Posted on 04/20/2023 8:12:51 AM PDT by Red Badger
Story by mguenot@businessinsider.com (Marianne Guenot,Morgan McFall-Johnsen,Kate Duffy) • 13m ago
SpaceX launched its new Starship mega-rocket on Thursday after a frozen valve stopped the first attempt. The mega-rocket exploded about three minutes into its flight but managed to clear the pad. Musk previously said he estimated a 50% chance of success. SpaceX launched its new Starship mega-rocket toward space for the first time on Thursday, after canceling its first attempt due to a valve issue.
Stacked atop its Super Heavy booster at SpaceX's new launchpad in Boca Chica, Texas, the black-and-silver vehicle was poised to prove itself as the biggest, most powerful rocket ever built.
The rocket successfully roared off the launch pad at 8:33 a.m. Central Time, but blew up about three minutes into the flight, at the point when it was due to separate from its booster.
Starship is the rocket on which SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk is hinging his biggest aspirations — including building and populating a human settlement on Mars. NASA, meanwhile, is counting on Starship to land its next astronauts on the moon as soon as 2025.
The company live-streamed the flight attempt, in the broadcast embedded below.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
A single engine plane is more reliable than a dual or tri-motor plane.
—
Pointing out that rockets are not planes and far more complex. 33 engines provide more lift than any other rocket ever made. It dwarfs both the SLS and Saturn V.
A single engine would not be able to do what 33 separate engines can because of the state of materials science. Plus the booster is designed so that 2 or 3 engines can fail and still make it to orbit.
Also pointing out the the whole point here is to make a reusable booster and StarShip to make turnarounds within hours and ridiculously cheap - the entire NASA Moon program depends on StarShip success and costs. As does the successful operation of the launch/catcher tower - an incredible innovation in itself. As does the Mars program.
There are no real alternatives at present.
It was fighting asymmetric thrust most of the flight because of so many engines out on one side.
Lockheed had a launch of a private company rocket that was supposed to gradually turn at altitude and then separate. A fire on board caused the controls to be lost in the turn and the rocket did multiple flips. Likely the SpaceX rocket was attempting the same manuever. In the case of the Lockheed rocket, it finally separated but by this time the guidance was fouled and we had to issue a successful destruct command.
A lot less than NASA’s SLS does.
Shuttle: 5 engines + SRBs
Artemis: 4 engines + SRBs
Apollo: 5 engines
I don’t think SpaceX has confirmed that.
There was asymmetric thrust most of the flight because of so many engines out on one side. You could see the rocket sliding somewhat sideways because of it.
Based on what? Obviously redundancy (of engines or anything else) makes something more, not less, reliable.
There are issues with vibration and flame instability with very large rocket engines. It's not as simple as "just build a bigger engine". The Raptor is already one of the most advanced and efficient rocket engines ever built.
I wasn’t intimating that a single engine system could possibly be workable, merely using the small plane analogy to illustrate how more engines = more chances for engine failures.
I am 100% hoping for success in this venture.
whats funny is they all cheered when it happened.
The announcers who seemed to be giddy even after the explosion I think were ‘in-a-zone’ because they were experiencing their ‘15-minutes-of-fame’. Too young and too inexperienced to be thrust into that job.
Yeah. This booster is designed so that a few rockets can fail and it will still function. However, so many on one side failing, led to other issues. Apparently, the system that controls rockets and compensates if some rockets fail got cooked. That same system was responsible for blowing the first stage separation bolts. That’s why the booster did not separate.
The Starship fleet is designed to achieve over 1000 times more payload to orbit than all other rockets on Earth combined.
Almost no one understands this.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 8, 2021
Oh wait. You were answering the post that I had shared NASA’s diagnositics. So I repeated myself. SORRY.
Oh wait. You were answering the post that I had shared NASA’s diagnositics. So I repeated myself. SORRY.
Oh wait. You were answering the post that I had shared NASA’s diagnositics. So I repeated myself. SORRY.
Has SpaceX confirmed the hydraulics failed?
Not to my knowledge.
I’m not being critical, just wondering how much to replace the lost hardware. Can Musk absorb repeated failures? Or are taxpayers footing the bill? Again, just wondering.
I think they do that on purpose, kinda a joke. Elon is funny, this would be something he'd direct his people to say. :^)
He's either the richest, or close to the richest, person in the world.
Look where he's putting HIS money, as opposed to Soros or Gates.
I'd say about...
....tree fiddy.
I grew up near the Johnson Space Center. I’ve known a lot of NASA engineers and astronauts. I’ve been in most of the buildings there and got in trouble one day for calling John Glenn a jerk for bouncing someone off a shuttle ride for his own ego.
I personally knew Chris Kraft. I know Charlie Duke. Heck, after one of the shuttles went down, I placed flowers at the entrance to Johnson Space Center with a note that said “Condolences - Free Republic”.
Suffice to say I’m a space junkie.
When Musk landed the first booster vertically, I was amazed. What a fantastic thing to see. Since then, I’ve read a lot about the guy and watched a lot of his interviews. I think he is a national treasure. I like the way he thinks because I can relate to him. Invention and innovation are something to be admired because most people don’t ever excel or lead the way - ever. It is laughable that those who never have done anything diss Musk.
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