Does anyone else think the thumbnail looks like a llama with laser eyes?
Carrrrrllllll
That killllls peeeeople
Earth-8311 version of Cyclops.
I didn’t see it by myself but now I can’t unsee it
I do now
Can’t unsee
The front fell off.
I’d just like to make the point that that is not normal.
Well, the ship was towed outside of the environment.
Well what was it made of?
Poorly built rocket
You must be from Reddit. I appreciate good comments like this
What’s with all the snobbery?
Shhhh, they’re winning the Internet by being 3L1T3.
That’s not how you spell l33t. You fucking n00b.
1337, cmon now!
Actually I remember when it was still “elite” and it meant you had access to the warez section of a BBS.
Oh, Warez.
That sure was a long time ago…
Thanks for the memory!
The chat programs on AOL from the Warez rooms was always fun.
Do you get to the cloud district very often? Oh what am I saying, of course you don’t.
the explosion, which took place at its Boca Chica Starbase facilities
The raptor testing stand at McGregor experienced an anomaly
Well, which is it? I’m going to trust NASASpaceflight over this article and go with it was a McGregor. No where near Starbase. And that means it will likely have no effect on IFT4 as this article says.
edit: Adding to this, the author of this article has no idea what they are talking about.
The Raptor engines that are currently undergoing testing are SpaceX’s Raptor 2 engines
So clearly nothing to do with IFT4, as Ship 29 and Booster 11 are already outfitted with their engines, non of which are Raptor 2s.
On its last flight test, IFT-3, Starship finally reached orbital velocity and it soared around Earth before crashing down into the Indian Ocean. On the next flight, SpaceX aims to perform a reentry burn, allowing Starship to perform a soft landing in the ocean.
IFT3 burned up on reentry, maybe parts of it made it to the ocean, but it was not crashing into the ocean that was the problem. IFT4 does not plan on doing a reentry burn. No one does a reentry burn from orbit. Starship uses a heat shield like every other orbital space craft. They are planning to attempt a landing burn, that is probably what they are talking about.
It waw McGregor. And while the explosion was spectacular, it happened on the test stand, so not much damage was done actually.
Just to be pedantic:
IFT 3 was a suborbital flight, so… either it did not reach orbital velocity, or the upper stage careened so wildly out of control that it borked it.
Its kind of confusing as in the live stream of it they keep saying the phrase orbital velocity, reached orbit, but also say it was intended to be a suborbital flight.
Edit: Yeah as best I can tell it was not even intended to be an orbital flight. https://x.com/planet4589/status/1765586241934983320
Also, the lower stage crashed into the ocean at around mach 2, so maybe that is what they are referring to? Looked like many of the engines did not relight, in addition to significant instability as it traversed back through the atmosphere.
Also also, the ‘re entry’ burn may be referring to attempting to relight the engines while in space? You are probably correct that they mean the landing burn / belly flop???
Edit 2: If they intend to do a suborbital flight, but also reach orbital velocity, this would entail a trajectory leading to a fairly steep descent path, which could need a … basically a pre reentry burn, to lessen velocity and/or change the descent path to something more shallow.
Its pretty hard to tell actual info about these Starship flights, partially because SpaceX outright lies during their live feeds, is tight lipped about other things, and many sources of coverage are often confused and/or simping for Musk.
One last thing: Does… Starship, the upper stage… even have monopropellant thrusters, or gyros, or anything for out of atmosphere orientation adjustments?
From the IFT3 vid it seemed like either no, or they malfunctioned.
IFT3 was technically suborbital, but only barely. Like a couple hundred km/h short. Literally a couple of seconds longer second stage burn would have put it into a stable orbit. Or the same velocity just with a lower apogee. They intentionally left the perigee just inside the atmosphere so a deorbit burn was not required. This is also the plan for IFT4, iirc. I think they are talking about the bellyflop/suicide burn. It was not planned on IFT3, but is for IFT4.
Both the booster and the ship have attitude control thrusters that you could see firing during the live stream of IFT3. Early prototypes used nitrogen cold-gas thrusters, but were planned to be upgraded to methane/oxygen hot-gas thrusters at some point. I don’t recall if/when they were.
Just to further clarify this…
They did the suborbital thing because they wanted to ensure it came in over the ocean.
If they went orbital, and anything went wrong, they’d have lost control of where it would deorbit and land, potentially putting people at risk.
So sure the rocket did not reach orbit.
No one with even a pinch of knowledge on the topic would ever try to dispute they could have if they wanted.
It was for our saftey that they didn’t.
IFT3 began to tumble shortly after launch, at least before they opened the “door” where it was obvious. The tumble may have been caused by a leak, and the “reentry” was simply a chaotic mess where the engine(s) began to burn up in the atmosphere, and it was absolutely 100% out of control.
