Posted on 04/20/2023 5:32:06 AM PDT by know.your.why
Heeere we goooo. Fingers toes and eyes crossed for a successful test flight of the 33-Raptor engine Superheavy booster and Starship first time into space. Both vehicles are planned to splash down...the booster in the Gulf of Mexico and Starship off of Hawaii.
Wow you’re another mature representation of this site.
A question:
In previous “big” launches (well, not this big) such as Saturn 5’s, Artemis, etc., and esp. with Artemis 1, we see huge cascades of water used to “damp” (mechanical term, sort of like cushioning / absorbing energy) the blast of the engines @ liftoff. I’d noticed that when SpaceX did their engine test of the Super Heavy booster, I did NOT see those volumes of water used to quash the ignition blast.
I wonder why not?
There is considerable speculation online that chunks of concrete may have flown up and damaged multiple engines:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13KtGfpZtDw
(Pretty good early analysis of the launch. See the comments regarding the launch pad damage.)
You’ve been smacked around enough... Run along now while the adults talk.
That's damned funny: I just laid one on your bald spot and still flying around your head.
I don’t have a good answer for that. Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy use a water deluge system. Just about everything bigger than a sounding rocket does.
Except Super Heavy.
It rips up the launch site even when they do very brief tests.
You’ve been consistently wrong and sh*tposting this entire thread...
Plus... no bald spot... So, wrong again dipsh*t.
Thanks for the reply. That one really has me baffled (no pun intended!)
Maybe I’ll try asking on a couple of what seem to be the better informed YouTube sites.
Biting commentary from Mr Redundant
You know the best way to get alignment with members of the forum?
Go in there and start attacking long-term and founding members as an 18-day 'veteran'.
Just INCREDIBLE strategy, there, chief.
You need this book, stat:
Clarity:
I’m no fanboy of Musk, be it Tesla or SpaceX. I’m a geek and fanatic of good science & engineering.
I am, however, an outside critic whose only bias - admitted - is Tesla’s prolific use of tax subsidies and carbon credits (aside from his chumming of chyna).
My original comment was not of the flight itself - obvious to those who can read - but of SpaceX staff reaction; it was a shitshow from the outset...its genesis being Musk’s ‘unofficial’ remarks about ‘50/50’ (which I’d not known until yesterday).
From my perspective, the flight was prefaced Thursday morning as a ‘flight test’ of the integrated booster & Starship vehicle. I observed numerous anomalies during launch, culminating in the asinine ‘flip’ maneuver (it made a total of 4 flips before self-destruct) about which I’ve also since learned more information (I reiterate ‘asinine’, in consideration of decades of collective rocketry experience by the industry).
SpaceX bungled the public relations end of this flight test, which collectively exposes a lack of confidence by Musk of his engineering team, evidenced by the ‘disconnect’ of his weeks-earlier ‘50/50’ comments, media releases of the entire flight test agenda itself and damage control statements of ‘cleared the tower = success’.
It was all unnecessary & managed very, very badly. The bad optics - evidenced by worldwide headlines - were self-inflicted.
I must pose the serious question: Was it intentional? And, if so, why?
After 3 years of gaslighting (continuing) over the virus, Trump, Russia Collusion (the list is almost endless), yes: I fully concede a ‘sensitivity’ to the gross similarity of their damage control and our own government (hence my ‘government-affiliated’ comment).
Rightly so, IMHO. And yeah, the scars on my back are so thick the newb/fanboy attacks of my righteous critique are just another day in the life of a blue-state (trapped; it’s a family thing) Conservative on FR.
“rapid unscheduled disassembly”; my God in Heaven. /s
“There is considerable speculation online that chunks of concrete may have flown up and damaged multiple engines:”
Heh. Watch:
https://www.iflscience.com/video-shows-spacexs-starship-wreck-a-car-with-debris-shower-68569
I kinda am. He seems like the Donald Trump of the industrial world. :)
We are all entitled to opinions, so yours is noted and I see from whence you derive it. I have a differing opinion: Falcon (his other major rocket) had a rollout that was similar, early mistakes and failures -- yet once they addressed the deficits in design, it functions flawlessly. I expect the same with this rocket module.
It was very clear that Musk would be happy if the rocket cleared the tower. Not only did it achieve that, it had a four-minute sustained flight. Not bad for the first launch.
Our opinions differ, but I respect yours and expect you would respect mine.
Yeah, go ahead and try to explain THAT to your car insurance company. LOL!
That lots of debris was flying around isn’t just speculation ...
The speculation regarding engine damage makes a lot of sense. It would explain liftoff with three engines out, and the gradual loss of three or four more.
They desperately need to fix the debris issue. Detonating the rocket at 10 miles altitude probably means they can’t examine the engines for debris damage.
I’m kinda coming to the conclusion that the biggest hole and biggest problem in this project is the launchpad.
Watching things go all explodey is one of the fun aspects of engineering
It’s difficult to avoid that conclusion. Digging a huge crater under the rocket and throwing the debris all over the launch site isn’t normal, and shouldn’t become “the new normal”. As we saw from Challenger and Columbia, it doesn’t take much damage at all to wreck a spacecraft.
I now wonder if the old Soviet N-1 disaster wasn’t caused by debris strikes from the “rapid unplanned disassembly” of the launch structure. We’ll never know ...
No they didn't. The media talking heads and "influencers" didn't know WTF was really going on and ran with whatever emotional BS they usually do.
You proclaim to be a "fanatic of good science and engineering" and yet decry the very process SpaceX has been using to make a complete mockery of everything NASA has done to date and surpassing NASA in every conceivable metric to lower the cost of getting stuff to orbit...
As stated, it was a FLIGHT TEST. It FLEW. Everything else is data gathering to make the next iteration that much better. They'll probably do a few of these, refining each, until it's as safe as the rest of their launch systems...
Then things will get really interesting.
Those who say a thing cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.
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