SpaceX’s prototype Starship rocket partially bursts during testing in Texas

the verge ^ | Nov 20, 2019 | Loren Grush

[BenLurkin]

A test version of SpaceX’s next-generation rocket, Starship, partially burst apart during ground tests in Texas today, erupting plumes of gas and sending some pieces of hardware soaring into the sky. Live streams set up by local space enthusiasts captured the failure in real time this afternoon.

The explosive result occurred while SpaceX was seemingly conducting some pressure tests with the vehicle at the company’s test site in Boca Chica, Texas. The local live streams showed the vehicle venting gas periodically throughout the day, indicating that testing was underway.

Now, that timeline is almost certain to shift. After the explosion, Musk indicated on Twitter that SpaceX may no longer fly this particular prototype and will instead conduct flight tests with a newer, more up-to-date model that the company planned to build. “This had some value as a manufacturing pathfinder, but flight design is quite different,” Musk wrote, referring to the prototype that burst.

[BenLurkin]

[867V309]

I wouldn't give 2¢ for elan mooch, but exploder was hardly a prototype:    An original, full-scale, and usually working model of a new product or new version of an existing product.

[DAC21]

Nothing sleek about that (not so much) flying Fire Hydrant.

[867V309]

Nothing sleek about that (not so much) flying Fire Hydrant.

new research says the more air resistance, the faster a rocket goes.

[HombreSecreto]

It’s probably just me but if look close enough you can make out the word “ACME” on the rocket.

[867V309]

truth be known-inspecting the picture-the test was nothing but a pathetic attempt to re-create Loni Anderson's wig with steam

[SpaceBar]

Musk’s innovative cylindrical coffin design.

[Viking2002]

I said it here a couple of months ago that that overgrown steel beer vat with it’s 1950’s sci-fi movie design was going to get people killed. Luckily for Musk, it was only a ground test. I’m no rocket scientist (although I’ve known a few), but I’m willing to bet that the engineering needed to actually get Marvin the Martian’s rocketship into space would kill any ROI SpaceX thought they were going to see. It was a boondoggle with a poor track record. Elon’s Spruce Goose.

[mosesdapoet]

Thanks for the pix posting

[Moonman62]

The prototype was undergoing a maximum pressure test, but the pumps and sensors were at fault and pressurized the tanks too much.

[Moonman62]

How many spacecraft has your company successfully launched?

[Moonman62]

How do you account for the other prototype rockets being built? How do you account for the new launch pad being built at Cape Canaveral?

[Candor7]

Check those rivet gaskets and welds!( LOL)

Time to grow rockets instead of assembling them.

[Right Wing Assault]

partially burst apart

Just like being partially pregnant?

[Vaquero]

Upper stages to operate in the vacuum of space can look like a rice krispy square (or a Borg ship.....same thing).

Sleek doesn’t mater. It just needs to have a relatively thin profile to get out of the atmosphere

[PreciousLiberty]

"I’m willing to bet that the engineering needed to actually get Marvin the Martian’s rocketship into space would kill any ROI SpaceX thought they were going to see."

Awesome! How much are you willing to wager? heh

"It was a boondoggle with a poor track record. Elon’s Spruce Goose."

It "was" nothing. It is an innovative design that almost certainly will lower the cost of access to space dramatically.

The final upper stage (Starship) will have 2.5+ million pounds of thrust. The first stage will have 15+ million pounds of thrust, or around three times the Saturn first stage.

The engines to do this have already been developed and flown (see the entirely successful Starhopper test).

By the time it's all said and done, Starship wil be able to deliver 100 tons at a time to the lunar surface, along with rapid reusability. That is far beyond any other design currently on the drawing board.

Given SpaceX's phenomenal track record so far, betting against the company seems awfully risky. You do realize SpaceX has now flown a first stage four times, which is three more times than any other company ever has? The cost savings are so great SpaceX has now driven Russia out of the commercial launch business.

I'm looking forward to the first Starship lunar orbit, which should happen within three years. Good luck with your "bet"...

[Viking2002]

I don't need to account for any of it. I'm talking about this particular Buck Rogers design. Over 90 years since Robert Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled rocket into the atmosphere, fifty years since we landed a man on the moon, quantum leaps made in computing design and capability, alloy and composite fabrication, and a thousand other advances, experimental propulsion systems which get killed or tabled by everyone from environmentalists to hack bureaucrats, and Musk put all his chips on an oversized German V-2 rocket? Hell, even NASA's new Orion crew modules look like nothing but a hopped-up 1969 Volkswagen Beetle, with heated seats, Bluetooth stereo, in-seat DVD players, and and more leg room. They have Apollo written all over them. After fifty years? Really? As a spacefaring country, we have stalled since the shuttles were in the fleet. NASA is nothing but a political football these days, just like any other government organization. The Russians, for their part, are currently content with tweaking their existing hardware and program, making it as efficient as possible, providing taxi services to the ISS, and lending expertise to the Chinese, who seem to be more than eager to take a few risks. They don't have the upper hand yet, but the Chinese are gonna bite us in the ass if we don't dust ourselves off and get creative. It's all well and good that the private sector is picking up the ball - God knows the government, the big aerospace prime contractors, and all the red tape that goes with it don't a have a corner on the market anymore - but you're not gonna send a rocket with Acme Rocket Co. stenciled on its side into orbit and expect it to perform how SpaceX said it would. It's called instinct. I saw this coming.

[ThunderSleeps]

Interesting. Well, this is why we (engineers) test. You can design, model, and calculate all day... but eventually you need to bend metal and power up... Sometimes it works, sometimes it comes back to you with extra bends and scorch marks... sometimes it comes back as unidentifiable pieces in a box...

[Viking2002]

You talk like a yacht skipper who thinks the RMS Titanic is unsinkable. See you in three years.

[Waverunner]

In the 1960's a proposal for a steel skinned rocket was put forth as the lowest cost per pound to orbit space vehicle possible, Project Sea Dragon . It was a super heavy booster and one of it's features was an outer skin of 5/16 (8mm) steel and would be built in a shipyard. A stacked Saturn V would have fit into it's first stage. It's nickname was big dumb booster, because it didn't require any new technology. And it was planned that the first stage was reusable. TRW conducted a project review for NASA, and it was feasible in 1962! But funding was cut as Gemini/Apollo rising costs killed programs like it and Dyna Soar.