IFT3 finished most of the goals that had been set for that test flight. It was highly successful and they learned a lot that is being applied to IFT4.
The re-entry burn is the burn to slow down your spacecraft below orbital speeds, initiating re-entry.
Every spacecraft that wants to land back on earth after orbiting it needs to do a re-entry burn.
The only exception, theoretically, are spacecraft that return from outside earth’s orbit. They could in theory re-enter by steering towards the atmosphere at the right angle. I don’t know if they actually do that in practice or slow down to orbital speeds first, though.What you’re talking about is usually referred to as a de-orbit burn. Sure somebody could call it a reentry burn, but not SpaceX. What SpaceX calls a reentry burn is the maneuver when a Falcon 9 booster lights its engines as it first hits the atmosphere to slow down and move the heating away from it’s body. Neither the super heavy booster nor the ship make a maneuver like this.
IFT3 did not make a de-orbit burn, and there is not one planned for IFT4 either.
Thanks for the correction and clarification. Looks like I’ll have to return my degree from KSP academy.
Bruh its a TEST STAND TEST STAND this is not the Frist time a engine exploded on a test stand raptor engines in their development phase are supposed to explode. Elon musk has said if something doesn’t explode then you did something wrong
Well, if Musk said it, it must be true. /s
If you’re testing for fail state, sure.
If you’re testing for sustained burn, you fucked up. Time to science and figure up how to unfuck it.
Hope everyone was okay, the article doesn’t talk about injuries.
Personnel are evacuated from McGregor whenever a test is to be performed, just like they are with Starbase.
There is absolutely zero chance anyone got hurt. This isn’t Boeing.
For now.
‘Zero chance’ is suspect
I’m confident enough in that to put my money where my mouth is.
SpaceX has been very transparent about their testing procedures and it is established that testing locations are always evacuated for any kind of test, as is required by the FAA. If you really wanna cast doubt on this, then why don’t we put some money on it?
Your response is even more sus. You keep your money, Comrade. Sounds like you need it
oh aren’t you a treat. For a second I almost had you mistaken for one the few Moskal typewriter monkeys who remembered to bring a joke book, but now I’m beginning to worry that you’re own of my those fellow constituents of ours who’s succumbed to the brain rot.
At least we won’t have to worry about you voting for a few more years, judging by the way you act kiddo. Or perhaps you are old enough, but the polling place is too sus for your precious intellect.
Word of advice though, if you’d want any hopes of being employable or perhaps even making IRL friends, ditch whatever this is you think you’re doing with your attitude, it just ain’t working in your favor. While you’re at it, might also help to learn the definition of the word “untenable”-- if you need a visual example, any mirror should do the trick.
Anyway, maybe put down the smartphone and walk a natural trail or visit the library bud. Based on your comments, you owe it to yourself badly. I mean, if you fancy yourself a socialist then why aren’t you taking advantage of the freely available public recreational services that our tax dollars fund to live a better life? Everyone else is, and it makes dealing with this late stage capitalist hellscape just a bit more tolerable.
Holy shit you have a lot of free time! Don’t you have a sticker you should be putting on your car?!!
If they didn’t think they had a chance of exploding, they wouldn’t be testing them
Good lord, everyone please learn a tiny bit about spacex and the state of the space industry instead of letting your (justified) hatred of Elon do the typing.
I’d have a lot more sympathy for this comment if people would actually do this in reference to Space Billionaires. I’ve had far too many conversations online and elsewhere where the individual shits on NASA for space industry problems and worships Space Billionaires because [some convoluted “government bad rich entrepreneurs good” reason] and their problems aren’t really problems. I’m not saying you’re part of the billionaire sycophant club, but I’m not against musk’s well deserved criticism as he sacrifices people in his rush, and probably work quality suffers alongside them.
Is it ok to shit on NASA for dumping so much money into developing Starship?
Also the SLS doesn’t seem much better. But at least they’ve been around the moon on the SLS.
Personally I’d rather they work on developing spacecraft that can be launch on Falcon 9 or Falcon 9 Heavies, even if it meant multiple launches and assembling things at the ISS before going to the Moon and onwards. Doing this during the Apollo era was difficult because docking operations weren’t all that reliable and there was no ISS back then so giant rockets was the way to go. But things have changed and dumping insane amounts of money into building massive rockets seems like a waste of money and probably isn’t as safe as using proven rocket systems.
Also the SLS doesn’t seem much better.
Are you joking? The SLS is a pretty major step backward for American spaceflight. If we continue flying the SLS, and make all the launches we plan (spoiler alert, that isn’t going to happen) then the cost per launch could be as low as $2 billion. But more likely we will end the SLS program when it proves to be a never ending money sink, and with so much money put into development, we’ll end up with a per launch cost upwards of $5 billion. Meanwhile, for that price it can only manage to get 95 tons to low Earth orbit.
