SpaceX Starship Blasts Off In Ninth Test Flight (space.com) 121
SpaceX's Starship Flight 9 successfully launched and reached space -- marking the first reuse of a Super Heavy booster -- but both rocket stages were ultimately lost mid-mission due to a "rapid unscheduled disassembly." SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in a statement: "Starship made it to the scheduled ship engine cutoff, so big improvement over last flight! Leaks caused loss of main tank pressure during the coast and re-entry phase. Lot of good data to review." Musk said the next three Starship test launches could lift off every three to four weeks in the days ahead. Space.com reports: The mission lifted off from Starbase today at 7:37 p.m. EDT (2337 GMT; 6:37 p.m. local Texas time), sending the 40-story-tall rocket into the Texas sky atop a pillar of flame. It was a milestone launch, marking the first-ever reuse of a Super Heavy booster; this one earned its wings on Flight 7 in January. (SpaceX swapped out just four of its Raptors after that mission, meaning that 29 of the engines that flew today were flight-proven.) "Lessons learned from the first booster refurbishment and subsequent performance in flight will enable faster turnarounds of future reflights as progress is made towards vehicles requiring no hands-on maintenance between launches," the company wrote in a Flight 9 mission preview.
The Super Heavy had a somewhat different job to do today; it conducted a variety of experiments on its way back down to Earth. For example, the booster performed a controlled rather than randomized return flip and hit the atmosphere at a different angle. "By increasing the amount of atmospheric drag on the vehicle, a higher angle of attack can result in a lower descent speed, which in turn requires less propellant for the initial landing burn," SpaceX wrote in the mission preview. "Getting real-world data on how the booster is able to control its flight at this higher angle of attack will contribute to improved performance on future vehicles, including the next generation of Super Heavy." These experiments complicated Super Heavy's flight profile compared to previous missions, making another "chopsticks" catch at Starbase a tougher proposition. So, rather than risk damaging the launch tower and other infrastructure, SpaceX decided to bring the booster back for a "hard splashdown" in the Gulf of Mexico on Flight 9. That was the plan, anyway; Super Heavy didn't quite make it that far. The booster broke apart about 6 minutes and 20 seconds into today's flight, just after beginning its landing burn. "Confirmation that the booster did demise," [Dan Huot, of SpaceX's communications team] said during the Flight 9 webcast. Super Heavy's flight ended "before it was able to get through landing burn," he added.
Ship, by contrast, improved its performance a bit this time around. It reached space today on a suborbital trajectory that took it eastward over the Atlantic Ocean -- the same basic path the vehicle took on the truncated Flight 7 and Flight 8. But Flight 9 got choppy for Ship after that. The vehicle was supposed to deploy eight dummy versions of SpaceX's Starlink satellites about 18.5 minutes after liftoff, which would have been a landmark first for the Starship program. That didn't happen, however; the payload door couldn't open fully, so SpaceX abandoned the deployment try. Then, about 30 minutes after launch, Ship started to tumble, which was the result of a leak in Ship's fuel-tank systems, according to Huot. "A lot of those [tanks] are used for your attitude control," he said. "And so, at this point, we've essentially lost our attitude control with Starship." As a result, SpaceX nixed a plan to relight one of Ship's Raptor engines in space, a test that was supposed to happen about 38 minutes after launch. And the company gave up hope of a soft splashdown for the vehicle, instead becoming resigned to a breakup over the Indian Ocean during Ship's reentry.
The company therefore will not get all the data it wanted about Flight 9. And there was quite a bit to get; for example, SpaceX removed some of Ship's heat-shield tiles to stress-test vulnerable areas, and it also tried out several different tile materials, including one with an active cooling system. But the company plans to bounce back and try again soon, just as it did after Flight 7 and Flight 8. You can watch a recording of the launch on YouTube.
The Super Heavy had a somewhat different job to do today; it conducted a variety of experiments on its way back down to Earth. For example, the booster performed a controlled rather than randomized return flip and hit the atmosphere at a different angle. "By increasing the amount of atmospheric drag on the vehicle, a higher angle of attack can result in a lower descent speed, which in turn requires less propellant for the initial landing burn," SpaceX wrote in the mission preview. "Getting real-world data on how the booster is able to control its flight at this higher angle of attack will contribute to improved performance on future vehicles, including the next generation of Super Heavy." These experiments complicated Super Heavy's flight profile compared to previous missions, making another "chopsticks" catch at Starbase a tougher proposition. So, rather than risk damaging the launch tower and other infrastructure, SpaceX decided to bring the booster back for a "hard splashdown" in the Gulf of Mexico on Flight 9. That was the plan, anyway; Super Heavy didn't quite make it that far. The booster broke apart about 6 minutes and 20 seconds into today's flight, just after beginning its landing burn. "Confirmation that the booster did demise," [Dan Huot, of SpaceX's communications team] said during the Flight 9 webcast. Super Heavy's flight ended "before it was able to get through landing burn," he added.
