bit of extra scrutiny so it would be worth their time to get this next one right.
Let's not forget Starship got a contract worth now close to $4B for Artemis so it's not like NASA doesn't have a vested interest in seeing it succeed. Not everything has to be a victim complex.
I think some folks get hung up on the appearance of what's actually happening.
Musk, SpaceX, and the Starship program want to operate on the "move fast and break things" methodology that has gotten the Flacon 9 so stable and reliable. They're coming up against the FAA, a government body that moves glacially slow at the best of times. So, the FAA does their process at their own pace, and the impatience of the SpaceX fans leads them to conclude that it's an intentionally slow-down.
Granted, there are bound to be companies lobbying HARD to have SpaceX's Starship out of the running for future missions because once it's operational, and if they can get it to the same type of reliability record the Falcons have, the old big boys are going to have a lot of explaining to do to keep getting that big fat pork shoveled down their gullets for so little return. It's easy to see why people would take that probability, shove the FAA's molasses running down a steel pipe in winter speed up against it, and conclude, "WORKING AGAINST SPACEX!"
It's a faulty conclusion, but it's at least one that you can sort of see the reasoning behind if you squint real hard and look through a dense fog.
Re:Great (Score:4, Insightful)
I absolutely do understand the reasoning and I actually agree in some ways, the FAA process for something as new and groundbreaking as what Starship is trying to do probably could use a few rule tweaks. It's more the implication that this is some sort of malicious, political act rather than a bunch of people trying to do their jobs within the goals and boundaries they have to work within.
As for the idea that that the old boys are influencing the process I could be open to that if SpaceX was getting turned down for contracts but fact is they just keep getting more and more and old guys expense. All the old guys were actually lobbying hard for the HLS contract and they all had to pick up second round scraps. NASA could have easily been pressured into taking of the other guys bids.
It's certainly not out of the realm of possibility but as I've looked into things more and more I think lobbying is something of a problem I think it gets way, way overblown at times and is just a catchall to explain decisions we just don't agree with.
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It's certainly not out of the realm of possibility but as I've looked into things more and more I think lobbying is something of a problem I think it gets way, way overblown at times and is just a catchall to explain decisions we just don't agree with.
I can't disagree with that. That said, there are plenty of examples where lobbying is *DEFINITELY* the reason something happens that screws over the American public in the interest of some big money interest.
Granted, lobbying such as is allowed here shouldn't exist at all. It's an abomination, and a dilution of the democratic process right back to "rich make the rules, poor shut up" ideals. We've got enough of a problem with worship of the rich as somehow inherently better, more deserving, more important, a
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Regardless of what you think about Elon (and he's still mostly a left-wing person, he just hasn't moved positions further left than say Obama ca. 2008), government pawns cannot use their office to discriminate based on political persuasion, it's simply illegal.
Biden started his career as a political 'enforcer' for the mafia/unions. He had the unions halt paper distribution when his chief opponent wrote an exposition on him right before the election. Frank Sheeran (the guy that claimed to have killed Jimmy H
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Regardless of what you think about Elon (and he's still mostly a left-wing person, he just hasn't moved positions further left than say Obama ca. 2008),
He says: "Unless it is stopped, the woke mind virus will destroy civilization." He called the Democratic party "the party of division and hate" and said he "will vote Republican." Doesn't sound like Obama to me.
Not sure how you see that as "mostly left wing."
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His POSITIONS are still Obama ca 2008 or Bill Maher, or a number of people firmly on the left. Obama himself criticized woke culture just a few years ago, yes, he has 'adjusted his position' since, just like he adjusted his position on gay marriage (Obama, Biden, Clinton etc were all opposed to gay marriage, post-birth abortion etc until just a few minutes ago)
The problem is the left has moved so far left, it has left tons of libertarians (like myself) in the dust and now considers 'us' right wing simply f
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His POSITIONS are still Obama ca 2008 or Bill Maher, or a number of people firmly on the left. Obama himself criticized woke culture just a few years ago, yes, he has 'adjusted his position' since, just like he adjusted his position on gay marriage (Obama, Biden, Clinton etc were all opposed to gay marriage, post-birth abortion etc until just a few minutes ago) The problem is the left has moved so far left, it has left tons of libertarians (like myself) in the dust and now considers 'us' right wing simply for not towing the party line.
