Starship - Test Flight ( 4:45pm CST)

[cabowabo 4484]

16 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

RE: the debris videos, damage to the pad and whatnot.  I watched the launch live, and in the countdown, I couldn't help but notice everything around the pad; very laissez faire attitude to the launch, considering the size of the rocket and the potential damage it could do even if it lifted off successfully (as we have seen).

Compare that to a NASA launch, and there isn't anything close to the pad not tied down or removed completely.

 

 

The way the hipster douchebags dress in Mission Control tells me all I need to know about this operation.  

[Captainant 27641]

49 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

RE: the debris videos, damage to the pad and whatnot.  I watched the launch live, and in the countdown, I couldn't help but notice everything around the pad; very laissez faire attitude to the launch, considering the size of the rocket and the potential damage it could do even if it lifted off successfully (as we have seen).

Compare that to a NASA launch, and there isn't anything close to the pad not tied down or removed completely.

Oh very much so - SpaceX has a considerably higher tolerance for operational risk than NASA does

[UnivTex34 1763]

50 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

RE: the debris videos, damage to the pad and whatnot.  I watched the launch live, and in the countdown, I couldn't help but notice everything around the pad; very laissez faire attitude to the launch, considering the size of the rocket and the potential damage it could do even if it lifted off successfully (as we have seen).

Compare that to a NASA launch, and there isn't anything close to the pad not tied down or removed completely.

 

 

SpaceX views Starbase as a lab. It’s very 100 miles an hour, and pretty much everything is viewed as expendable. Their sites at KSC and Vandenburg are very much run like NASA sites in the way you speak. We spend a week every year in SPI, and if we have time, my brother and I will drive over to SB and see the changes, it’s NUTS every year, and you can basically just walk right in the last time we were there. 

[atomheartbevo 89630]

1 hour ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

RE: the debris videos, damage to the pad and whatnot.  I watched the launch live, and in the countdown, I couldn't help but notice everything around the pad; very laissez faire attitude to the launch, considering the size of the rocket and the potential damage it could do even if it lifted off successfully (as we have seen).

Compare that to a NASA launch, and there isn't anything close to the pad not tied down or removed completely.

I like all the junk/extraneous stuff lying around.  That stuff is in the elements so it's most likely not going to be used again.

this is what the launchpad looked like a few weeks ago

Crap, that cuts off, but it definitely doesn't look like this pre-launch

[0xdeadbeef 1646]

1 hour ago, cabowabo said:

The way the hipster douchebags dress in Mission Control tells me all I need to know about this operation.  

Wait, you guys aren't serious, are you?  The first time it came up I thought people were just joking about their choice of band shirt...now... I'm not so sure.

ULA is rocking the every-guy-in-the-room-is-old-enough-for-a-prostrate-exam vibe:

 

Elon's sitting with these hipsters douchebags saying: "How do you do, fellow kids?"

 

 

BTW - ULA is now for sale since Boeing sees the writing on the wall and is bailing out of that joint venture. 

 

And then there's this look.  Back in My day....

Edited April 20, 2023 by 0xdeadbeef

[Brian Fantana 6683]

8 hours ago, Brian Fantana said:

 

In the old days it was manual and you used a radio signal to trigger detonation. Today it's automated, it's tied in with the navigation. It has an expected course and if it deviates too far from that and/or other conditions are met, it blows.

It appears I was wrong, I asked a friend of mine who is in the know and they actually were using a commanded FTS on this launch so it was done manually, as in someone pressing a button. Basically all modern FTS are automated so I assumed this was the case. I would assume they are just doing this for Starship prototypes and the finished design will include an automated system.

[Brian Fantana 6683]

53 minutes ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

[Make em eat Taco Bell 1549]

2 hours ago, cabowabo said:

The way the hipster douchebags dress in Mission Control tells me all I need to know about this operation.  

i knew immediately the damn thing would explode after seeing the staff.  I'm surprised it took as long as 3 minutes. 

[ClubWhatever 12120]

1 hour ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

Elon's sitting with these hipsters douchebags saying: "How do you do, fellow kids?"

Elon - 30

Hipster souls - 0

[Pato del Muerto 52487]

51 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

It appears I was wrong, I asked a friend of mine who is in the know and they actually were using a commanded FTS on this launch so it was done manually, as in someone pressing a button. Basically all modern FTS are automated so I assumed this was the case. I would assume they are just doing this for Starship prototypes and the finished design will include an automated system.

Probably want the choice during test flights to let it ride for a while if the deviation isn’t too catastrophic, and computers are fairly poor at nuance. 