Compare this to the Saturn V, which could lift more and cost much less, even when adjusted for inflation. The Saturn V cost $185 million, or $1.23 billion adjusting for inflation. And it could put 141 tons into low Earth orbit.
To sum up, this new rocket is much less capable and much more expensive than what we were doing 55 years ago.
You could of course also compare this to what spaceX is doing… Their aim is to make a rocket of similar payload capability 100-150t, but with a per launch cost of about $100 million via reusability. That’s an order of magnitude of improvement, that’s huge.
Then why arent we building Saturn Vs?
That’s actually a really good question. The short answer is that we don’t remember how to. A lot of the techniques used to actually make the parts were poorly documented. That was partly on purpose, everything was top secret because we didn’t want the Russians to know how we were doing it all. And now, all the people who did those jobs have gotten old and left the industry.
Their aim is to make a rocket of similar payload capability 100-150t, but with a per launch cost of about $100 million via reusability.
Elon Musk promises a lot of things, but doesn’t have a good track record on delivering.
SLS has at least been around the moon. I agree that it’s a step backwards, but Starship is two steps backwards. Just seems to be a knock-off of the Space Shuttle (which also proved to be a bad idea) that’s being developed by just blowing shit up. I hope I’m wrong about Starship, it would be awesome it it worked. But it’s the same goes fore the Space Shuttle too.
But more likely we will end the SLS program when it proves to be a never ending money sink, and with so much money put into development, we’ll end up with a per launch cost upwards of $5 billion.
SpaceX has already blown through $5 billion and hasn’t launched anything yet. Well yeah I guess they got it into space briefly… spinning out of control until it burnt up. They haven’t even gotten to the part of testing to make see if the heat tiles that we see peeling off the thing will make it go full Columbia on a regular basis. If it ever works it’ll be a long time before that thing gets man rated.
Like I say, SLS sucks but it’s has a successful launch and has gotten around the Moon. Actually successful not SpaceX “successful”.
SpaceX is currently losing the “bad idea space race” to NASA. The only winners in the Space race will be the billionaires that’ll make a lot of money from making giant rockets that go nowhere.
Elon Musk promises a lot of things, but doesn’t have a good track record on delivering.
SpaceX has a fantastic track record of delivering. So I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Just look at the dragon capsule and compare that to Boeing’s Starliner. They got funding to the exact same thing and they started work around the same time. So far dragon has done 10 cargo missions and 13 crew missions without any major problems. The Starliner has done 1 test mission in which there were major problems (including a parachute that didn’t deploy… yikes), and only recently, years later, 1 crew mission.
Is the SLS a failure? I guess not… but it’s not worth the 30 billion we have already put into it for a technological step backward. Calling it a success is like calling the Concord a success, that vehicle flew too.
But the idea that spaceX is losing the space race is just laughable. They’re clearly dominating the space race. They put the Russian commercial launch program completely out of business (the Russian space program actually named SpaceX as the reason they gave up). These days SpaceX launches more rockets than the rest of the world combined. Through the savings they see with reusability they can undercut all their competition and still make a great profit. The starship promises to do that to a much greater extent. They’re on track to be able to produce these for something in the area of 100 million a piece, and then be able to reuse them up to 100 times. This could bring launch costs down immensely. Can you imagine launching 100 tons to orbit for $10 million? Think of all the things that would suddenly be possible.
SpaceX is essentially two companies. One company uses the Falcon 9 launch system, launches from Cape Canaveral and is very successful. The other company is directed by Elon Musk and launches giant fireworks from Boca Chica.
The Boca Chica SpaceX is burning money and does lame brained shit like not building a proper launch pad just chucking whatever up there. This siphons off money from the Falcon SpaceX which takes away from improving the Falcon 9 launch system, and also siphons off money from NASA.
Given that they’re throwing away money at Boca Chica, other competitors will catch up and overtake the Falcon 9.
Kinda like Tesla not improving quality control and doing stupid shit like the Cyber Truck and allowing competitors to catch up in making sensible EVs.
Musk is an idiot but no one can tell him no at his companies. At least SpaceX was smart enough to send him to Boca Chica to play around so he wouldn’t screw up the part of the business that actually works.
Well, basically that whole post is simply incorrect.
SpaceX is definitely 1 company the whole company has the same CEO (Gwynne Shotwell) who oversees the whole operation. And for what it’s worth, the highly successful falcon 9 definitely was one of those “Lame brained” ideas once. “Landing an orbital class rocket is ****impossible” that was the prevailing wisdom, because it had never been done before. SpaceX is experimenting, figuring out what’s actually possible and redesigning a rocket from the ground up. The falcon 9 was the first phase of redesigning, it proved that you can make a rocket cheaper and you can further optimize a staged combustion cycle rocket engine, more than anyone has in the past, and finally it proved that you can land a booster and reuse it. The starship is phase two of that process, (Reusing the whole thing). They’ve switched from kerosene to methane, a change that will make engines much more reliable for extended use. They’ve figured out how to make very large rocket bodies out of sheet metal. And they’ve figured out how to mass produce the first ever reliable full flow staged combustion engines (That’s a very big deal)! In short, nothing about Starship is “Lame brained”.