Believing gays should be allowed to marry is an example of having "moved so far left that it has left tons of libertarians (like you) in the dust"??
Dude, if you are opposed to gay marriage, you are not a libertarian. Libertarians are the ones in favor of freedom, not against it. You're a garden-variety conservative.
And "post-birth abortion" is not a thing. If people are telling you that the left is in favor of it, stop listening to those people.
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And here you see how people like you have been deceived by the media:
- Just because I am not a proponent of the government interceding in marriages (a libertarian position, which if implemented, would've never seen the need for legalizing gay marriage), this does not mean I am against gay marriage.
- Post-birth abortion has been suggested by the governor of Virginia in 2019, late-term abortion, regardless of how you define it (most would say 21 weeks+) is very much a position of the current Democrat party, t
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By believing that it had been fine for the government to tell gays "you can't be married", you show that you are not a libertarian. Sorry. You're a conservative.
Post-birth abortion means "after birth", and abortion after birth does not exist. Period. There's no "how you define it" involved. If you have decided to re-name late-term abortion a "post-birth abortion" , then you are either a liar or deluded.
Don't know which, but I'm not sure that I care.
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No, you intentionally misrepresent my positions:
- Government should not be involved in marriage. Period. It is a religious ceremony, government and church should be separated. Doesn't matter if you're straight or gay, you should not need "government permission" to form a union of any form (business, church, corporation, marriage etc).
- There is FUNCTIONALLY no difference between late, birth canal and post birth abortion. We are talking post-"when the baby can live outside the womb". You are the one that cal
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THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS POST-BIRTH ABORTION.
If it is after birth, it is not an abortion, because "birth" is not a word that means "the time at which baby can survive outside the womb".
Not sure why this is difficult to understand. There are no four-sided triangles, either.
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Then why did a GOVERNOR say it was? This was no mistake, this was an explanation of policy. The word abortion didn't exist in the English language, initially abortion meant to remove a child from the womb before viability for no reason other than convenience, this was expanded in the last decade or so to include medically necessary removal of the child from the womb (which has a separate medical term that is not abortion)
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THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS POST-BIRTH ABORTION. If it is after birth, it is not an abortion, because "birth" is not a word that means "the time at which baby can survive outside the womb". Not sure why this is difficult to understand. There are no four-sided triangles, either.
Then why did a GOVERNOR say it was?
Because Ron DeSantis is an ideologue who doesn't particularly care about facts, and uses words picked to be inflamatory, not to be truthful.
https://www.houstonchronicle.c... [houstonchronicle.com]
https://www.wlrn.org/governmen... [wlrn.org]
https://www.mediaite.com/polit... [mediaite.com]
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We're talking about a Democrat governor, not Ron DeSantis, explaining Virginia's abortion policy. Get informed.
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If Elon didn't become a political jackass this wouldn't;t be a problem. What the FAA is doing isn't right, but Elon didn't have to show his right-wing Nazi colors to give them an excuse.
Why do you say "What the FAA is doing isn't right"?
It's their job to make sure the launches are safe. It's not their job to rubber stamp the mishap report "oh, the last one went out of control, but I expect that they fixed the problem, we'll just approve the launch". They should be going over that mishap report with a fine-toothed comb and checking every single thing to make sure the problems were correctly identified and the fix will indeed solve the problem.
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You don't think SpaceX is doing that already? Or do they like blowing up their own cash?
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You don't think SpaceX is doing that already? Or do they like blowing up their own cash?
I assume SpaceX is doing that already. The FAAs job is to make sure that they do it right.
Failure analysis reports are standard practice in the aerospace industry. Every failure gets one, but particularly failures like Starship, where critical safety features did not work. Do you think that SpaceX should be exempt because Elon Musk has a lot of fans?