Ship, by contrast, improved its performance a bit this time around. It reached space today on a suborbital trajectory that took it eastward over the Atlantic Ocean -- the same basic path the vehicle took on the truncated Flight 7 and Flight 8. But Flight 9 got choppy for Ship after that. The vehicle was supposed to deploy eight dummy versions of SpaceX's Starlink satellites about 18.5 minutes after liftoff, which would have been a landmark first for the Starship program. That didn't happen, however; the payload door couldn't open fully, so SpaceX abandoned the deployment try. Then, about 30 minutes after launch, Ship started to tumble, which was the result of a leak in Ship's fuel-tank systems, according to Huot. "A lot of those [tanks] are used for your attitude control," he said. "And so, at this point, we've essentially lost our attitude control with Starship." As a result, SpaceX nixed a plan to relight one of Ship's Raptor engines in space, a test that was supposed to happen about 38 minutes after launch. And the company gave up hope of a soft splashdown for the vehicle, instead becoming resigned to a breakup over the Indian Ocean during Ship's reentry.
The company therefore will not get all the data it wanted about Flight 9. And there was quite a bit to get; for example, SpaceX removed some of Ship's heat-shield tiles to stress-test vulnerable areas, and it also tried out several different tile materials, including one with an active cooling system. But the company plans to bounce back and try again soon, just as it did after Flight 7 and Flight 8. You can watch a recording of the launch on YouTube.
"Successfully launched and reached space" (Score:5, Insightful)
What world do these people live in?
[cough] Developmental TEST FLIGHT [cough] (Score:5, Informative)
This project is not just about developing a new rocket and new engines (which ALWAYS entails failures along the way), but it's about developing an entirely new type of rocket, and doing it in the form of the largest rocket of any type that anybody has ever done before. That's a giant leap forward. Anybody expecting that to be quick and painless and explosion free has no appreciation of what's going on here.
What makes this a new TYPE of rocket? It's not only designed to be completely re-usable (a never-before achieved thing) but to be as rapidly re-usable as an airliner. The Space Shuttle, for example, was only partially re-usable (the SRBs and Orbiter, but the orange external tanks were destroyed on every flight) and yet the orbiter itself needed months of intense human labor for refurbishment between flights. The SRBs had to be recovered from the sea and get cleaned out and disassembled back into casing segments before new solid fuel could be re-cast into the casings and so forth. Not only has NOBODY ever fully re-used an orbital launch vehicle, but certainly not without months (or years?) of hangar time between flights.
A fully-fueled superheavy+starship stack is also the most massive flying object ever built and flown by anybody anywhere. This was only the 9th test and development flight, and only used a block I SuperHeavy and the third block II Starship. It's actually quite remarkable to watch what all those folks at SpaceX are achieving.
While this flight was not successful in all of its goals, it still managed an impressive list of successes and generated a mountain of data, so as I have typed before: Well Done, SpaceX!
1. This was the first re-flight of a previously flown (and caught) SuperHeavy booster. It took SpaceX 31 flights of Falcon 9 before they were able to re-fly a booster. With SuperHeavy (a much larger and more complex system) it only took 8 flights before the first re-flight.
2. This was the first time Raptor engines were flown a third time. Most of the engines were flown once the first time the booster flew and were there for a second flight on this launch, but the first time this booster flew it was re-using one or more engines previously flown on another booster.
3. They flew a new design hot staging adapter, modified to cause the staging itself to force the booster to flip in a particular direction (saving complexity and fuel in future missions). This worked, apparently flawlessly.
4. They flew a different booster return trajectory designed to text the aerodynamic limits of the returning booster, this appears to have worked and generated data which will help confirm CFD and wind tunnel data and refine the flight models.
5. They attempted to cause a deliberate engine failure on the booster descent to test the vehicle's response. This may have been what started the destruction of the booster, and was one of the reasons (along with the previous point) why they did not aim for the tower and attempt a catch. What they were testing with this previously-flown and now obsolete booster were things that might lead to failure and they did not want such a probability of [BOOM] at or on the tower.
6. They were testing fixes to the Block II Starship that were implemented to avoid the issues that destroyed the first two block II Starships late in their climb to space. This appears to have succeeded (and generated data) with this third block II Starship making it into space as intended. That, too, is a big success.