The Boca Chica SpaceX is burning money … This siphons off money from the Falcon SpaceX which takes away from improving the Falcon 9 launch system,
The boca chica facility is not taking money away from development of falcon 9, there is no development of falcon 9, it’s done, the design set in stone. Ever since they started ferrying astronauts NASA needs them to stick with a set design. They got that design (called block 3) approved for crew use by NASA and from this point on they’re only allowed to make very minor changes to the rocket.
Musk is an idiot but no one can tell him no at his companies.
I actually agree that Musk has some problems and seriously needs some people who can tell him “no”. He needs that in his companies and he needs that at home, I think he’s got some addictions he needs to deal with before they ruin him.
I dont see whynanyone’s surprised, anything Elon is touchung is tainted by association. It’s not rocket science.
You’re right, Elon Musk being associated with a company is negative. And what SpaceX has accomplished despite that association is truly impressive.
I think around here most people agree that billionaires don’t earn their billions, they reach that point having benefited from the efforts of thousands of workers. So why don’t we recognize those people’s work? Somehow, SpaceX has managed to avoid the meddling that we see from Musk in relation to Twitter and Tesla.
Before SpaceX the U.S. was reliant on Russia’s soyuz to get us to and from the space station. We didn’t have anything that could launch people into orbit.
Before SpaceX we were launching single use rockets built by companies like United Launch Alliance (ULA), which was founded as a joint venture between defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing. (They’re still around and still for the most part suck)
And before SpaceX the cost to do anything in space was extremely prohibitive. NASA didn’t and still doesn’t really build their own rockets, they contract out, and the contracts had been cost-plus, meaning ULA got an agreed on profit plus expenses. So if the schedule slipped on development or development cost more than expected, they actually make more money. There wasn’t much of a private market in space.
With SpaceX they created re-usable rocket components, re-established a U.S. sourced crew capsule, and using fixed price contracts they reduced the cost of launch by an order of magnitude. And by publishing fixed prices to get into space, they pretty much by themselves kicked off the private space economy. SpaceX launches more frequently than any other company, and more than any nation.
And they did all that with a better safety record than previous programs! I can’t speak to this particular explosion, but SpaceX has taken an approach where they create new designs quickly, and test them quickly with the potential for explosions, before they put humans at risk on a live launch.
Elon Musk didn’t do all that, the people at SpaceX did. And if anything I’m concerned about the point when he gets tired of fucking up twitter and tesla and turns his attention to SpaceX. I’m hoping the national security aspect of the company will mean responsible adults prevent him from interfering.
And before SpaceX the cost to do anything in space was extremely prohibitive.
As opposed to now…
With SpaceX they created re-usable rocket components
Nobody had done that before? Wasn’t the promise that they would do few quick checks, refuel, and send it back up same day?
Before SpaceX the U.S. was reliant on Russia’s soyuz to get us to and from the space station.
Nasa had do use Soyuz because crew dragon was late. SpaceX won the contract then underdelivered a late product. Basically exactly what ULA or Boeing would have done.
Wanna talk about Artemis?
Meaning no disrespect, it’s clear from your response you’re not familiar with space history. And that was my point - a lot of people are jumping in here and making negative comments just because of the Musk association without knowing or caring about the reality.
The space shuttle (the U.S.’ s previous manned “reusable” vehicle) was retired in 2011, and the Crew Dragon was ready in about 2020. NASA was not forced to use Soyuz because of a delay in the Crew Dragon, it was because the Space Shuttle had two previous fatal disasters, was way more expensive than planned, and would be even more expensive to keep running. I didn’t know this until looking at the wikipedia just now, but early safety estimates put the chance of catastrophic failure and death of the crew between 1 in 100 to as low as 1 in 100,000. After those two disasters they re-evaluated and put the risk as high as 1 in 9.
NASA was willing to take a chance on other contracts for commercial vehicles because it had no other options. It awarded contracts both to SpaceX and ULA. The first is doing dozens of uncrewed launches per year and has flown 12 crewed missions. The other is doing like 3 launches per year, has yet to fly Starliner with a crew, and costs more per launch.
The space shuttle vehicle itself was re-usable. The “external tank” was discarded and not re-used. The solid rocket boosters would fall into the ocean, and then would have to be recovered, examined and refurbished. Those tanks/boosters represented a huge portion of the cost. While the space shuttle was slightly more re-usable, other rocket launches would be single use. What SpaceX did that no one else had before was a controlled vertical landing of the booster. In other words, it landed under power and standing up. That’s very difficult, and a game changer since it skipped the recovery step, and they didn’t require the time and cost of examination / refurbishment the way the space shuttle components did.
