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Posted on 03/30/2021 6:53:55 AM PDT by Red Badger
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While the triggering event might be while they are still in the air, they are at least actually stably landing.
Without reading what they’ve found from the previous failure, I suspect something inside that shell is overheating during the deceleration process, and burning through or melting something critical while the rocket sits there on the pad.
NASA launched Challenger when it was cover in ice, the mid-level engineers (the ones that know what they are doing) were begging senior NASA folks to postpone the launch.
NASA made a big mistake in the 80s. It promoted it great engineers into management. They were great engineers but they were HORRIBLE managers. I know cause I was there.
You want to do something new? Rapid prototyping is the only way to go. Managers hate it, LOL.
Depends on what they think the cause is. The engine design is the highest risk factor. They had to develop some special alloys for the oxygen-rich plumbing for example. We'll know from what kind of tests they conduct subsequently, I guess. The integration of tanks and engine is probably the locus of concern.
Looking at the video of the engine compartment I see two things which *seem* odd. During the ascent I see little smatters of flame along the plumbing. This might indicate some cracking in the nozzle cooling jacket and leakage. Also there is an inrush of vapor immediately prior to the restart. This implies there might be a cryogenic leak. Considering the video cuts off immediately subsequent to the throttle up I'd suspect explosion in the engine compartment caused by a either or both. E.G. if the cooling shattered and there was a lot of propellant loose in the aft end, there would total RUD. If the combustion chamber went that's probably total RUD too, and more likely to result in a design backtrack.
Both of my observations were 100% correct, because they both occurred within the Earth’s gravitational pull.
When you take into account all of the countries who have sent landers to Mars, it has been successfully done a couple of dozen times already.
You don't have to ride the parachute all the way to the ground in order for it to be an effective means of bringing back a booster safely to Earth.
A parachute would be very practical to bring the vehicle down from its separation altitude to a much lower altitude and slow most of it's vertical velocity without burning fuel. When you near the ground, you start the engines and cut the parachute. That way you don't need to carry all of that residual fuel just to bring the stage back to the ground.
Also, you can’t do a parachute landing on a Moon or Mars mission if you want the ship back.
No, not the Moon, but so far ever single soft landing on Mars (over two dozen) has included aerobraking with a parachute, in much the same manner I outlined above for an Earth soft landing of a booster stage.
Soft land 150 tons with a parachute on Mars—how big is the chute?
Not soft land - aerobrake.
Believe only one engine lighted properly, a possible turbo pump failure occurred, and also possibly an automated system initiated a vehicle destruct based on trajectory error.
Aerobraking yes - but because of breakage and other problems, every successful US landing on Mars in the past two decades has either been an airbag lander or, with the last one, involved active thrust. Considering that Starship is supposed to be used for landing on the Moon or Mars, it makes sense to work on active thrust landing.
Parachute landings also tend to not result in easy rebuild/reuse and they aren’t controllable once the parachute has been deployed.
You still have to land the Starship on Mars. Aerobraking with a parachute on Mars is fine and good, but again - *how* are you going to land on Mars and retain the ability to launch on a return journey without active thrust?
I'm sure they'll get it worked out. It is just anxiety inducing watching the process. I wonder what the Vegas odds are on each flight?
What will likely do in Musk is the same thing that will empoverish or worse many of us - the US economy destroyed and the USD made worthless by the endless spending and taxation of the Biden Junta.
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