7. The payload door failed to open properly and they could not deploy the dummy Starlink sats, which count as failures, BUT this too also will have generated plenty of data which will improve those. Remember: these two goals are NOT part of the moon/mars projects, and have ZERO bearing on the architecture and success/failure for the moon and mars projects.
8. There was a propellant leak and loss of vehicle control, a failure, but it also will have generated data that will inform future vehicles. After this failure and loss of
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"This is a glorious day for the Soviet Untion (we collected data!) -- Leonid Brezhnev
Re: (Score:2)
The crew at SpaceX are not grieving children who need to be consoled.
They can handle the fact that today was a disappointment, and work toward the next attempt. And the one after.
The prime goal today was to test out the re-entry system, especially the thermal insulation. This did not happen, apparently due to a fuel leak.
The booster also failed too early. But that's OK. It took several years to get Falcon 9 boosters landing reliably, and now it is routine.
Lets look forward to flight 10.
Re: [cough] Developmental TEST FLIGHT [cough] (Score:2)
The crew at SpaceX are not grieving children who need to be consoled.
That would be rsilvergun every time NASA contracts with SpaceX for crewed launches instead of Roscosmos.
How many "failures" can they afford? (Score:3)
With the best will in the world, I also find it hard to believe any
Re:How many "failures" can they afford? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, at some point if the failures continue it will put the program in jeopardy because you cannot keep producing and blowing up expensive hardware indefinitely even when you do learn a lot.
Of course you can - with someone else's money.
Re: (Score:3)
However, at some point if the failures continue it will put the program in jeopardy because you cannot keep producing and blowing up expensive hardware indefinitely even when you do learn a lot.
Of course you can - with someone else's money.
Starship development is primarily funded by SpaceX. SpaceX has some money from a NASA moon lander contract, but it's not that much relative to the cost of developing a large orbital rocket system. If/when they meet all of the milestones, they'll be paid $4B. So far they've only received a few hundred million -- probably not enough to pay for even one Starship test flight.
SpaceX is private so we don't know a lot about its finances, but it appears to be quite profitable, between the Falcon9-based launch
Re: How many "failures" can they afford? (Score:2)
You were correct until 18 months ago. Starlink is now very profitable and the lift charges to other nations have SpaceX in the black without NASA/DoD. US government is huge profit but no longer primary fund source.
Anon liar flings insults [eye roll] (Score:2)
You have NOTHING. No facts at all, just hatred and vitriol and, probably envy. People who do nothing with their finite lives can choose to admire the work of those who succeed wildly, or despise them for showing what was possible. You appear to be doing the latter.
SpaceX is NOT "entirely kept afloat by taxpayers" (with the obvious implication that SpaceX is subsidized). That's simply a fact, and you have ZERO evidence to the contrary because no such evidence exists.
SpaceX does indeed get a lot of money from
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
"It's not only designed to be completely re-usable (a never-before achieved thing) but to be as rapidly re-usable as an airliner"
Then I guess it failed in that task, huh? Don't think they'll be reusing it anymore.
Re: (Score:3)
With the benefit of hindsight I bet they wished they'd been a bit more conservative with V2 given the teething issues. (i.e. fly with fewer revisions so they can perfect parts of the system - but it seems like they're going for broke to reach for the Mars transfer window and have the funding to survive t
Re: (Score:1)
I doubt it. With all the changes they gathered way more data then they would with a successful test with fewer changes. "successful because we gathered data" isn't copium here, it's the SpaceX way.
It's possible (Score:2)
I'm sure they'll be looking at that. They blocked-off some of the vents on one area so none of the Starship exhaust would go out that side, unbalancing the forces and causing the SuperHeavy to be pushed that way. I'm sure that changed a lot of the environment in that space during separation. They will have modeled that and [presumably] had decided it should work, but you always need to test this stuff in the real world. CFD is amazing and far better than it used to be, but we still have to put models into w
Re: (Score:2)
So leaky fuel tanks that cause complete loss of attitude control is a good outcome in your world.
Pretty sure they could have leak-checked it on the ground before firing it 100mi up and showering some unspecified section of the planet with metal debris.
Re: (Score:2)
Starship appears to be at the same stage of development as early US rocket development, using stolen or derivative engine designs, but suffering so many other problems. The video of spectacular rocket failures is great fun to watch., The soviets were well represented also.
Fail fast and iterate is a viable development strategy. Considering that the competition is successful at an order of magnitude (or so) fewer launches, SpaceX is doing well. And it's not a lot of NASA funding at risk.
Disappointing, but I g
Re: (Score:2)
BTW, the early US rocket development used those 'stolen' or derivatives, SpaceX seems to have perhaps started with the generally accepted design and iterated.
Oh, wait...
