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Posted on 01/17/2025 5:37:33 AM PST by Libloather
Elon Musk’s SpaceX lost its 400-foot-tall Starship in space where it was destroyed after launching the rocket from Texas Thursday in its seventh test flight.
The engines of the new and improved spacecraft went out during its ascent and the SpaceX team lost contact with the uncrewed craft, the company said.
The launch however was not without some success. Before the ship loss, the company successfully demonstrated how its massive mechanical arms dubbed “chopsticks” caught the rocket booster at the launch pad for the second time ever.
The “chopsticks” first and only other successful catch-and-return maneuver was demonstrated during an Oct. 13 launch.
Before it imploded, the Starship was supposed to zoom across the Gulf of Mexico and release 10 dummy satellites as practice before it would self-destruct in the Indian Ocean.
Instead, SpaceX crews lost contact with the spacecraft only about 8-and-a-half minutes into its mission.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
In other words, it blew up.
No, it was an "unscheduled rapid disassembly". :-)
I also like "build pressure in excess of the vent capacity"
Better rockets than people.
When it comes to the above, Musk has a far better record than NASA.
I’m old enough to remember Gemini et al...
And that catch was awe-inspiring.
Not always successfully but always entertaining.
Elon Musk
The point of the tower catch is to put the booster back on the launch pad, then catch the starship and put it on the booster. Less handling = fast turnaround times. That’s what they are committed to.
The actual quote Musk made on X was:
“Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!”
“I agree. His strategy of being willing to destroy rockets to improve was the right one.”
Elon said there will be failures. When he first tried to land the first stage of his Falcon series rockets it was a failure. They learned with each failure. Now the Falcon lands each time with no problems. From the failures he learns and corrects.
A genius from South Africa comes to America, the land of opportunity, and builds an empire of several of the world’s most valuable companies, including Space X. This company was sued by the Justice Department that claimed...
“SpaceX routinely discouraged asylees and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them, because of their citizenship status... [and] wrongly [again, this is according to the Biden DOJ] claimed that under federal regulations known as ‘export control laws,’ SpaceX could hire only U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, sometimes referred to as ‘green card holders.’”
He did this to build rockets that most people aren’t even aware gives America a competitive advantage militarily while making the Internet available to millions worldwide who would otherwise have no access. This same company is currently providing emergency satellite access to American cellular customers where service would otherwise be unavailable. It is a profitable business built primarily on private equity capital rather than being fully subsidized by tax money like NASA. It’s innovations are driving down the cost of satellite launches, important science experiments, and space travel.
Musk also took over an existing EV company, saved it from bankruptcy multiple times by extremely hard work (such as 100+ hour weeks and sleeping on the factory floor), and turned it into one of the most profitable companies in the world, innovating in machine learning, AI, self-driving, automation, and robotics.
Musk was willing to take a loss to buy Twitter to save free speech and effectively did. In doing this he also exercised stock options that required him to pay the most taxes of any human who ever lived.
Musk donated hundreds of millions of dollars to see President Donald Trump win the presidency for the second time (or third, depending on how we count).
Thank God for sending Elon Musk to America.
Do you have evidence that the people building SpaceX rockets are H-1B? I know two individuals who work for SpaceX, one welder, one person in IT, who are born and bred Americans. You know that to work in the space industry, you have to be a citizen, right? H-1B workers cannot work in the space industry due to ITAR. I appreciate your frustration with H-1B, I work in tech, but your ire is misguided in this instance.
Correction, it soared across the Gulf of America.
I think SpaceX in the US has 1 H1B employee and a few L1 in non-operational/non-development roles deliberately separated from the main org. They can’t handle DOD payloads or satisfy ITAR if they hire non-US citizens on a work visa.
After listening to Mr Manley’s video, I’m wondering if the flight termination system (FTS) is automatic or they have to trigger it from the ground. If Starship really did get ‘outside its lane’, would the FTS automatically trigger the self-destruct?
> In other words, it blew up.
When you realize the magnitude and energy of velocity radically exceeded the energy of “disassembly”, “Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly” or “RUD” becomes a more apt description. Most of it was already going fast enough to be shredded or vaporized when it hit the atmosphere.
Wonder where the flaps and engines ended up? Those pieces might survive reentry. Also would have a good radar return.
Indeed same result
Until about a year ago Elon the Savant was a lunatic leftist radical.
The astronauts who would have been on the part of the rocket that was destroyed would have been happy that the booster was saved....
The folks at Bluesky are having great sport celebrating Elon’s explosion. They seem to do best at enjoying the failures of others.
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