[Dahobbs 17529]

14 minutes ago, Make em eat Taco Bell said:

i knew immediately the damn thing would explode after seeing the staff.  I'm surprised it took as long as 3 minutes. 

You know this is the same staff that has revolutionized the launch industry, right? Elon is a douche, but SpaceX and its people have accomplished amazing things, including this successful test of the largest and most powerful rocket ever. 

[Make em eat Taco Bell 1549]

Just now, Dahobbs said:

You know this is the same staff that has revolutionized the launch industry, right? Elon is a douche, but SpaceX and its people have accomplished amazing things, including this successful test of the largest and most powerful rocket ever. 

your definition of success is vastly different. 

[Dahobbs 17529]

1 minute ago, Make em eat Taco Bell said:

your definition of success is vastly different. 

It was a test. Success depends on the goals of the test. Here, the primary goal was launching the vehicle. There were a variety of stretch goals, some of which were met and others which were not. This is exactly how SpaceX developed the Falcon 9 that now dominates the launch industry. 

[Neonmoon 38129]

1 hour ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

 

 

SpaceX has proven they know what they’re doing. Great launch today. And if rumors are even half true, Musk’s monitors are likely filled with videos of Galatica 

[Pato del Muerto 52487]

10 minutes ago, Make em eat Taco Bell said:

your definition of success is vastly different. 

1) it blew up because they blew it up. If they hadn’t, it may have crashed somewhere out of their control. Or blown up on its own. 
 

2). You ever see video of mercury and Apollo rockets blowing up?  These are complicated machines, and learning the failure points is how you remove them. If they knew about the failure points before, they would have already removed them, savvy?

3) if they tell you that getting off the launch pad and into the air is the success/fail metric, believe them. When it does get off the launch pad and also burns for 3 minutes before going out of control, call it a rousing success and congratulate them.  This was about learning, and it lasted long enough for them to learn. Which is why they cheered at the end of the test flight, which was the explosion. 

Edited April 20, 2023 by Pato del Muerto

[Hagbard Celine 10852]

maybe later i'll pick apart everything anyone has typed that is incorrect, retarded, trevinist or non-arnold-palmer-like

for now, shirley some of this was already covered.......

too many raptors either failed or didn't start

not enough thrust, the weight of unused propellant, and the surly bonds of earth, all combined to create an unbalanced stack that couldn't the necessary velocity nor stay in the required trajectory to release the black penis and give it a chance to fire up

range safety officer probably didn't have to press a big red button, the RUD was likely automatic once the navigation metrics got fucked to a point where the computer asked a human "can we RUD?" and the human said "yes"

the crowd were not just random stoners

they were spacex employees

and they were deservedly elated that the stack got to 40km missing 6 or 7 engines

looking forward to reading more bullshit from today from people who have no fucking clue what they're typing about

[Make em eat Taco Bell 1549]

5 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

1) it blew up because they blew it up. If they hadn’t, it may have crashed somewhere out of their control. Or blown up on its own. 
 

2). You ever see video of mercury and Apollo rockets blowing up?  These are complicated machines, and learning the failure points is how you remove them. If they knew about the failure points before, they would have already removed them, savvy?

3) if they tell you that getting off the launch pad and into the air is the success/fail metric, believe them. When it does get off the launch pad and also burns for 3 minutes before going out of control, call it a rousing success and congratulate them.  This was about learning, and it lasted long enough for them to learn. Which is why they cheered at the end of the test flight, which was the explosion. 

I was hoping to take out a Chinese balloon.  That's success. 

[Pato del Muerto 52487]

And I bet if the flight actually went up and back down with no failures, the spacex people would all be freaking out in a bad way, because that shouldn’t happen at this stage. 

[CycleTex87 2967]

It looked in the video like the thing was tumbling end over end at the flight termination.  I guess they had a pretty wide arc of GOM closed off for the launch. 
 

edit to add - It’s pretty bizarre to see a rocket that size completely out of control. 

Edited April 21, 2023 by CycleTex87

[Captainant 27641]

45 minutes ago, CycleTex87 said:

It looked in the video like the thing was tumbling end over end at the flight termination.  I guess they had a pretty wide arc of GOM closed off for the launch. 
 

edit to add - It’s pretty bizarre to see a rocket that size completely out of control. 

It's been more than a decade since I took any aerospace engineering courses, but I'd bet my bottom dollar that the stage separation didn't happen due to weird loading from the off-axis thrust. If the missing engines were more symmetrically distributed we would have seen a much more controlled failure. 