The one where pump and dump scams (Score:2, Interesting)
Also the world where my tax dollars line the pockets of a white supremacist fascist instead of supporting NASA.
Just a friendly reminder to anyone who holds Tesla stock that musk is still hard at work getting his 55 billion dollar pay package which is more money than Tesla has ever made in the company's entire history.
What do you think is going to happen to the company's R&D budget and its ability to compete after it loses 55 billion? Espec
Re: (Score:2)
Aren't prosecuted by the SEC if you're rich enough...
SpaceX is a private company. The SEC has limited authority over them. Unless, of course, the SEC determines that the public company Tesla is involved in various financial entanglements with SpaceX which might be looked at as improper between a public/private company effectively controlled by the common individuals.
Re: (Score:1)
Private my ass. When they give up their gov. contracts, then we'll call them private.
What's with you guys? (Score:2)
A private company is still a private company when they sell a product or service to the government within the framework of the marketplace, which is what SpaceX does. Nobody is just giving SpaceX checks for nothing... NASA did THAT to Boeing on the SLS, where they routinely gave them large bonus payments even as they SLS rocket slipped further behind schedule and went further over budget.
When government PAYS SpaceX to haul astronauts to and from the ISS, it's because SpaceX competed in the marketplace for t
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Aren't prosecuted by the SEC if you're rich enough...
The SEC requires that SpaceX ensure its investors meet the accreddited investor standard, which is a far higher standard than just any Tom Dick and Harry being allowed to do gamified retail trading on Robinhood like you can with publicly traded securities. Not only does it do that, SpaceX also won't even allow most legally qualified investors to buy its shares. SpaceX is also subject to FASB just like everybody else.
SpaceX also doesn't want to be publicly traded because Wall Street would almost certainly fo
Re: (Score:2)
LOL, Shite-X literally lives off government grants and subsidies, aka "contracts".
If that's your argument, then you're literally also arguing that every government employee is on welfare and that SpaceX are receiving grants and subsidies from foreign governments as well. Especially given SpaceX is literally the only launch provider other than Russia and China that is even capable of doing manned flights to orbit. Even more so when you consider that SpaceX charges far lower rates than anybody else on the planet, which is perhaps the biggest reason why SpaceX delivers more cargo to space b
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Also Musk is a crook who (Score:2)
No, just real estate investment trusts. See? It's the other guys that are evil.
Re: Also Musk is a crook who (Score:2)
They called that national socialism.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It was a cute joke when Falcon 9 was still figuring out how to land but yeah feels a bit hollow here, I don't imagine they got to test much of the things they were looking to here.
We are also one year out from Artemis II where astronauts are supposed to walk onto the moon from the HLS Starship based lander. Bit embarrassing if Lockheed and Boeing are ready but SpaceX isn't. That will get delayed no doubt but as I have read the SLS rocket is on track and so is the capsule.
Re:"Successfully launched and reached space" (Score:5, Informative)
Artemis II is not a landing, it's a manned flight to Lunar orbit (similar to Apollo 10). Artemis III is the mission for landing, assuming it still happens.
The Artemis II rocket is being stacked now for testing.
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you, I got my shit mixed up. That's more feasible so best of luck to them.
A little encouragement... (Score:5, Interesting)
Somebody else beat me to the point that Artemis II is sorta a four-person repeat of Apollo 8 (loop around the moon sans lander), and the Artemis III with landing attempt is currently pushed back to 2027 or 2028, but I wanted to toss in a bit more for you and others to consider:
Elon just tore down the High Bay in Texas (the original hangar for constructing full-height Block I Starships and SuperHeavies) and is clearing the ground to put up a so-called "gigabay" building right next to (or attached to) the brand new MASSIVE factory there which is still not fully up-and-running. At the same time, he's doing the foundations for another gigabay and setting up a factory at KSC in Florida. This means that unlike a traditional rocket company (like Boeing building an SLS launch vehicle) he will NOT be spending YEARS hand-building each individual rocket. Musk's SuperHeavy+Starship rockets are going to begin pouring out of the factories at an insane rate.
Elon also is completing construction of the second launch pad in Texas, and his team is prepping another pad in Florida at KSC (the tower is already up and they're building the flame trench and launch platform), with environmental studies underway for (apparently) two more pads in Florida. If the new pads workout, he'll presumably update the initial Texas pad (which needs a lot of work between flights) to the new design and those pads will be able to launch, catch, and re-launch rockets without refurbishment between operations (a world first for heavy lift rocketry).