What is it you want to say about Artemis?
I like to think that Musks obsession with Twitter saved SpaceX. Thankfully he seems happy to just give them money and do the odd walk around tour during milestones.
They really have turned around our space capabilities.
Man, this is really downplaying the history that was legitimately made by the incredible people at SpaceX. It actually felt to many of us like we had just gone to the Moon for the first time.
Dunno about anyone else but I was freaking out.
🤡
Uh huh, totally not the drug addicted scammers fault that he made bullshit claim after bullshit claim, pushing engineers to make reckless decisions, totally not the owners fault.
I’ll grant you that SpaceX has, amongst others, a number of smart engineers, though smart is a relative term if you’re working for elon musk
You wouldn’t say this if you were following the industry at all. Please see my other comment in this thread. SpaceX is dominating, for good reason, and seemingly in spite of musk.
I’ve been against the space industry/NASA/etc’s bullshit love of Elon’s fucked up project ever since the idiot took over. If they can’t see how he has mismanaged every single thing he’s ever touched and pulled out of every single contract with them because of him, they have serious issues.
Maybe now NASA will come to their senses, kick SpaceX to the curb, and work with someone actually competent.
Like who? Boeing?
Cry harder. Without SpaceX the US space industry would be worse than Russia right now. SpaceX launches hundreds of rockets per year and saves NASA millions in launch costs, and can actually launch people into space, unlike Boeing
Relying on a company so unpredictable and full of problems and errors is worse than not going to space at all. Your unnatural love for that laughable idiot Musk is going to get astronauts killed.
SpaceX makes the most reliable rockets in the world https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/02/spacexs-falcon-9-rocket-has-set-a-record-for-most-consecutive-successes/
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-successful-commercial-rocket-launcher
Keep talking and making a fool of yourself
Also trying to conflate my defense of a rocket company for some sort of love for an oligarch is beyond stupid. Get some help, you need it.
Please see my other comment in this same thread. It’s not like Tesla or Twitter where they’re clearing slipping and releasing bad product. Look at the actual accomplishments!
As much as we on lemmy might look down on consumers of conservative news, I’m really surprised by how similarly reflexive and uninformed a lot of the comments here are.
So that obliterated launchpad is just normal, then? That empty star ship launch that managed to tumble in space was normal? SpaceX alway cheering and laughing when rockets blow up is normal? SpaceX dominates because they receive our tax dollars. Without that, they’d be dead in the water long time ago
One only has to read any current news about how mismanaged SpaceX is and how many problems they are having to recant this “we love Elon and can’t imagine not having our dicks all the way up his ass” attitude about SpaceX or anything that incompetent, privileged little shit runs.
Word on the street is that Starship was going to blow the whistle on Boeing.
Remember when the FAA investigated SpaceX’s violation of it’s launch license over them ignoring warnings of worsening shockwave damage after their botched SN8 landing?
Pepperidge Farms Remembers.
Do we have a shot of SpaceX employees cheering and clapping?
I kinda got used to seeing happy faces after a catastrophic failure.
maybe someone left their Tesla there
NASA successfully launched Artemis 1 first try.
A disposable rocket at $4 billion dollars a pop, if not more. They built one rocket, they may build a second and maybe even a third. Eventually.
SpaceX is not building a rocket, they are building a rocket factory. A factory that will mass-produce fully reusable rockets.
Different philosophy. Play it safe and analyze everything extensively to make sure you don’t have a PR nightmare. That leads to less aggressive designs and longer schedules, but looks better for the public and Congress.
And they don’t even have a goal of more than one launch a year and billions of dollars per launch. Artemis is the same old flag waving BS: do it once to say you’re first, then lose interest.
Starship’s goals of reusability, frequent launches, order of magnitude cost reductions can be the foundation of the next jump in space industry/exploration
At a greater cost than every starship built to date combined…
Congrats?
I expect they’ll be able to launch 2, perhaps even 3 more Artemis rockets before the program is cancelled and the rocket architecture abandoned due to unreasonable cost.
Where’s your evidence proving exactly how much Starship has cost in total? Or wait, maybe you are just making bullshit up because you have no idea how much it has actually cost them because they don’t disclose that information like NASA does.
SpaceX can likely build and launch a fully expendable version of Starship for about $100 million. Most of that money is in the booster, with its 33 engines. So once Super Heavy becomes reusable, you can probably cut manufacturing costs down to about $30 million per launch.
This means that, within a year or so, SpaceX will have a rocket that costs about $30 million and lifts 100 to 150 metric tons to low-Earth orbit.
Bluntly, this is absurd.