But yeah, it's unsettling to see 20 or 30 thousands tons of cryogenic methane and oxygen tumbling uncontrolled from 40 kilometers up

Edited April 21, 2023 by Captainant

[RamjetFDO 10575]

...
looking forward to reading more bullshit from today from people who have no fucking clue what they're typing about

I wouldn't say I'm looking forward to it, Bob.

(Edit: I'm in agreement with most of what you wrote - my commentary isn't aimed at you! )

But yes... there have been an awful lot of bad takes and fanboi excuse-making across the Interwebbes. I watched this morning with eager anticipation and hope for success.

First off, the goals of successful launch, staging, booster flyback to a hard water landing, and an almost-once-around flight of Starship were not "stretch goals", they were actually reasonable mission objectives based on the evolutionary use of previously-used technologies. If they weren't the planned goals, the prelaunch language would have been much different. Anything less was less than success.

Second... yes, I'm old school... but I have the experience to back it up. If the Launch/Mission Control team takes an "unserious" approach to this very serious endeavor, then at some point, that will be reflected in an "unserious" result. I can't imagine what the response would have been if I came on console with an old band tour t-shirt and a backward cap.

Finally... the SpaceX PAO/ broadcast team continues to be an absolute embarrassment.

But, and I want to make this very clear, what SpaceX has done, is doing, and will do is revolutionary and is changing spaceflight forever. But what happened today is by no reasonable definition "a success." Yes, SpaceX will learn and launch again and they will be successful. They've proven the ability to do this.

I'm excited to see the future, but let's not get so far ahead of ourselves that SpaceX hubris and self-adoration from the legions of social media influencers ends up with some serious disaster.

Get off my lawn.

[atomheartbevo 89630]

1 hour ago, Hagbard Celine said:

not enough thrust, the weight of unused propellant, and the surly bonds of earth, all combined to create an unbalanced stack that couldn't the necessary velocity n

Some are saying that due to the missing engines, it stayed at/above the launchpad way too long, wrecking it and sending debris all over (basically if it had the engines, it gets off the launchpad much faster, less heat/thrust/noise on it).

Others are saying the launchpad was done cheap and shoddy from the get-go since it only had to last X amount of flights before NASA lets them use the pads out in Florida.

Any ideas why it fucked up the launchpad?

[locodos 5387]

Not a Space X fan boi, but anyone dragging Space X for ULA...  I present this...

I think Musk has made a hobby out of showing his ass, but frankly they are running laps around ULA

[Dahobbs 17529]

28 minutes ago, RamjetFDO said:

 

 

I wouldn't say I'm looking forward to it, Bob.

(Edit: I'm in agreement with most of what you wrote - my commentary isn't aimed at you! )

But yes... there have been an awful lot of bad takes and fanboi excuse-making across the Interwebbes. I watched this morning with eager anticipation and hope for success.

First off, the goals of successful launch, staging, booster flyback to a hard water landing, and an almost-once-around flight of Starship were not "stretch goals", they were actually reasonable mission objectives based on the evolutionary use of previously-used technologies. If they weren't the planned goals, the prelaunch language would have been much different. Anything less was less than success.

Second... yes, I'm old school... but I have the experience to back it up. If the Launch/Mission Control team takes an "unserious" approach to this very serious endeavor, then at some point, that will be reflected in an "unserious" result. I can't imagine what the response would have been if I came on console with an old band tour t-shirt and a backward cap.

Finally... the SpaceX PAO/ broadcast team continues to be an absolute embarrassment.

But, and I want to make this very clear, what SpaceX has done, is doing, and will do is revolutionary and is changing spaceflight forever. But what happened today is by no reasonable definition "a success." Yes, SpaceX will learn and launch again and they will be successful. They've proven the ability to do this.

I'm excited to see the future, but let's not get so far ahead of ourselves that SpaceX hubris and self-adoration from the legions of social media influencers ends up with some serious disaster.

Get off my lawn.
 

 

Hey, you're the expert, but my understanding was always that they were aiming high, but mainly just wanting to get the thing off the ground. They've never even gotten all the engines to fire before (and still haven't!). Either way though, it is exciting to watch. 

[Redneck Mutha 7954]

2 hours ago, Make em eat Taco Bell said:

i knew immediately the damn thing would explode after seeing the staff.  I'm surprised it took as long as 3 minutes. 

[cabowabo 4484]

Finally... the SpaceX PAO/ broadcast team continues to be an absolute embarrassment.

Agreed. But I would like to bang the blond.

[RamjetFDO 10575]

Either way though, it is exciting to watch. 

No argument from me.