What this means is potentially test flights every week or so in the not-too-distant future. We could see more SuperHeavy+Starship flights in 2026 alone than all the Gemini and Apollo launches, combined. With SuperHeavy catches underway (an already thrice-proven thing) SpaceX will likely have so many boosters kicking around that they'll run out of places to park them. The rate of developmental progress we're all likely to see in the next 24 months will be something the world has never seen before. I'm not going to be the least bit surprised if they fulfill their contracts and land humans on the new schedule, start deploying the newer full-function big starlinks by the Starship load, and but a batch of Tesla robots onto Mars in the next window. As they solve each problem, the subsequent launches will tackle more new problems, with each success checkbox enabling multiple new developments. The rate of progress will leap after the first fully orbital Starship flight, and the new facilities will amplify the development pace. We're all going to have to learn to think entirely differently about what rocket development looks like. This will be more like hamburger production at some point. The limiting factor on how frequently SpaceX can fly is likely to be [a] FAA limits, [b] how fast he can get cryogenic fluids delivered to his launch complexes, and/or [c] burn-out of his workers. That's NOT the normal thing in spaceflight. Normally the limit is launch vehicle and spacecraft production rates.
I'm a natural pessimist, and rather than being a Musk fanboy, I was rather skeptical about the guy long ago, and never expected him to be able to clear all the government red tape and succeed, but I've done my time in the aerospace industry and this guy and his SpaceX people are doing great work and breaking all the development models. I wish the FAA guys would have gotten out of his way long ago - they know far less about rockets and spaceflight than his people do and they cannot keep up with that unprecedented development pace. As an agency, they're also severely risk averse and do not want to have to explain to congress why they approved something that went badly, so for them the easy and safe path is to not approve things or approve them very slowly and with heavy regulations. They'd have NEVER allowed the Wright Brothers to fly, or Wiley Post, or Charles Lindbergh, etc. Had the FAA managed to adapt to a faster pace with a different dev model, or had they gotten out of the way, I suspect we'd have seen an
By your trolling you contuinue to prove... (Score:2)
that you have NOTHING to say. Certainly nothing of value. It's just a massive stream of bile and excrement pumped-out by a sick, twisted, angry person posting anonymously. You're not going to persuade anybody with your total lack of facts and cogent arguments. The only thing you successfully do is advertise your bitterness, frustration and unhappiness with the text equivalent of a megaphone.
Everybody reading your posts can see it.
Get help. Not four our sake, but for your own.
You are not a happy and healthy
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, because Lockheed and Boeing didn't have 10+ years to work on SLS already. Didn't all of that start in the early GWB years as "Constellation" ?
Let's try to at least keep things on the same scale?
Re:"Successfully launched and reached space" (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
To be honest, anytime spacex is mentioned the comment section devolves into a political argument. /. isn't the place for this.
As demonstrated by the post you directly responded to. Among others.
Re: (Score:2)
I mean, if you can't outdo 1950's / 1960's tech, and your best parlor trick
Re: (Score:1)
"Yes, this launch was a TEST ... a word repeated multiple times throughout the SpaceX feed by the hosts."
And it failed.
Re: (Score:2)
It is so sad the intelligence level of /. postings has sunk WAY BELOW that of the US DumboCrap Party.
It's also sad to see someone going out of their way to make something about politics, that has absolutely nothing directly to do with politics. And that was you doing that.
Way to make your political bullshit the locus of your identity. That's super healthy.
Re:"Successfully launched and reached space" (Score:5, Informative)
Reached space: Yep, 100km, above the Kármán Line. That's where space is.
Returned from space: Ehhhh.....
Re: (Score:2)
Reached space: Yep, 100km, above the Kármán Line. That's where space is.
That part is easy. The real challenge is getting to orbital velocity. The SpaceX video feed showed Starship reaching only about 26,500km/h, well short of the 28,000 needed for orbit. But that does not include the speed boost it got from the Earth's rotation, which is nearly 1500km/h from Boca Chica.
So yes, Starship had "nominal insertion" and was only a whisker away (for obvious reasons) from sufficient velocity to return to Texas. Just one more second or so from those six raptors, and Mexico would have h
Re: "Successfully launched and reached space" (Score:1)
Re: "Successfully launched and reached space" (Score:1)
Re: "Successfully launched and reached space" (Score:2)
Re: "Successfully launched and reached space" (Score:2)
This phrase is used euphemistically as it has since the beginning of SpaceX's launches. Try interpreting with more humor than outrage?
You'd probably recognize that if you didn't suffer from Elon Derangement Syndrome.
Re: (Score:2)
When everyone who disagrees with you "is a Nazi" it's you that's deranged. You (or at least your therapist) recognize this, yes?
