4 ms·

Would it have really killed their schedule so much to push this until after tomorrow's crewed flight? They're obviously unrelated, but it sucks to have this is

Would it have really killed their schedule so much to push this until after tomorrow's crewed flight? They're obviously unrelated, but it sucks to have this is the headlines the day before they launch astronauts.

ghostpepper 6y ago
The astronauts are both veterans and one would assume they understand that this was not only a prototype ship but a prototype engine. Falcon has 50+ successful flights over four years since its most recent failure. Hopefully they're not phased by this.
- carapace 6y ago
  s/phased/fazed/
  - ghostpepper 6y ago
    thanks, TIL
- visviva 6y ago
  > Hopefully they're not phased by this. I doubt they are - my comment is about the PR impact.
  - Kye 6y ago
    I get cynical about people sometimes, but I have to believe the average person can understand the difference between a bleeding edge test and the launch of a proven system. They don't stop driving when someone dies trying to break the land speed record. I don't see a PR problem.
sneak 6y ago
I thought the same thing at first, but I doubt very much this will be reported very widely. Despite it being huge in our circles, most people don’t follow this stuff very closely. Unless both SpaceX and NASA are pushing out stories at max volume with included press kits, anything they do will be basically niche at best. Recall on the FH test flight how the loss of the center core was not announced immediately, and as a result of SpaceX delaying the announcement of the loss by an hour or three, very nearly 100% of the reporting on the topic was about their successful launch and landing of the two (heh) boosters, with no mention whatsoever of the fact that the launch also contained a failure. An absolutely masterful PR decision, and one I learned a lot from, but also evidence of how fickle, inaccurate/incomplete, and flighty/shallow media attention is. For the vast majority of people and media outlets: nobody really pays attention to rockets in general, especially while the nation is burning/dying/being impoverished. You have to be insanely loud to penetrate that fog. This isn’t headline news.
- ghostpepper 6y ago
  When you put it that way, that masterful PR decision stands in stark contrast to this one. Any outlet that was planning to cover the launch on Wednesday and would never have covered SN4, but now plans to cover the Demo2 launch again today might be more likely to cover the SN4 failure.
  - sneak 6y ago
    I would venture to guess that 75-90% of journos covering Demo2 today have never heard of Starship or Boca Chica.
baking 6y ago
This was the fifth static fire of the same rocket and frankly it wasn't seen as high risk at the time. If it was, I am sure they would have postponed it, as they did for the planned short-hop. Of course "high-risk" is a relative term. They had a 1.5 mile exclusion zone for the test and the handful of village residents a few miles away were warned to leave their houses to prevent injuries from broken glass, so there was obviously some risk. This was really a just a potential PR problem for click-baity new organizations and casual observers not aware of all the different projects SpaceX is working on. No one from NASA going to say maybe we should scrub Saturday's launch because they know the two not related in any way. Also, there are many Elon haters are out there. I had a few try to blame Wednesday's scrub on Musk or try to imply that it was a failure. (Of course the fan boys can be just as annoying.)

ghostpepper 6y ago

The astronauts are both veterans and one would assume they understand that this was not only a prototype ship but a prototype engine. Falcon has 50+ successful flights over four years since its most recent failure. Hopefully they're not phased by this.

carapace 6y ago
s/phased/fazed/
- ghostpepper 6y ago
  thanks, TIL
visviva 6y ago
> Hopefully they're not phased by this. I doubt they are - my comment is about the PR impact.
- Kye 6y ago
  I get cynical about people sometimes, but I have to believe the average person can understand the difference between a bleeding edge test and the launch of a proven system. They don't stop driving when someone dies trying to break the land speed record. I don't see a PR problem.

sneak 6y ago

I thought the same thing at first, but I doubt very much this will be reported very widely. Despite it being huge in our circles, most people don’t follow this stuff very closely. Unless both SpaceX and NASA are pushing out stories at max volume with included press kits, anything they do will be basically niche at best. Recall on the FH test flight how the loss of the center core was not announced immediately, and as a result of SpaceX delaying the announcement of the loss by an hour or three, very nearly 100% of the reporting on the topic was about their successful launch and landing of the two (heh) boosters, with no mention whatsoever of the fact that the launch also contained a failure. An absolutely masterful PR decision, and one I learned a lot from, but also evidence of how fickle, inaccurate/incomplete, and flighty/shallow media attention is. For the vast majority of people and media outlets: nobody really pays attention to rockets in general, especially while the nation is burning/dying/being impoverished. You have to be insanely loud to penetrate that fog. This isn’t headline news.

ghostpepper 6y ago
When you put it that way, that masterful PR decision stands in stark contrast to this one. Any outlet that was planning to cover the launch on Wednesday and would never have covered SN4, but now plans to cover the Demo2 launch again today might be more likely to cover the SN4 failure.
- sneak 6y ago
  I would venture to guess that 75-90% of journos covering Demo2 today have never heard of Starship or Boca Chica.

baking 6y ago

This was the fifth static fire of the same rocket and frankly it wasn't seen as high risk at the time. If it was, I am sure they would have postponed it, as they did for the planned short-hop. Of course "high-risk" is a relative term. They had a 1.5 mile exclusion zone for the test and the handful of village residents a few miles away were warned to leave their houses to prevent injuries from broken glass, so there was obviously some risk. This was really a just a potential PR problem for click-baity new organizations and casual observers not aware of all the different projects SpaceX is working on. No one from NASA going to say maybe we should scrub Saturday's launch because they know the two not related in any way. Also, there are many Elon haters are out there. I had a few try to blame Wednesday's scrub on Musk or try to imply that it was a failure. (Of course the fan boys can be just as annoying.)