[CycleTex87 2967]

I think Eric Berger said it best, that SpaceX iterative test method is messy but effective.  Just different than the ultra risk averse approach we are used to seeing in the last 30 years from NASA.  This method will converge on a solution much faster.  Anyone have any idea if/when this launch vehicle will be rated for human flight?  And what mission that would be?  I’m thinking the first operational missions would be related to the lunar lander / lunar rendezvous equipment. 

[ClubWhatever 12120]

I can do without the rock concert cheering.

[Kwix 2186]

16 hours ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

Elon's sitting with these hipsters douchebags saying: "How do you do, fellow kids?"

Define hipster here for me, cause t-shirts, hoodies, and baseball caps ain't it.

 

Yes, Elon definitely looks out of place here.  He looks more like someone who would be calling everyone else in the room a hipster douchebag.

[utee94 15810]

[MonkeyDoughnut 10231]

Any chance we can keep the daily task of "we live to make fun of Elon, look at this idiot" in the other thread? 

[RamjetFDO 10575]

Any ideas why it fucked up the launchpad?

Simple answer: hubris.

Elon didn't want flame trenches. NASA and pretty much everyone who's ever launched rockets knows you need to deflect that energy somewhere. Elon wants to do it differently, even when in this case there was pretty reasonable science behind it and not just "old fuddy-duddy ways of thinking."

No flame trench or deflectors = a lot of energy that didn't have somewhere easier to go than destruction of the launchpad and the massive crater underneath it that ended up flinging dirt, sand, and other debris for literally miles away (i.e., Brownsville).

I would bet the FAA will make that a requirement above certain thrust levels going forward.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10231]

3 hours ago, RamjetFDO said:

 

 

Simple answer: hubris.

Elon didn't want flame trenches. NASA and pretty much everyone who's ever launched rockets knows you need to deflect that energy somewhere. Elon wants to do it differently, even when in this case there was pretty reasonable science behind it and not just "old fuddy-duddy ways of thinking."

No flame trench or deflectors = a lot of energy that didn't have somewhere easier to go than destruction of the launchpad and the massive crater underneath it that ended up flinging dirt, sand, and other debris for literally miles away (i.e., Brownsville).

I would bet the FAA will make that a requirement above certain thrust levels going forward.

 

Doing that sets them back a year or more. It looks like water cooled steel plate was their plan but wasn't ready yet and they thought could handle a single launch without it.  Pretty much everything they are doing is different on purpose since everything done by others has been incredibly slow and costly.

[Pato del Muerto 52487]

Just had a thought- wondering what it would have looked like if they had to do an early detonation right after liftoff, low to the ground and with almost all of its fuel still onboard. 

[atomheartbevo 89630]

28 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Just had a thought- wondering what it would have looked like if they had to do an early detonation right after liftoff, low to the ground and with almost all of its fuel still onboard. 

Don't forget the vertical tank fuel farm that's close by, and that had debris blown into it.  I'm assuming it was empty, but I also see things that make me think they could have had tanks with some fuel in them.

34 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Doing that sets them back a year or more. It looks like water cooled steel plate was their plan but wasn't ready yet and they thought could handle a single launch without it.  Pretty much everything they are doing is different on purpose since everything done by others has been incredibly slow and costly.

They've now set themselves back to a "slow and costly" path they were trying to avoid, and they may have to move that pad, because it wrecked the ground under and around the pad, so even if they keep it there, they will have to excavate and reinforce a massive amount.  They are in fact very lucky that debris didn't come back into the rocket and blow it up.

[Longhornstampede 3181]

On 4/20/2023 at 8:54 PM, cabowabo said:

 

 

Agreed. But I would like to bang the blond.

 

Oh yeah... I'm guessing lots of guys have wanted their rockets on her chest

Edited April 23, 2023 by Longhornstampede

[ClubWhatever 12120]

I like chunk. 

[HenryJames 66038]

 

[ClubWhatever 12120]

Eh what’s a few turtles and birds.  And by the time local folks experience long term health effects the company will have been reincorporated 9 times and the pad will be a superfund site. 

[Native Horn 3499]

But don't forget, constructing the launch pad correctly could have set them back a year!

[locodos 5387]

11 hours ago, HenryJames said:

 

I'm ignorant of the details but I'm not understanding the health fallout aspect being investigated.  The rocket dug up concrete and soil and some surrounding superficial infrastructure.  All but 3 of the engines fired at lift off and would have burned any leaking propellant.  Even if it didn't, the fuel is Liquid oxygen and Methane, it's not the nasty hypergolic stuff.

After the rocket was detonated, the O2 and methane would have boiled off in the atmosphere leaving only bits of metal, plastic and the shielding material...