Re:rapid unscheduled disassembly. (Score:1)
Dilbertville
Re: (Score:2)
"Rapid unscheduled disassembly"="It blowed up real good!" [blogspot.com]
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sorry, where is this "Gulf of Mexico"? (Score:1)
Is it somewhere near Atlantis?
Re:I'm sorry, where is this "Gulf of Mexico"? (Score:5, Funny)
Did the Space X commentators actually say "Gulf of Mexico"? A certain person isn't going to like that...
I want to be excited about this (Score:4, Insightful)
I really do. But I'm finding it increasingly difficult. I suspect that I'm not alone in this. I'm starting to wonder what's it all for.
Despite the cold war and the politics of the space race ("Vintage Space" did a great documentary on that recently) space exploration used to feel very much like a human-unifying, human-benefiting endeavor. And I felt like this about SpaceX until the events of the last few months. The honest truth is everything has been colored (tainted even) by a couple of humans who have an outsized sense of their own importance (and extremely optimistic sense of how fast their bidding can be done).
That said, kudos to the smart engineers (the guys doing the actual work while Must gets all the praise) on their good work. Reusing the first stage heavy booster is quite a feat. Starship has a long, long ways to go yet.
Re:I want to be excited about this (Score:5, Insightful)
I really do. But I'm finding it increasingly difficult. I suspect that I'm not alone in this. I'm starting to wonder what's it all for.
Despite the cold war and the politics of the space race ("Vintage Space" did a great documentary on that recently) space exploration used to feel very much like a human-unifying, human-benefiting endeavor.
Oh come on, that was just the veneer. It was always politics. You are shocked by Musk? The guy who made the Saturn V happen was an actual literal Nazi. [wikipedia.org] JFK was a womaniser who escalated the Vietnam war.
(the guys doing the actual work while Must gets all the praise) on their good work.
By all means call out the grievous faults, but when you try to diminish the genuine achievements because you (justifiably) don't like someone, it sounds petty and spiteful.
Nobody is perfect. Can we not acknowledge both their faults and achievements, without having to make some "naughty & nice" scoreboard?
This topic is SpaceX.
Re: I want to be excited about this (Score:2)
So we didn't give the Nazi rocket guy (Score:2)
With Elon he's not smart and he's not helping if anything he's made things worse. At least one of the crashes was because that idiot cut costs on the launch pad and when the rocket tried the launch the launch pad came apart and a chunk of it crashed into the rocket and took it out. This was all completely avoidable if we didn't have a dumb man child in charge.
So I g
Re: (Score:2)
You are a really poor writer. I hope English isn't your native language.
Re: (Score:2)
... ODS ... Michael Moore DS ... Remember when they openly sided with the enemy ... Then openly naming us ENEMY during Obama
Wait... what did Iraq or gitmo have to do with 9/11? It's been what nearly 24 years, Iraq and SH had fuck-all to do with 9/11? How is opposing indefinite detention or water boarding siding with the enemy?
Enemy.. I do not think that word means what you think it means
Strip today's Kansans of their job security, and they head out to become registered Republicans. Push them off their land, and next thing you know they're protesting in front of abortion clinics. Squander their life savings on manicures for the CEO, and there's a good chance they'll join the John Birch Society. But ask them about the remedies their ancestors proposed (unions, antitrust, public ownership), and you might as well be referring to the days when knighthood was in flower.
—Thomas Frank, What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004), pp. 67–68
He's spot on, damn that's freaky. Guy saw today's shit coming a mile away.
The only thing to do if to ignore them and live our best lives.
lol, I'll believe it when I see it. The whole movement depends on crying about being the real victim, blaming your kids, grand kids not talking to you on liberal elite uni
Re: (Score:1)
leftists keep the right wing chucklefucks from blowing everything up. maybe you can build rockets but you cant govern a country thats for fuckin sure
So we’re talking left vs. right, eh?
Pick one of each:
- North Korea, South Korea
- West Germany, East Germany
- Cuba, Florida
- Mainland China, Taiwan
- Cambodia during Pol Pot, Cambodia before
- Sweden while it tried socialism, Sweden with capitalism + welfare based on need instead of identity
- Equity, Blind Justice + Equality of Opportunity + Free Speech + Property Rights
Re: I want to be excited about this (Score:4, Insightful)
I cannot fault Elon or Donny for being against fraud and abuse, especially on such an enormous scale as they still keep on finding.
I am very excited to see a documented summary of all this fraud and abuse. Please point me to where I can find one?
Re: I want to be excited about this (Score:4, Informative)
I cannot fault Elon or Donny for being against fraud and abuse
Good grief how stupid are you? "Donny" is wildly, blatantly corrupt. He accepts cash for pardons. And he'd set up a crypto currency specifically so foreign powers can chuck large amounts of cash at him.
especially on such an enormous scale as they still keep on finding.
