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Space exploration: Where do we go from here?

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 shit. 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/status/1649050806577164293
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/1649059706218991617?s=20
 
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dxmnkd316 said:
So it turns out the interstage crumpled on launch. Was never going to separate. That's bad.
Click to expand...
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.
 
dxmnkd316 said:
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/status/1649050806577164293
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/1649059706218991617?s=20
Click to expand...

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.
 
MichVandal said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
FuLBVH3XwAI5QWi


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.
 
dxmnkd316 said:
On the other hand, I enjoy Elon's failures.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Kepler said:
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.
Click to expand...

You misspelled “Musk.”
 
Kepler said:
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.
Click to expand...

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 fuck. Not one. This is going to get people killed in the air and on the ground.
 
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.
 
dxmnkd316 said:
This is going to get people killed in the air and on the ground.
Click to expand...

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.
 
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?
 
Slap Shot said:
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?
Click to expand...

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.
 
Slap Shot said:
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?
Click to expand...

Apollo had one truly bad mission, and then one failure. No explosions during a launch.

The histrionics is about the total lack of acceptance of this being a failure.
 
They did have Godard's work and Tsiolkovsky's theory, but yes we have sixty more years of work now.
 
MichVandal said:
Apollo had one truly bad mission, and then one failure. No explosions during a launch.

The histrionics is about the total lack of acceptance of this being a failure.
Click to expand...

I sincerely doubt that internally they don't see it as a failure and I don't feel the need to freak out over their subterfuge.

Also this program isn't at the Apollo stage so again...

dx - it was unmanned. Again SpaceX has a history prior to this launch and I believe a wait and see response isn't unwarranted.
 
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Slap Shot said:
I sincerely doubt that internally they don't see it as a failure and I don't feel the need to freak out over their subterfuge.

Also this program isn't at the Apollo stage so again...

dx - it was unmanned. Again SpaceX has a history prior to this launch and I believe a wait and see response isn't unwarranted.
Click to expand...

Why is it so hard to say that in public? The musk worshipers are the first to throw stones at all other programs, but they can’t seem to accept that they fail, too. Rather frustrating.

if they are not at the Apollo stage, then they are not ready for live launches like this- in the end, the cost of these failures will be passed to all of us, since they get so much money to launch stuff into space.
 
Slap Shot said:
I sincerely doubt that internally they don't see it as a failure and I don't feel the need to freak out over their subterfuge.

Also this program isn't at the Apollo stage so again...

dx - it was unmanned. Again SpaceX has a history prior to this launch and I believe a wait and see response isn't unwarranted.
Click to expand...

I'll bet once they survey the damage at the launchpad and the FAA and EPA start gathering data and feedback, I think the feelings of joy and success will go pretty much like Starship's first flight.

A wait and see response would be warranted against someone who is operating in good faith. I don't see that from Elon Musk. I think he deserves no such benefit of the doubt. ANd i'm not even sure what we're waiting to see. We're seeing plenty right now and it's not good! If you can wade through the fanbois on Twitter, it's pretty obvious there were some fairly significant, predictable, and embarrassing failures.

The worst part from an engineering perspective is, they have no idea how much of the data they can trust in terms of reliability because King Sh_thead decided to forego the deluge and flame deflectors because it wasn't edgy enough. How many of those engines failed because of a chunk of concrete hit them? How many failed because of other causes? Was the telemetry system impacted? Were they able to recover any data on the engines? How much? How did the engines perform in-air working together? How many of the tiles failed becuse of concrete impacts? My god, what a waste of money (including taxpayer money)!

Most of what they learned was about the very specific failure mode of "WHat happens if detonate the launchpad?"

If Musk hadn't forfeited all the good will he'd built up over the years, we might be having a different discussion.
 
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