I can understand the pause for safety but I think it would have been for kinetic considerations not chemical ones.

[atomheartbevo 89630]

39 minutes ago, locodos said:

I can understand the pause for safety but I think it would have been for kinetic considerations not chemical ones.

One of the space junkies mentioned that if SpaceX was willing to take such a massive shortcut with the launchpad design fiasco, that's going to make NASA and the FAA wonder what other shortcuts are they taking with Starship.  Was there a massive rush and cutting of corners because Artemis I was such a tremendous success and they were pressured to get Starship going?   

Most of us understand how SpaceX has done things after watching all of the Falcon failures all of the sudden turn in fantastic successes as they kept learning from mistakes or problematic systems were improved/fixed.

But the problem here is that this was not a "oh we are having a propellant feed problem" or "we have to improve the software and hardware to make the vertical landings stick".  This was 100% a human problem, since they weren't willing to do the launchpad right, and they launched knowing that the world's most powerful rocket was taking off on a launchpad that was not suited for it. If they had done the launchpad right, there's a decent chance Starship makes it into orbit, because it sure as hell looks like the destruction of the launchpad affected Starship's flight and/or separation.

[locodos 5387]

1 minute ago, atomheartbevo said:

One of the space junkies mentioned that if SpaceX was willing to take such a massive shortcut with the launchpad design fiasco, that's going to make NASA and the FAA wonder what other shortcuts are they taking with Starship.  Was there a massive rush and cutting of corners because Artemis I was such a tremendous success and they were pressured to get Starship going?   

Most of us understand how SpaceX has done things after watching all of the Falcon failures all of the sudden turn in fantastic successes as they kept learning from mistakes or problematic systems were improved/fixed.

But the problem here is that this was not a "oh we are having a propellant feed problem" or "we have to improve the software and hardware to make the vertical landings stick".  This was 100% a human problem, since they weren't willing to do the launchpad right, and they launched knowing that the world's most powerful rocket was taking off on a launchpad that was not suited for it. If they had done the launchpad right, there's a decent chance Starship makes it into orbit, because it sure as hell looks like the destruction of the launchpad affected Starship's flight and/or separation.

Agree,

I saw a tweet attributed to Elon that said SpaceX wanted a simplified pad due to the nature of the planned future missions.  That tweet also indicated that choice was a risk.  They found out.

I get all that, but the part I don't understand is the idea that a Hydrogen/Methane rocket (which we can be 100% sure was the propellant) somehow created a chemical/biological risk from physical destruction of concrete and steel.  Perhaps the RCS used hypergolic fuel like the dragon capsule?  I don't know that's why I asked you space nerds.

[Hagbard Celine 10852]

On 4/22/2023 at 3:24 PM, RamjetFDO said:

No flame trench or deflectors = a lot of energy that didn't have somewhere easier to go than destruction of the launchpad and the massive crater underneath it that ended up flinging dirt, sand, and other debris for literally miles away (i.e., Brownsville).

a little birdie told me the barometric pressure around the stand jumped to "several atmospheres above a nominal condition" and may have had something to do with the loss of several engines, in which case, welp, et en hubris elon ego

[Hagbard Celine 10852]

On 4/22/2023 at 6:33 PM, Pato del Muerto said:

Just had a thought- wondering what it would have looked like if they had to do an early detonation right after liftoff, low to the ground and with almost all of its fuel still onboard. 

skip ahead to the 5:00 mark if you don't have time for some soviet action

 

[Hagbard Celine 10852]

21 hours ago, HenryJames said:

 

that's funny....

the byproducts from the combustion of methane and lox are..... carbon dioxide and water

[Pato del Muerto 52487]

13 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

skip ahead to the 5:00 mark if you don't have time for some soviet action

 

Yes that is awesome gif 

[Hagbard Celine 10852]

9 hours ago, locodos said:

I'm ignorant of the details but I'm not understanding the health fallout aspect being investigated.  The rocket dug up concrete and soil and some surrounding superficial infrastructure.  All but 3 of the engines fired at lift off and would have burned any leaking propellant.  Even if it didn't, the fuel is Liquid oxygen and Methane, it's not the nasty hypergolic stuff.

After the rocket was detonated, the O2 and methane would have boiled off in the atmosphere leaving only bits of metal, plastic and the shielding material...

I can understand the pause for safety but I think it would have been for kinetic considerations not chemical ones.

i smell old space.....

[Hagbard Celine 10852]

8 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Artemis I was such a tremendous success

i had to isolate and quote this statement to see the words by themselves.......