Whether you're lying or you're simply repeating their lies verbatim doesn't matter much at this point. When the world looks this brown, it's time to pull your head out of your arse before you suffocate.
Re: (Score:2)
Despite the cold war and the politics of the space race ("Vintage Space" did a great documentary on that recently) space exploration used to feel very much like a human-unifying, human-benefiting endeavor.
Probably because, at the end of the day, democracy triumphed over stalinism.
Re: (Score:1)
And kleptocracy and oligarchy triumphed over democracy. Hooray! We're all peasants again. Mud pies all round.
You'd be a lot happier if... (Score:3)
you did not allow yourself to get sucked into the hatred vortex.
Both political parties have operators who build careers on trying to get they supporters to hate the other side as much as possible. The energy is politically useful. I'm going to say some stuff that will make me look like a Trump fanboy (unavoidable when taking certain positions or debating Trump opponents or clarifying some Trump-related thing) but what I'm trying to point out is bi-partisan manipulations and you happen to have taken the anti
Re: (Score:1)
I am sensing a zeitgeist change. For example, your post has yet to be voted down into oblivion, and it’s been over twelve hours. Maybe empiricism is starting to make a comeback? Or maybe it’s just that cutting USAID funding has temporarily weakened the “hatred vortex”?
Both sides bad gets people killed (Score:2)
Right now Trump is working hard to cut 800 billion from Medicaid so he can take that money and give it to about 35 people. And he is almost certainly going to get away with it thanks to the Republican party.
So you can take that both sides bad bullshit and get right on out of here
Re: (Score:2)
You're right there is a lot of reason for hope and positivity. I also said I admire and respect the engineers and other people doing the work. It's cool stuff. My question about what's it all for is still valid, and unanswered, and mildly unsettling. Is it just an ego trip or is it about advancing all humankind's knowledge?
As for the rest, you made a lot of assumptions from just a couple of paragraphs. I do oppose trump and musk precisely because of their actions. I will speak out when things that are
Re: (Score:3)
Must be rough if your worldview can be completely turned around by "a couple of humans who have an outsized sense of their own importance."
I've worked in children's hospitals. Some of the people, often the ones in charge, are dicks. That doesn't mean children's hospitals are a bad idea. SpaceX is at least 13,000 people. The US space industry is about 350,000. Worldwide it's estimated that a few million people work in the space industry. One of them is a dick. So what?
There seems to be a pattern here... (Score:4)
...and I don't just mean "rocket go boom".
SpaceX seems to largely have Booster working. Yes, they lost this one, intentionally pushing some limits on the reentry.
With Ship, Flights 4, 5, and 6 all managed controlled splashdowns. With Flight 7, SpaceX moved to Block2 Ship. Flight 7 was lost due to an internal fuel leak, Flight 8 due to Ship engine failure, and now Flight 9 has been lost with an apparent internal fuel leak, again. For whatever reason, Block 2 doesn't appear to be up to the challenge.
Re:There seems to be a pattern here... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called "fail fast engineering." Instead of navel-gazing about what could go wrong, you slap the thing together and test it. In the tests, things likely to go wrong in fact go wrong. So you fix them and test again. Repeat until things start going right. Turns out that repeatedly losing test vehicles is actually cheaper than the long, detailed engineering necessary to find the problems without losing as many test vehicles.
Great plan, right? Just one problem. There are high-probability failures and low-probability failures. The long, detailed engineering identifies both. Fail-fast only finds the failure modes which actually happen -- namely the high probability ones. And that's a big problem.
You see, there are a whole lot of unlikely failure modes. Vastly more than the number of high probability failure modes. So while there's only a small chance of encountering any particular low-probability failure mode, there's a strong chance of encountering -some- low-probability failure mode.
SpaceX has no idea what those low-probability failure modes are. They didn't do the long, detailed engineering that could identify them. They'll encounter the low-probability failure modes for the first time later on... when people are aboard.
Re:There seems to be a pattern here... (Score:5, Insightful)
unfortunately - i think you're correct. I'll add to that that they have had repeat issues on things that they have had tons of experience with in previous iterations - leaks, engines not igniting/shutting down mid flight, heat shield panels detaching/failing, and the common: payload mechanism failed, and payload couldn't deploy. They have had these issues before, and keep having these issues. So not only are they failing fast, they're not really learning fast.
The sheer number of engines that have failures mid mission is worrying, and they haven't improved much. This may have been the most successful. I'm glad that they have so many extra to account for some failures... but you don't do space missions, especially manned ones with "hope" that enough of them actually work. This launch, they had a successful 33/33 work on the ascent, but only 12/13 worked on the descent causing a loss of the stage. Still had a fuel leak that caused the loss of the upper stage.