For fun, we could compare that to some existing rockets. NASA’s Space Launch System, for example, can lift up to 95 tons to low-Earth orbit. That’s nearly as much as Starship. But it costs $2.2 billion per launch, plus additional ground systems fees. So it’s almost a factor of 100 times more expensive for less throw weight. Also, the SLS rocket can fly once per year at most.
The starship is built out in the open, the whole world can watch. Because of that, there are pretty good estimates for how much construction costs. If you take the more pessimistic estimates, my statement would still hold true.
Also, as a reminder, even without knowing exact numbers you can still make some ballpark assertions with confidence. For example, Jupiter has the mass of more than a dozens earths. I could look up the actual number, but I can be pretty damn sure it’s more than twelve.
DEFINITELY not first try. I was there in their first try… and second… Still didn’t see it launch.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently announced that Starship’s fourth integrated flight test, IFT-4, could be just days away.
He should really stop predicting things.
deleted by creator
It’s just an opinion.
An opinion completely unrelated to the post
As another commenter stated, this explosion is not at “Starbase” where they launch starship. It’s unlikely to have any impact on the launch schedule for Starship. They tested an engine on a test stand and it failed. They will likely learn something from it.
Imagine how much SpaceX could learn if they blow up a crewed starship.
- Musk toadie (probably)
If something is going to blow up, its much better to happen on a test stand than on an actual product or test launch.
Best case would be doing the math beforehand, as they Didn’t do with the flame trench iterations until the water pump system was added. And we know that because other people on youtube did do the math and determined even the special high temperature concrete from NASA wasnt going to be enough by itself.
They knew that it wasn’t going to be enough by itself, they were predicting that it would last long enough to survive a single launch. They were already planning to replace the pad, they just figured they would do it after the first test launch.
They were slightly off in their prediction, but that’s why these are test launches. Fortunately it didn’t do much harm, and they were already gearing up to replace the launch pad surface anyway so free excavation.
Dude, the entire pad was gone. People in the “safe” zone had concrete raining down on them and the rocket itself was severely damaged from the takeoff.
If they had done the math before that, they would have never attempted that launch.
No, the entire pad wasn’t gone. The concrete under the pad had a big hole in it, but most of the structure was intact - as evidenced by the fact that they just patched the hole and continued using the pad without having to replace the whole thing.
Nobody was hurt. The rocket was damaged, but it still managed to accomplish much of what they’d wanted it to accomplish. It was a test launch, they knew it wasn’t going to cruise all the way to the finish line. They wanted to see what went wrong.
Do you really think they didn’t do the math at all? They did the math, they figured they could risk it based on what the math told them, they turned out to be wrong in hindsight. Plenty of things seem like good risks that turn out to be bad ones in hindsight. They’re not a bunch of yee-haw wild men who do stuff without thinking or calculating, the FAA would never be giving them launch licenses if they were.
So maybe working your engineers 24 hours a day isn’t a great idea?
So you’re saying this was an extremely hardcore explosion?
HARDCORE TO THE MEGA
In the early days of Starship I was a little bit optimistic. The “move fast and break things” strategy had quickly succeeded when SpaceX was trying to land boosters, so I was hopeful that each exploding Starship was one step closer to a working spacecraft.
But at this point it’s just sad. I don’t see anything resembling progress.
I think the boosters were a “fake it till we make it” thing that luckily worked out. I don’t think Starship will ever make it into space.
That’s a bonkers take. It’s the largest and most powerful rocket in history and it’s already made orbit. The raptor engines are the first full flow staged combustion engines to ever be put into a production rocket (This is a holy grail of rocketry). All estimates suggest that it’s also probably much cheaper to build than any of the other heavy lift rockets. And that was accomplished while also building full reusability into the design…
The work they’ve done is nothing short of astounding. Which makes your take come off as either insane, blind, or biased.
It has not made orbit.
It has done a suborbital flight.
The difference between getting to space and getting to orbit is well, an orbit.
Starship did not achieve the speed needed to maintain an orbit around the earth, if it can do so has not been proven.
Getting something that big off the ground is impressive, but we did it 50 years ago with slide rules and pencils. Getting something off the ground should not be a success for a company that already has an orbital rocket in frequent use. Having 3 vehicles fail to achieve orbit, fail to demonstrate critical features like fuel transfer and engine relight, and fail to re enter the atmosphere while under control, is not a success. I do not buy the SpaceX corporate spin that “everything after clearing the pad is icing on the cake” that’s not good enough for a critical piece of hardware that is supposed to take humans to the moon and land them there.
If ULA can develop a rocket that completes its mission on the first launch, and NASA can do the same, because they take the time to check everything, then why are we giving SpaceX the pass to move fast and break things when it’s clearly not working. They do not have a heavy lift orbital rocket. They have a rocket that can, from all evidence, achieve a suborbital flight while completely empty.