Re:Great (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope they get the license soon as it is a big step forward. But I'll doubt if they get it soon, as it's pretty clear some people within the FAA are working against SpaceX
I don't see why the FAA should be working against SpaceX. However they are a very conservative agency. They are proud of their safety record in aviation, and they are quite aware that if they screw up safety protocols hundreds of people will die, and it will be headlines around the world. So I would expect them to look rather askance at Musk's attitude toward safety, "throw something together and see if it blows up".
The fact that Musk thinks they can submit their mishap report [govtech.com] at the end of August and the FAA will just rubber-stamp it in two weeks is a little naive. Yes, he follows the motto "move fast and break things", but the FAA is more of a "move slowly and don't break things" agency.
Musk also seems to assume that the FAA will agree that the changes SpaceX made in response to the incident are enough, and not require SpaceX to make any other changes. (In particular, the FAA should be extremely concerned about the fact that the flight termination system did not work. They had commanded flight termination right at the point where it was clear Starship was going off course, but it failed to operate. The automatic system, fortunately, did terminate the flight once it actually started tumbling, but the FAA really would prefer that it terminate when you press the button, not some unknown time later.)
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The full stack is built stronger/heavier than has been done before to work towards re-usability. It turns out it's unexpectedly robust and survived both the FTS charge and tumbling at speed for a time. Other launch vehicles would have crumpled, lost tank integrity and then exploded in a fireball if they tumbled like that even without the help of a flight termination system. SpaceX noted the need for a more destructive FTS right away. Do you have info pre-dati
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Reason for failure was covered here and elsewhere (Score:4, Informative)
"The failure of the SpaceX launch yesterday can be directly linked to a personal decision that Elon Musk made 3 years ago to not install flame diverters on the Starship launchpad. He overruled his own engineers on this design flaw, and admitted publicly. It's his fault."
https://twitter.com/Tazerface1... [twitter.com]
"Significant damage to the reinforced concrete pad structure was observed, leading some to speculate that debris may have damaged the engines shortly after ignition while the vehicle was still on the pad."
https://www.engineering.com/st... [engineering.com]
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It handled a few missing engines like a champ though.
If by that you mean "didn't blow up immediately." The unbalanced thrust seems to have given them bad control problems, and at least the non-working engine was leaking away the oxygen [dailykos.com]. It would not have made orbit.
I think the failure later on was caused by an experimental staging method that didn't work properly--it was supposed to change attitude and "fling" the booster away then re-light.
The mission was already off course before staging.
Instead they remained attached and tumbled, necessitating a destruct signal by the RSO (Range Safety Officer).
Which didn't work.
The termination order failed, but fortunately the onboard systems eventually detected the tumble and, 40 seconds later, terminated the flight automatically.
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Are you sure about that on the termination? I remember at the time video suggested that the flight termination punched several holes in the side so that it vented O2 and methane, but it failed to ignite until the tumble happened to move so that the hot engines set it off.
So yes, it didn't work, but I thought it wasn't a failure to trigger, but instead a failure of the FTS design, and there was no automated termination, just luck.
But I haven't seen any of the official reports. Is this just a "I heard, you
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The details will be in the mishap report, which doesn't seem to have been made public.
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Re:Reason for failure was covered here and elsewhe (Score:4, Insightful)
SpaceX said they knew before the first launch that the high strength concrete wouldn't be enough for a permanent solution, but they thought it would probably stay intact for the first one (and they were wrong). It appears the plans for the new water deluge system were already in the works by that time. There's also been what appears to be testing of a new flight termination system that should be more effective. It's a matter of convincing the FAA that these new measures will be sufficient. I suspect that won't take too long, since there's apparently been ongoing communication the whole time.
Within the field of engineering, practitioners have many different approaches to the unknown. At one extreme are the ones who insist on taking into account the yield strength of every thread on every fastener. This is best exemplified by modern NASA, who are adept at building single rockets that are unbelievably expensive and delivered late. But they have a pretty good chance of working on the first try. At the other end of the spectrum are the "move fast and break stuff" crowd who are happy to destroy a few prototypes to see what broke. These almost never work on the first try. Personally I believe engineers and large organizations get pushed into the former way of thinking because the public and our peers are overly harsh when they see failure. But in almost all cases the "move fast and break stuff" method ends up being less costly and faster in the long run. The first launch was a failure but it involved a lot of progress at the same time.
