17 hours ago, n4gix said:

I'd hardly count the Falcon Heavy a "little rocket" any more than I'd consider the 747 as a "little airplane..." 🤨

I agree. Those 27 Merlin engines deliver as much launch thrust as the Space Shuttle (two thirds that of the Saturn V), so it is most definitely one of the big boys.

17 hours ago, Mike A said:

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/22/2165317/-A-Starship-Post-mortem-Why-the-giant-rocket-failed-and-why-it-s-Elon-Musk-s-fault

Wow,  interesting article. Makes a lot of sense. And that even explains why and how would a spin achieve stage separation. 

Will either FAA, NTSB, or even NASA be involved with the investigation, or will it just be an internal SpaceX one? 

1 hour ago, Luis Hernandez said:

Wow,  interesting article. Makes a lot of sense. And that even explains why and how would a spin achieve stage separation. 

Will either FAA, NTSB, or even NASA be involved with the investigation, or will it just be an internal SpaceX one? 

 

The article doesn't make sense in regard to the flame deflector. It was planned, partly constructed, on site, just not finished in time. It will be the FAA that conduct an investigation. SpaceX will obviously look at the data too. It was also incorrect regarding it being a failure, its wasn't, far from it. Be wary of these articles that will pop up from random websites claiming to have the answers and who to cast blame on. The data was wrong regarding the Fondag withstanding one launch, simple as that. All of the Musk hating entitles will generate as much as they can, using this to blame Musk (as this article did) and ignoring the existence of a plethora of engineers that work at SpaceX too. There is no "blame" the test was always expected to have a low chance of achieving all of its objectives, clearing the tower was success at this stage.

Its worth considering what SpaceX is attempting to achieve. They are working at a feverish pace, developing this revolutionary, innovative, reusable technology to meet the NASA deadline of a manned landing in 2025. Not to mention  a tentative plan of human orbiting the Moon this year. Raptor 2 is an infant in engine development terms and its liquid oxygen and methane fuel pretty much unprecedented in the space industry. Not to mention a full flow staged combustion cycle rather than an open cycle like Merlin and double the pressure of Merlin. In fact no methane engine has ever made it to orbit. None of this is easy, and there will be failures on the road to success. 

Apparently, at Space X, they are working 3 twelve hour shifts and then having a four day weekend. Then 4 twelve hour shifts with a three day weekend. Therefore operating at full capacity 24/7. Hot meals are free every 3 hours. According to Gwynne Shotwell, they know how to get to orbit, but what they are focusing on is production systems. This year, 5 boosters, eight starships in production.

 

 

Edited April 23, 20233 yr by martin-w

2 hours ago, martin-w said:

Be wary of these articles that will pop up from random websites claiming to have the answers and who to cast blame on.

 

Thus sayeth the Wizard of Guernsey 😆

2 hours ago, martin-w said:

ignoring the existence of a plethora of engineers that work at SpaceX too

I expect there was a plethora of engineers involved in the Challenger disaster but their concerns were ignored. Is that not possible here?

16 minutes ago, Mike A said:

 

Thus sayeth the Wizard of Guernsey 😆

 

No Mike, it's not me that's generating this stuff. It's fact. I'm just the intermediary. If you'd like to correct anything that's not factual we'd appreciate it.

And you are being a cheeky boy. Which will result in several cat points being deleted. 

1 minute ago, dmwalker said:

I expect there was a plethora of engineers involved in the Challenger disaster but their concerns were ignored. Is that not possible here?

 

That's true. The engineers warned of the potential disaster but were ignored. Politics, pen pushers,  resulted in disaster.

Musk did tweet two years ago that they were "aspiring" to no flame deflector. He went on to say it was "probably a mistake". Given they did indeed start building a huge water cooled, steel flame deflector, it seems the decision was indeed that it was a mistake and hence, work began on the deflector. I would think that it wasn't just Musk that analysed the data and determined that no delay was necessary because the resistant concrete was sufficient for one test, but I don't know that for certain of course, but I can't imagine Musk sitting alone  at his computer one night and proclaiming "yeah that will do" but who knows. 