And remember, this is not private money they are burning every time one of these explodes or burns up in the atmosphere. They were given 3 billion American Tax dollars to develop this thing. And now the Government Accountability Office has not even been shown that the Raptor engine is even capable of achieving the mission goals for Artemis. And their test articles are behind schedule and routinely failing in catastrophic ways.
I want to see humans back on the moon in my lifetime. I think we need to go and set up a colony so that we can explore our solar system better and develop technologies for sustaining humanity both off of earth and in the harsh conditions we will face as our climate changes. Anything that threatens the mission of establishing a human presence off of earth needs to be looked at closely and realistically.
Back in the 60’s we knew that the only way to get humans to the moon was to keep the equipment reliable and redundant, anything else was asking for people to die. We seem to have lost that simple insight in recent years, and Starship is the epitome of that hubris. A ridiculously complicated vehicle with a complicated flight plan that has not been shown to work in any capacity. That needs to be pointed out and investigated if for no other reason then it is delaying a major mission.
"Starship did not achieve the speed needed to maintain an orbit around the earth, if it can do so has not been proven. "
Arguing this point makes you seem either uneducated on the launch or just someone shitting on SpaceX because musk. If you were actually familiar with the launch profile you would know starship nearly reached orbital velocities but did not on purpose, so it could reenter the atmosphere and test the heat shield.
So you’d be technically right in your statement, however knowing the full details of the situation makes your take stupid.
And it was a safety measure in case they lost control that would ensure it would burn itself up and not become space junk. This guy is a nut job lmao. SpaceX is badass!
setting all politics and social issues from the CEO aside.
Right but I think that was their point though no? That, for safety reasons, they didn’t make it to orbit. Seems like a pretty cut and dry “no” they didn’t make it to orbit just like that person said. And the reason was that they didn’t know if it would make it. Which kind of supports their point.
I’m not going to claim to know enough either way (besides Elon Musk being an idiot), but they don’t seem wrong there.
It seems like you guys are mad that it didn’t make orbit and get defensive when people point it out.
Because the longer a launch goes the easier it is. Basically there are critical phases of flight and there’s the actual continuous operation of the rocket all the time. Things like clearing the tower, max q, stage separation, engine re-lighting are all insanely complex operations, but once all that’s done and all you need to do is burn the engines for longer it’s pretty easy to just burn more rocket fuel on a flight that has been working the whole time. its something that is much less risky to the mission going on. Things can go wrong, but the chance is much higher during one of those complex things.
While completely empty.
An empty vehicle does not have the same performance as one with cargo.
Ignoring this point make you seem either uneducated on space flight or just someone blinded by the tech bro philosophy of “trust me bro it’ll work next time”
You’ve written a whole lot for someone who doesn’t seem to know what they’re talking about.
It has not made orbit.
It has done a suborbital flight.
The difference between getting to space and getting to orbit is well, an orbit.
These statements are intentionally misleading. The starship was less than 100 dv short of orbit when they decided to cut the engines in order to test another flight regime. It takes at least 8500 dv to make orbit, which means they were already 98.8% of the way there and they still had plenty of propellent to spare. All systems were nominal, they could have continued, but they had already proved their capability to make orbit and were now aiming to accomplish more. The fact is, they did achieve the kind of speed you need to reach orbit, but rockets have been able to reach orbit for a long time, that’s not impressive, but rockets have only just begun to start returning to earth.
And remember, this is not private money they are burning every time one of these explodes or burns up in the atmosphere. They were given 3 billion American Tax dollars to develop this thing.
So far, the SLS has spent 23 billion tax payer dollars. They have built 1 rocket. But saying they “built” the rocket isn’t even fair, as they salvaged the engines from previous space shuttles, expending engines that had previously been reused. What will they do when they run out of pre-built engines? Prices will go up for sure…
Again, the SLS is attempting to use antique engines and essentially develop nothing new, and it has cost the public $23B. The starship is attempting to develop many ground breaking technologies, is so far achieving more of their goals with every launch. And they’ve spent 3 billion doing all of that.
At this point it may also be worth noting that the SLS has been in development for 14 years, the starship has been in real development for 5-7 years.
I remain in the position I started, to deny that SpaceX is doing something truly astonishing is plain bonkers.
If you don’t see progress, it’s because you’re not paying attention. Each test flight of starship has performed better than the last.
Seriously… Are you drunk? There’s been incredible progress. It’s super exciting.
Hey, go boo the actual bad shit Musk is doing. Starship is an amazing feat of human engineering. One that has already made orbit, btw.
How’s Musk doing that?
He’s not, real engineers are. That’s my point.
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Funny, because what you implied is that it was Musk doing it.
When a company of his does bad it’s his fault, when one does good it’s other people’s fault?