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These weren't "uknowns". Everyone but apparently Elon could tell the launch pad wasn't sufficient.
You also don't "move fast and break things" when dealing with giant explosives. It's fine for a fart app for the iphone.
Re:Reason for failure was covered here and elsewhe (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes, there's speculation that the engines were damaged from debris blowback, though with the amount of thrust being produced, it would be hard for debris to get back to the engines. Also, in the static fire a few weeks ago, three of the engines failed, which suggests that they have a general engine failure problem. There was also speculation that engines failing during the flight damaged other engines.
In any case, the first test flight had a lot of things go wrong, but nobody was hurt. That's really what
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I speculated as much at the time, and was modded troll for it. I wonder how is fans are integrating this confirmation.
Sounds like fun (Score:2)
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Biden admin gave SpaceX $4B for Starship so far
https://spacenews.com/nasa-awa... [spacenews.com]
NASA has awarded SpaceX a $1.15 billion contract to develop an upgraded version of its Starship lunar lander and fly a second crewed mission.
NASA announced Nov. 15 it completed a contract modification for what is formally known as Option B of its Human Landing System (HLS) contract with SpaceX. Option B covers upgrades to the Starship lander originally selected for HLS by NASA in April 2021 for $2.9 billion. The option also incl
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There is no reason to believe that in the government, the left hand knows what the right hand is doing.
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It might be anyone at the FAA not orders from Biden. Lots of people independently dislike Elon Musk.
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This doesn't work by the Great Dictator giving orders. People all the way down the line know what side their bread is buttered on. How do you think they got appointed in the first place?
Risk balance (Score:3)
Driverless car technology has killed more people than SpaceX technology. SpaceX are doing things ok IMHO.
Apart from putting up the "X" logo, that was being arrogant, avoiding local planning laws
Almost everyone wants this to work (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the organizations involved here - FAA, NASA, SpaceX, vendors, contractors -- want Starship to be a success. The only ones who aren't all that happy are the Chinese and the competing US space companies. Everyone else stands to gain enormously from the success of this design. 330,700 lbs of payload to low-earth orbit on every launch! And the plan is to launch hundreds of times each year.
Falcon 9 is fantastic, and it has single-handedly delivered 80%+ of payload to space this year, at a fraction of the cost of its competitors. But Starship is in an entirely different class.
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I know, right! That's the equivalent of six falcon 9 launches for every Starship launch. If you're not worried about recovering Starship it can deliver 550,000 lbs in one shot, or the equivalent of ten falcon 9 launches. That's some serious hauling capability. I'm looking forward to some proper space stations being built in the future.
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Given we have just learned that Musk disabled StarLink near Russian warships to prevent the Ukrainians attacking them, I think we need to ask if we really want Musk to be the one controlling these technologies. At the very least, we need some competition.
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We all know who can withdraw his troops and avoid a world war. What a goon.
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I see ULA was not included in your list.
looking forward to it (Score:1)
I know a lot of the trendy kids hate Musk right now but I like his space program - it's the only really dynamic one going today.
However...even I have to say "What the FUCK, Elon?" on the last launch.
I believe the necessity for deluge-flood-cooling on launchpads have been a long-established fact.
I don't think it takes complex math to see that force (plus non-trivially, the SOUND) is massively destructive. The chunks flying all over the place were ridiculously dangerous.
Cheaper - faster- iterate....great.
Obv
Starship is Stacked (Score:2)
So soon there will be a porn movie with Blue Origin?
In more important SpaceX News (Score:2)
Ukraine had apparently planned a sneak attack against the Russian fleet, one potentially so effective that Musk called it a "mini-Pearl Harbour".
Let's ignore the fact that Pearl Harbour is a problematic metaphor since Ukraine was launching an counter-offensive against an unprovoked invasion, unlike Pearl Harbour that was so infamous for being a surprise attack, kinda like Russia did, twice.
Musk, after finding about about this sneak attack, chose to sabotage it [cnn.com]. But he didn't do it by telling the Ukrainians
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Musk, after finding about about this sneak attack, chose to sabotage it. But he didn't do it by telling the Ukrainians he was going to geofence the Starlink connections so they could call off the attack.
