Space exploration: Where do we go from here?

[dxmnkd316]

Jesus

https://twitter.com/intrepidpursuit/...198131715?s=20

I noticed before lift off that there were no trenches and it was just on a concrete pad, which seemed... not optimal. There's a reason NASA flooded the pits and diverted the thrust. I also noticed debris being kicked up almost the entire height of the rocket and a couple of explosions on the video.

I don't understand why they didn't put this on something more thought out than a really expensive turkey fryer stand.

LMAO, holy ****. Watch at 45:00 on this video. You can see the launch pad being pulverized and kicking concrete boulders up hundreds of feet (straight up!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1wcilQ58hI

Check out this one as well:
https://twitter.com/SemrauDylan/stat...50806577164293
I can't believe this didn't puncture any of the tanks out there causing an explosion. just an incredibly poor decision.

And now there are reports of debris falling all over florida.
https://twitter.com/pblodlr/status/1...218991617?s=20

[dxmnkd316]

So it turns out the interstage crumpled on launch. Was never going to separate. That's bad.

[MarkEagleUSA]

RUD: Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly

Gotta love spaceflight acronyms!

[MichVandal]

So it turns out the interstage crumpled on launch. Was never going to separate. That's bad.

Very bad, for that to happen, they either under estimated the upper stage mass and/or the power of the rockets. Both of which is not positive. Or perhaps overestimated the strength.

[MichVandal]

Jesus

https://twitter.com/intrepidpursuit/...198131715?s=20

I noticed before lift off that there were no trenches and it was just on a concrete pad, which seemed... not optimal. There's a reason NASA flooded the pits and diverted the thrust. I also noticed debris being kicked up almost the entire height of the rocket and a couple of explosions on the video.

I don't understand why they didn't put this on something more thought out than a really expensive turkey fryer stand.

LMAO, holy ****. Watch at 45:00 on this video. You can see the launch pad being pulverized and kicking concrete boulders up hundreds of feet (straight up!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1wcilQ58hI

Check out this one as well:
https://twitter.com/SemrauDylan/stat...50806577164293
I can't believe this didn't puncture any of the tanks out there causing an explosion. just an incredibly poor decision.

And now there are reports of debris falling all over florida.
https://twitter.com/pblodlr/status/1...218991617?s=20

Again, the double standard for X and everyone else is astounding- ULAs launch caused some damage due to its power, and they got flack for it, but this is somehow ok???

Makes me hate musk and his worshipers even more.

[RaceBoarder]

RUD: Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly

Gotta love spaceflight acronyms!

How Rude! =)

[dxmnkd316]

Again, the double standard for X and everyone else is astounding- ULAs launch caused some damage due to its power, and they got flack for it, but this is somehow ok???

Makes me hate musk and his worshipers even more.

100%. The environmental damage from this is goign to be astounding. The debris field from just the launch pad is miles-wide.

My god it's amazing this even made it off the pad intact.


If you watch the videos, that thing was moving laterally quite a bit on take-off. It was clear the vectoring was working insanely hard to keep that thing pointed up in the seconds after launch.

[Kepler]

LMAO, holy ****. Watch at 45:00 on this video. You can see the launch pad being pulverized and kicking concrete boulders up hundreds of feet (straight up!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1wcilQ58hI

At 49:00: "As promised, an exciting end to the test flight!" And everybody cheers.

Whee, we blew up!

[Kepler]

On the other hand, I enjoy Elon's failures.

I like when Elmo is embarrassed, but I want to see humanity spread to the stars more.

The one thing Elmo is absolutely right about is we cannot continue to be a single point of failure species; it's only a matter of time before some dumbsh-t Reagan or Shrub or Dump or Putin kills us all.

[LynahFan]

I like when Elmo is embarrassed, but I want to see humanity spread to the stars more.

The one thing Elmo is absolutely right about is we cannot continue to be a single point of failure species; it's only a matter of time before some dumbsh-t Reagan or Shrub or Dump or Putin kills us all.

You misspelled “Musk.”

[dxmnkd316]

I like when Elmo is embarrassed, but I want to see humanity spread to the stars more.

The one thing Elmo is absolutely right about is we cannot continue to be a single point of failure species; it's only a matter of time before some dumbsh-t Reagan or Shrub or Dump or Putin kills us all.

I want responsible space tech. Not this libertarian disaster with no engineering controls whatsoever. No, I won't celebrate this as even a minor success. The more I read the more there is to hate about everything this company. They don't give a ****. Not one. This is going to get people killed in the air and on the ground.

[dxmnkd316]

The reentry vehicle lost significantly more tiles than necessary to guarantee failure on reentry (a known problem for Starship). A portion of the rocket was crushed on liftoff. They knew the launchpad wasn't going to be good enough and went ahead anyways raining debris over the entire community and a protected bird sanctuary. They lied on their permits and used old thrust data (it was something like 25% higher on launch than in the submitted specs). The noise readings were 10 dBA higher on a static fire of the engines than estimates submitted with the permit. The launch area is woefully undersized with communities a third the distance thatn Canaveral. I'm also still not sure whether the insane wobble we saw was from the cameras or from unmanaged forces.

This is not how we should do space tech. If this is that important to humanity, we must get it right.

[Kepler]

This is going to get people killed in the air and on the ground.

I have a blind spot here. Kill as many Floridians and Texans as you need to get us to the stars.

Just put the execs on the test flights. They'll discover due diligence. And it becomes win/win.

[Slap Shot]

Did SpaceX not have any success prior to this launch? This flight was intentionally unmanned for a reason and there were crashes during Mercury/Gemini/Apollo.

I'm not a Musk guy AT ALL, but I guess I'm not understanding what seems like histrionics in reaction to this?

[dxmnkd316]

Did SpaceX not have any success prior to this launch? This flight was intentionally unmanned for a reason and there were crashes during Mercury/Gemini/Apollo.

I'm not a Musk guy AT ALL, but I guess I'm not understanding what seems like histrionics in reaction to this?

Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo were literally the first forays into space by humans. Every flight was learning something new about the laws that governed rocketry and spaceflight. They had no computers to run simulations or libraries of literature on the topic to access nor did they have decades of learnings from previous attempts (which is why no one (I believe) has attempted super heavy launches without deluge and diverters. Much of this was entirely predictable.