The guy’s a fucking prick, don’t get me wrong.
Yeah, I despise Musk but the circlejerk “it’s his fault it failed / he has nothing to do with its success” (especially on Lemmy) is just ridiculous
The implication is that this guy’s hate is coming from somewhere else ✈️
Hey, go boo the actual bad shit Musk is doing.
Ok. Boo.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-a-new-space-race-could-be-harming-the-earths-atmosphere
https://www.space.com/rocket-exhaust-pollution-upper-atmosphere
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021EF002612
Sooty exhaust from RP-1 and aluminum oxide particulates from discarded upper stages will not be a problem with Starship.
Starship uses methalox, and the upper stage is designed to be reusable.
And the lower stages?
Also reusable, like Falcon 9.
Also this is just an engine test at McGregor. They used to blow them up much more often as they were finding the limits. Nowadays it’s much less common, hence why it’s news when they broke one.
It already has made it to space…
Making it to space and making it to orbit are 2 different things.
True but disingenuous. This statement is often used to mock blue origin for just going 100km straight up into space and then back down, which is very far from reaching orbit. But the flight profile of IFT-3 was so close to orbital velocity, it’s not a significant difference.
It is a significant difference. When it comes to orbit, there is no close enough, either you’re going fast enough or you’re not. They have not shown this thing can do what they say it can.
IFT-3 was completely empty and the tanks were full. Where is the weight of the crew decks, the solar panels and batteries, life support equipment, docking mechanism, food, water, and cargo? These are not trivial things, and they weigh a lot. Proving an empty shell can achieve a suborbital flight and be just barely not be in orbit is not proof of anything useful.
If they had shown there was a significant amount of delta-v left with this empty test article, then that’s one thing. But those tanks had a whisper of fuel left in them. I don’t believe for a second that it would have gotten that close when it was full of over a hundred tons of additional equipment.
I can’t say I know enough about the subject to agree or disagree in general, it seems pretty clear to me that these people are sore about the fact that the billion (trillion?) dollar corporation they pathetically stan for didn’t make it to orbit.
Like I think it really gets to them.
DeltaV is the amount you can change your velocity in space.
To put it another way, if a semi truck company says it’s new truck can haul 20 tons of cargo 500 miles on one tank/charge, and then during the press release with an empty trailer, it has to pull to side of the road at 400 miles driven because it’s out of gas, do you think it can get to 500 miles when it has 20 tons in the back? And the previous 2 press releases had the vehicle spontaneously detonate just after leaving the driveway.
That’s what starship did, it ran out of gas at almost the finish line while completely empty. There’s no way it can get itself + 100 tons to orbit if it can’t even get itself to orbit.
The point is a more accurate analogy would be the truck pulling over after 494 miles, with plenty of charge left in the batteries, because they decided not to continue the test during rush hour.
Sure, technically they didn’t make 500 miles, but they were pretty damn close, encountered nothing preventing it, and chose not to for other reasons. Continuing those few extra miles serves no purpose at this time,and is arguably contrary to successful testing
“move fast and break things”
Sounds like a slogan for one of Stalin’s “Five Year Plans.”
Maybe you should check your history there as well
Too bad that Mark Zuckerberg coined it as a motto for Facebook then, huh?
Lol what kind of comeback is that? We know he said that, dumbass, that was the entire point of their reference. Do you like… Not know who Stalin is?
Will every reader know that? Will every reader also know the finer nuances of the 3 downward arrows, one of them referring to Stalin’s authoritarianism? I’m not here to score sick comebacks? 🤷♀️
Huh that’s interesting…
Maybe we can hear directly from them about their views on Stalin:
The Three Arrows were adopted as an official social democrat symbol by the SPD leadership and the Iron Front by June 1932. Iron Front members would carry the symbol on their arm bands. The slogan “neither Stalin’s slaves nor Hitler’s henchmen” was also used by the SPD in connection with the symbol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Arrows#Weimar_Republic
So lol at you falling for some kind of bullshit agitprop just so you can attempt a clever comeback on Lemmy.
I’m using it as a general anti-fascist symbol, and I like the idea of vandalizing swastikas with it.
Im authentically perplexed as to where we disagree and why you’re in “sick dunk” mode. Do you think I’m simping for Stalin? The 3 arrows appeal to me for the same reasons they do you, seems.
Will every reader also know the finer nuances of the 3 downward arrows, one of them referring to Stalin’s authoritarianism?
Yeah it seemed like you were implying (or actually just saying) that one of the arrows refers to Stalin’s authoritarianism. Which is a bad thing, right? Do we agree on that? And I have it as my profile pic… So I dunno how else I was supposed to take your comment?
And to be clear, again, it is not true that one of the arrows refers to Stalin in any way.
Garbage minds must think alike, then.
Maybe someone called it cisgendered.
