Posted on 04/20/2023 5:32:06 AM PDT by know.your.why
So far we have two attempted launches with L-CH4 ... maybe third time will be the charm.
Well... yeah... Other than that. :-)
I was just jazzed it made it off the pad... Lots of visual data just from the feed I was watching to indicate a LOT of things that “could have gone better”... But seeing the primary goal of “it didn’t explode @ 0’ MSL” was impressive considering what they were trying to do.
From what I’ve been able to glean, the have at least two more that should be ready to try again here STILL THIS YEAR.
Suck it NASA...
Edison said something like “I haven’t failed 700 times, I’ve discovered 700 ways that won’t work.”
Sort of. There's a giant crater under it which wasn't there before the launch. It's almost as empty as that Legerdemain dude's head.
I'd hope for the next launch to keep all 33 engines lit, and achieve stage separation. If they manage to light the Starship and not blow it up after stage separation, that's bonus.
That said ... I'll defer to what Elon Musk lays out as success criteria.
I didn't know about the crater. Bad news there. Perhaps we have to consider launch-pads as expendable?
I didn’t realize that. Cool!
Well, except for the part where everyone could watch it in real time and be arm-chair quarterbacks critical of every missed milestone.
😀👍
Agree. Elon doesn't appear to be shy about failing forward and learning as he goes. A characteristic of history's great inventors IIRC.
Probably. The current system seems a bit inadequate.
Agree. Elon Musk set the iterative design rules in place for his numerous companies. For example, at Tesla they constantly test and tweak changes in their current car models, unlike other car makers that wait years to incorporate accumulated changes into a different model.
As for analyzing telemetry, that has to be a major undertaking by numerous staff at SpaceX. It would be interesting to analyze the strain on connections and components as the craft gyrated during flight. Not just that, but the ability to continue providing pressurized fuel to the engines as the tanks gyrated. I'm sure they'll figure out why those two engines flamed out during flight (in addition to the three that failed at liftoff).
For All Mankind is an American science-fiction drama television series created by Ronald D. Moore, Matt Wolpert, and Ben Nedivi and produced for Apple TV+. The series dramatizes an alternate history depicting "what would have happened if the global space race had never ended" after the Soviet Union succeeds in the first crewed Moon landing ahead of the United States.Episode 6, Title: "Home Again", Air date: November 22, 2019
By August 24, 1974, Jamestown Base has three people in it: Edward Baldwin, Gordo Stevens, and Danielle Poole. The Equal Rights Amendment is ratified as an amendment to the Constitution as a result of campaigning by President Ted Kennedy. Apollo 23 explodes on the launchpad, killing 11 members of the ground crew and Gene Kranz, the new Director of Johnson Space Center.Waiting for a mea culpa...
(not)
The inaugural flight test will not complete a full orbit around Earth. If successful, however, it will travel about 150 miles above Earth’s surface, well into altitudes deemed to be outer space.Oh, but you're right: Musk did balance expectations for the multibillion dollar spacecraft expected to someday soon ferry astronauts into space:Starship consists of two parts: the Super Heavy booster, a gargantuan rocket that houses 33 engines, and the Starship spacecraft, which sits atop the booster during launch and is designed to break away after the booster expends its fuel to finish the mission.
The massive Super Heavy rocket booster will give the first blast of power at liftoff.
Less than three minutes after takeoff, it’s expected to expend its fuel and separate from the Starship spacecraft, leaving the booster to be discarded in the ocean. The Starship will use its own six engines, blazing for more than six minutes, to propel itself to nearly orbital speeds.
The vehicle will then complete a partial lap of the planet, reentering the Earth’s atmosphere near Hawaii. It’s expected to splash down off the coast about an hour and a half after liftoff.
“I guess I’d like to just set expectations low,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said during a Twitter “Spaces” event for his subscribers Sunday evening. “If we get far enough away from launch pad before something goes wrong, then I think I would consider that to be a success. Just don’t blow up the pad.”But my comment stands: The SpaceX "Winston Smith" panel - and the crowd of employees inside on video - were obviously coached to gaslight everyone as to the success of the launch no matter at which point it failed.
Yes the launch pad was an unknown too, no one knew the real strength of the Monster. Saw a rerun of the launch from a different location in slo mo, for a second it seemed that the vehicle tipped slightly horizontally forward before rising vertically. That could have really been a major RUD on the Pad.
Saturn V had a launch failure...NEVER.
I equate the “Winston Smith” panel’s efforts to spin the launch to NASA claiming,
“Columbia flew a successful mission until reentry”
The Winston Smith panel literally said of the test’s terminus,
“Starship just experienced what we call a “Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly” during ascent” as the other 2 Winstons giddily laughed & sported fake smiles.
Yes, rocket flight is fraught with risks, but we are exponentially more advanced than the slide-rule engineers of 1967. I don’t care that Musk started the gaslighting weeks ago by setting odds of even a successful clearing of the launch tower at 50/50. ‘Data’ doesn’t remedy the disconnect between engineering & flight in this event. I am not impressed neither at their engineering nor professionalism regarding a rocket intended to ferry astronauts in complement to Artemis to the Moon.
It was a pathetic display for a photo op; they handled the vehicle’s performance failure miserably.
“RUD”
“If we get far enough away from launch pad before something goes wrong, then I think I would consider that to be a success. Just don’t blow up the pad.”
In your own words - you "have reading comprehension deficits". Give it up.
I read prior to launch Musk said then there was a 50% chance it could blow after launch.
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