They're doing good work, and I'm glad.. but still, concerning... just glad that there hasn't been a catastrophic failure in orbit that would litter LEO with debris. (Yet)
Re: (Score:2)
only 12/13 worked on the descent causing a loss of the stage
I seems, that you don't realize, that they did it on purpose.
Re: (Score:2)
The Space Shuttle presumably went through the sort of long, detailed engineering you describe, and yet two of them were still lost with crew on board. It's not exactly a silver bullet, either.
Re: (Score:2)
The Space Shuttle presumably went through the sort of long, detailed engineering you describe, and yet two of them were still lost with crew on board. It's not exactly a silver bullet, either.
Compare to Falcon 9, which used the iterative / fail-fast process... and is the safest orbital rocket ever built, as well as the cheapest.
Re: (Score:2)
They did iterative for landing but they certainly put the work in a more traditional way on Dragon and F9/FH launching. Not as meticulous as NASA but nowhere near as iterative as Starship.
They were also more restricted based on their launch area (can't be as risky at Canaveral versus their own site) and the fact both those vehicles had government contracts and deadlines pending for them up front. They also just did not have that sterling reputation up front so the optics of constant F9 not hitting their o
Re: (Score:2)
They did iterative for landing but they certainly put the work in a more traditional way on Dragon and F9/FH launching.
Not until they started working on man-rating. The early development F9 followed the same iterative fail-fast model, though obviously with a lot less global attention. The painstaking detail for SS/SH will have to come, but can and should be deferred until they have platform that has been proven basically reliable.
Re: (Score:2)
The 1.0 Falcon 9 took 5 years to develop before it made it's first flight, which was successful, they basically did your latter statement, built a stable platform that worked first and then iterated from there.
Re: (Score:2)
They'll encounter the low-probability failure modes for the first time later on... when people are aboard.
Will they? The rapid iteration / fail fast model is what they used for Falcon 9, and it is the safest orbital rocket ever built. Did they just get lucky?
Re: (Score:2)
They developed the Falcon 9 in a similar manner, and it has turned out to be a reliable vehicle. One thing that SpaceX has compared to the Saturn V development is that they were able to do extensive testing of the launch vehicles as payload launches before using them for human spaceflight. The Saturn V was too expensive to test in that manner. The Space Shuttle (also done the "old fashioned way") wasn't exactly a safe vehicle in operation, no was the Boing Starliner.
I think experience has taught that in spa
Re: There seems to be a pattern here... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Suuure. Yeah. Elect the fascists, nothing bad will happen. They will behave and will absolutely not kill millions of people.
That's exactly what people said in 1932. Did not work.
Re: (Score:2)
Booster working. Yes, they lost this one, intentionally pushing some limits on the reentry.
You sure? I got the impression if failed high up, before getting to push those limits.
Re: (Score:2)
The changes they made were to the reentry profile, so "failed high up" is what you'd expect. It was also planned to simulate landing fairly high up and then fall the rest of the way.
Re: (Score:2)
They seem to have gotten lucky with their first design and they're not so lucky with the second. The reliability of the Raptor engines seems to be improving though, and they recently put quite a bit of focus on that. Maybe time to do some targeted ground testing of Starship or even fly it solo a few times.
I don't get why they keep failing (Score:2)
Re: I don't get why they keep failing (Score:4, Interesting)
Hey girls, is big really better? (Score:1)
Why not launch smaller stuff and assemble them into something big in orbit ?
Re: (Score:2)
Weight and size are signs of reliability, if you don't get 'em with it, you can still hit 'em with it.
Good (Score:1)
When will they stick Leon Skum on one and send him to his cherished Mars condo?
Go fast and break things... (Score:2)
Musk seems to be pushing this project to achieve success by ignoring basic engineering practice.
He seems to be pushing rapid iterations with untested changes and keeping his fingers crossed.
Predictably, things blow up.
This might work for car hardware (but not "Full Self Driving" software) but not sure it's the best approach for rockets.
Re: (Score:2)
And how do you test? Can his test method vary from yours? Is that OK with you? Please?
He obviously is OK with "testing" in real-world scenarios which apparently give pretty usable data. I don't hear anyone bitching about the Falcon 9's landing most of time, these days. Remember how many of those blew up or missed their landing barges?
Re: (Score:2)
Real engineers prefer non-destructive testing.
Patching things up and hoping it will survive a launch is just asking for failure.
There are lots of ways to test engineering modifications non-destructively but these take time and Musk doesn't have the patience for that.