 

25 minutes ago, martin-w said:

but I can't imagine Musk sitting alone  at his computer one night and proclaiming "yeah that will do" but who knows.

Looking at Musk's actions for several years, this is very likely with him. If that flame deflector and water deluge system was so close to being finished, why not wait just a little longer to give your rocket even better odds of a successful launch? As it stands, I don't think the FAA will be giving them a new launch licence for some time due to all of the damage (not just the pad, but the fuel tanks at other infrastructure as well).

15 minutes ago, goates said:

Looking at Musk's actions for several years, this is very likely with him. If that flame deflector and water deluge system was so close to being finished, why not wait just a little longer to give your rocket even better odds of a successful launch? As it stands, I don't think the FAA will be giving them a new launch licence for some time due to all of the damage (not just the pad, but the fuel tanks at other infrastructure as well).

 

Well two years ago he said that no flame diverter was "probably a mistake" so that sounds like "listening to engineers". 

 

Quote

why not wait just a little longer to give your rocket even better odds of a successful launch?

 

Because the test data suggested that the Fondag was sufficient for the first launch attempt, one attempt. And of course, the first Moon landing is only two years away. And the first moon orbit was supposed to be this year. 

Edited April 23, 20233 yr by martin-w

1 hour ago, martin-w said:

And you are being a cheeky boy. Which will result in several cat points being deleted. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Bridge_(pets)

58 minutes ago, martin-w said:

Because the test data suggested that the Fondag was sufficient for the first launch attempt, one attempt.

Did the test data really suggest that? Or was it optimistically interpreted that way? I'm not sure how one could think they could avoid flame and sound suppression systems that every other rocket of similar power requires. While I do think SpaceX's rapid design and testing is a good thing overall, it shouldn't be an excuse to ignore lessons already learned elsewhere (something Musk has a track record of doing).

ABSOLUTE CARNAGE!!!

Good grief, the damage to the launch facility is awful!  The tank farm looks as though a giant shotgun fired at the tanks. Note also the size of the concrete chunks along with the embedded rebar tossed hundreds of feet in every direction!

 

 

5 hours ago, n4gix said:

Good grief, the damage to the launch facility is awful!  The tank farm looks as though a giant shotgun fired at the tanks. Note also the size of the concrete chunks along with the embedded rebar tossed hundreds of feet in every direction!

If that’s “success”, I’d hate to see what failure looks like. 😱

13 hours ago, Mike A said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Bridge_(pets)

 

 

That's it... you asked for this. 😡

 

MINUS 1000 cat points.

- 1000 😾

17 hours ago, goates said:

Did the test data really suggest that? Or was it optimistically interpreted that way? I'm not sure how one could think they could avoid flame and sound suppression systems that every other rocket of similar power requires. While I do think SpaceX's rapid design and testing is a good thing overall, it shouldn't be an excuse to ignore lessons already learned elsewhere (something Musk has a track record of doing).

 

From what was said, it was the previous static fire data that suggested that the  Fondag could handle one launch. We will never know if that was true or if, as you say, it was optimistically interpreted. 

If true, what they thought was that they could "avoid flame and sound suppression systems that every other rocket of similar power requires" for one launch, not avoid indefinitely. I'm not a Fondag expert, I know little about the material and its capabilities, so I can't comment on whether that's feasible or not. And of course the other SpaceX launch facilities do have flame diverters etc. 

Maybe it depends how you define "handle one launch". Maybe  FUBAR Fondag was expected, but not total disintegration, a huge crater, and huge chunks of concrete projected skyward. Who knows, I/we can only speculate. 

As a matter of intertest, which lessons learned before, in particular, has he ignored? What are you referring to? 

Edit: From what I've just seen, it seems that SpaceX thought the Fondag would rapidly erode and be severely damaged, instead it shattered. Pressure built up underneath the Fondag in the soil and it pretty much exploded. A Nasa scientist has said that the water cooled flame diverter should be enough for absorbing the heat, but it depends if the acoustic energy is a problem or not. 

 

 

Edited April 24, 20233 yr by martin-w