Posted on 04/20/2023 8:39:48 AM PDT by Morgana
Exactly, anything past the tower was icing
my bet is that some of the testing was to make things go wrong on purpose so there can be work arounds when things go wrong when launching real space missions where the goal isnot learning the tech but real maned missions
>4 minutes of flight isn’t bad for a first attempt.
Especially for what’s essentially a generic rocket that can be mass produced and refilled with methane quickly, allowing for a quick turn-around and can be marketed to smaller countries.
We’re not going to live on Mars. Mars is completely exposed to solar radiation due to the absence of a magnetic field significant enough to protect life.
We will live on Mars—if only to use those lessons learned to live off planet elsewhere. We as a species must learn to live off planet if we are to survive...
It’s being speculated that some of the concrete from below the pad might have impacted the initial 3-4 engines
Planned failure. Unlike NASA, SpaceX does not have to contend with public opinion about every little aspect of their process. NASA had such spectacular failures very early in their testing (pre-Mercury/Redstone/Atlas) but they weren’t televised or at least not to the extent things are today.
The difference is SpaceX can do a test every month or so. NASA is currently on track to complete it’s second test in 15 years sometime in the next 24 months and the 3rd test will be a year or two after that. I expect by that time SpaceX will have sent several Starship flights around the moon and possibly ever landed on their own (can the US Government prevent them from doing that?). They might even have an unmanned Starship on the way to Mars by then to assess the rockets viability for manned missions. Once they get it flying reliably, I don’t see any reason not to stress it as much as possible.
Exactly right.
Cleared the pad == successful launch.
It failed to reach orbit and their engineers have a ton of telemetry data to learn why and how to fix it.
This launch was a good illustration of why "rocket science" is a generic metaphor for things that are intellectually very difficult.
Was it object-oriented?
Musk always delivers. It may take a bit longer than his insane time lines, but he delivers.
He’s a force of nature. Once he sets his mind on a goal he’s unstoppable.
I would not be at all surprised that he’ll be the first to land a man on Mars.
ABSURD headline. Yes, the rocket exploded. But it had already passed its test. There was no unexpected loss; once the rocket cleared the launchpad, there was no more use for it.
“As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation,’ SpaceX tweeted.
These guys definitely enjoy their work. Great sense of humor. Not like stuffy NASA bureaucrats.
How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster, by SpaceX.
How Not to Land a Flying Grain Silo by RoBossBomb.
Yes as opposed to:
Failure on the pad=F,
Failure at altitude= F— (as it would kill many),
Failure before Max Q=C,
Failure after Max Q=C++,
Failure after separation=B,
Failure after achieving orbit=B++
Successful booster landing A
Successful StarShip landing A++ and everything about space ventures changes instantly.
Both the payload and the booster were going to do “hard landings” in water after separation (splashdowns). So they really achieved about 80% of their goals with this flight which was mainly to test launch and flight capabilities as a whole.
Remember that SpaceX’ self landing rockets (which were Pooh-Pooh’s by nasa as impossible at one time) took close to a dozen attempts before he got a success and now it’s an everyday occurrence with his launches.
“Unlike NASA, SpaceX does not have to contend with public opinion about every little aspect of their process. NASA had such spectacular failures very early in their testing (pre-Mercury/Redstone/Atlas) but they weren’t televised or at least not to the extent things are today.”
Also, the legacy media did not hate NASA with all it’s heart. They hate Musk.
I agree with your grade, with the caveat that apparently clearing the pad was the requirement for success.
I think you may have missed the joke, though. Oh well ...
This happens. The Nazis lost lots of V-2s too. Rocket science is hard. Just build another one—trial and error works. Glad there were no humans on board.
This was a test flight. Just like learning how to land.
Odds are, it was detonated by mission control as it go out of control.
And they keep pushing forward...
No i didn’t miss it. I knew some one was going to bring that up.
Clearing the pad was not the mark - it was not exploding at altitude as that would have killed many like N-1 did, destroyed the town of Boca Chica and the entire site.
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