I call bullshit.
Reporting says they were submarine drones. Starlink signals do not work under water. The frequency is totally blocked by water at the surface. No submarine can receive Starlink signals. So no, Ukrainian submarine drones were not disabled by losing connectivity they never had with Starlink.
Former CNN guy is making shit up. What a surprise.
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Musk, after finding about about this sneak attack, chose to sabotage it. But he didn't do it by telling the Ukrainians he was going to geofence the Starlink connections so they could call off the attack.
I call bullshit.
Reporting says they were submarine drones. Starlink signals do not work under water. The frequency is totally blocked by water at the surface.
No submarine can receive Starlink signals. So no, Ukrainian submarine drones were not disabled by losing connectivity they never had with Starlink.
Your bullshit analysis it's itself kinda bullshit. True, Starlink signals do not work under water, basically nothing works under water which is why submarines surface to communicate [wikipedia.org].
If these were the same drone [usni.org] there's what looks to be a Starlink antenna on the back.
Former CNN guy is making shit up. What a surprise.
He made up specific quotes from the CEO of Starlink? Pretty damn bold.
Gwynne Shotwell, Musk’s president at SpaceX, was livid at Musk’s reversal, according to Isaacson.
“The Pentagon had a $145 million check ready to hand to me,
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That quote is (allegedly, the source is The Register) in regards to Musk tweeting that he'll keep giving free Starlink service to Ukraine. Shotwell is annoyed that the Pentagon was about to pay for the service when Musk tweeted he'd restore it for free. It's got nothing to do with (alleged) drone attacks.
The whole thing is reporting on leaked excerpts from an unreleased biography, which is pretty nearly equivalent to "well, I heard my sister say her boyfriend's cousin knows a guy...."
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That quote is (allegedly, the source is The Register) in regards to Musk tweeting that he'll keep giving free Starlink service to Ukraine. Shotwell is annoyed that the Pentagon was about to pay for the service when Musk tweeted he'd restore it for free. It's got nothing to do with (alleged) drone attacks.
Good point, and less good point.
You're right the quote looks to be about Musk announcing the free Starlink service on Twitter and temporarily killing the Pentagon deal.
But it's still probably an outcome of the drone attacks. Musk sabotaging a Ukrainian attack is a big f-ing deal, like, enable the Russian blockade (and famine in Africa), ship based missile attacks on Ukrainian cities, and enable Russian defence of the Kerch strait bridge big deal.
I suspect he had some really nasty meetings with the pentagon
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You're engaging in random speculation. Using a quote out of context to support it is at best misleading. Having it pointed out that's what you're doing and then doubling down on the speculation isn't better.
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You're engaging in random speculation. Using a quote out of context to support it is at best misleading. Having it pointed out that's what you're doing and then doubling down on the speculation isn't better.
I agree I got the context of that specific quote wrong, but other than potentially changing Shotwell's role/position it doesn't change much else.
And Musk just confirmed the core of the story [twitter.com].
Btw, the source of the full story is a biography written about Elon Musk with Musk's cooperation [techcrunch.com], so a pretty good source.
And that includes including texts from the Ukrainian deputy PM regarding the military operation that Musk gave for to the biographer for publication [ft.com]. Again, that's really f'ed up.
Also:
Isaacson relate
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Musk, after finding about about this sneak attack, chose to sabotage it. But he didn't do it by telling the Ukrainians he was going to geofence the Starlink connections so they could call off the attack.
I call bullshit.
Reporting says they were submarine drones. Starlink signals do not work under water. The frequency is totally blocked by water at the surface. No submarine can receive Starlink signals. So no, Ukrainian submarine drones were not disabled by losing connectivity they never had with Starlink.
Former CNN guy is making shit up. What a surprise.
Well Musk has now given an (idiotic) partial confirmation [twitter.com] lets look at his version:
There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol.
Doesn't answer a) when was Starlink deactivated in that region, and b) was this communicated to Ukraine, and c) if it was communicated to Ukraine were they given any indication that a drone attack would be a line Musk wouldn't cross.
The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor.
Obviously, if the ene
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