4 ms·

A nice try to make an explosion sound like a success - reminds me of the Soviet times when the Party was never wrong!

by nikolay 6y ago

jessriedel 6y ago
It's a test flight. Musk gave only a 1/3 chance of mission success before the flight.
- nikolay 6y ago
  Yes, but a 1/3 success chance doesn't not mean a 2/3 one of an explosion.
  - robotresearcher 6y ago
    After engine ignition, isn't it pretty much that success or massive explosion are the only outcomes?
    - NikolaeVarius 6y ago
      Nah engines are able to turn off after ignition. Thats what the Raptor safety is. Usually the blow or moment is when it lifts off the tower with one notable exception that I know of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Redstone_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Redstone_1 Technically the Shuttle go or blow moment is when the SRBs are turned on. But yes, otherwise in the spirit, it will either blow up or be generally sucessful.
      - aardvarkr 6y ago
        So you’re saying that if the engines had been off the starship wouldn’t have exploded? Try again bud. That’s still an object full of compressed methane and liquid oxygen falling at terminal velocity.
        NikolaeVarius 6y ago
        This is such a straw man that I don't even know where to begin to answer.
      - valuearb 6y ago
        So you are admitting that what Musk meant was they had a 2/3s chance of an explosion.
pertymcpert 6y ago
Was it a complete failure?
- nikolay 6y ago
  Well, nothing is a complete failure ever from your point then - you always learn from mistakes.
  - sirk390 6y ago
    Yes, but if it explodes during launch you learn only a little(you don't have any data for flight and landing) Here it went almost perfect because they have the data for everything to be able to fix issues
  - mlyle 6y ago
    We have launch, controlled flight through the desired test regime, and a botched landing. And as others have said, it's either complete success-or-explosion that's expected in this area.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - pertymcpert 6y ago
    What point was that? I just asked you a question.
- ChrisFoster 6y ago
  No, I'd say it was an almost-complete success. The point of this was to test several things which they've never tested before and gather data to drive design improvements. They successfully tested: ascent under three engines, flap-controlled aerodynamic descent to the landing site, the landing flip maneuver - including drawing propellant from the header tanks - and final landing burn. They didn't stick the landing, but it looks like they got test data from all the planned test activities. The explosion will prevent gathering some data from post-flight inspection, but other than that I doubt it has much affect on future development. To look back on SN5/SN6 testing, they stuck the landings with those prototypes, but the prototypes themselves are now obsoleted by the new prototypes in production (up to SN16?!)
elihu 6y ago
They had to get a lot of things right on the first try for a successful landing. They got a lot of them right, but had trouble with fuel pressure at the end and landed too hard because there wasn't enough thrust. As problems go, that's a relatively simple one that they ought to be able to address. The ascent appears to have been successful (though for a few moments it looked like something caught on fire and I'm not sure if that was planned or expected). The glide worked. The rocket was able to navigate to the landing pad. Next time they'll be working with a lot more information. This seems like overall it was a success, even though they're down one rocket and three engines. A failure would have been the rocket blowing up on the pad during launch or other similar mishap from which they wouldn't have learned much aside from "make sure that doesn't happen again".
- fastball 6y ago
  The fire after first engine cutoff was just extra gases from the cutoff engine getting trapped and burning off.
jryle70 6y ago
Since you're are such impressively unimpressed, maybe you could tell us what the objectives of this test were and how SpaceX failed to achieve them?
- nikolay 6y ago
  No, I'm commenting on Elon Musk's comment. I would have taken a humble: "Sorry, we blew up this (literally), but we're gonna get better after learning from our mistake." You blow things up, you fail. No excuses, sorry! Don't start a test knowing it most certainly will fail! Start a test when you're a lot more confident!
  - sitharus 6y ago
    But it didn’t fail, landing wasn’t a test objective.
    - restalis 6y ago
      Landing may not have been one of the primary objectives, but it clearly was an objective, since they didn't just let it crash at will after having completed the flight maneuvers.
  - DarmokJalad1701 6y ago
    > Don't start a test knowing it most certainly will fail! Start a test when you're a lot more confident! Good thing you aren't the one designing these things.
  - mkl 6y ago
    The purpose of a test is to gather the data you need to improve. Scientists and engineers constantly start tests knowing it will most likely "fail". Actual failure would be a test that didn't produce any data.
    - nikolay 6y ago
      No, an explosion and destruction of equipment is a failure. Why do you keep dancing around this truth? It is a failure everywhere else in the world! You should've listened to the commentary of foreign anchors! They don't look at it as a success!
restalis 6y ago
You're right that the destruction of equipment and loss of material resources in general is a failure that could have been prevented with a more cautious approach, but that's not the entire picture. Another resource, one that Mr. Musk cares more about, is time. He both affords to and is willing to throw material resources at the technology development problem, even at a loss (i.e. the stated "1/3 chance of success"), just so he could "move fast and break things" (from time to time, if it comes to that). In this context, even with that prodigious blow at the end, having at least some of the testing goals met can be a genuine success in Musk's own eyes, not just a sell for the rest of us. The political actors, on the other hand, had to play the perception image game because that's the world they reside in. The politicians' primary objective in that space program has always been the prestige that comes attached from bearing it to fruits. Sure, in a race they went on in a similar fashion and threw copious amounts of material resources, but for them the cost of technical failures were not so much about loosing material as were about loosing face, hence the propaganda that had to handle/mitigate that. Same rocket science development game, different rules for the actors involved.

A nice try to make an explosion sound like a success - reminds me of the Soviet times when the Party was never wrong!

jessriedel 6y ago

It's a test flight. Musk gave only a 1/3 chance of mission success before the flight.

nikolay 6y ago
Yes, but a 1/3 success chance doesn't not mean a 2/3 one of an explosion.
- robotresearcher 6y ago
  After engine ignition, isn't it pretty much that success or massive explosion are the only outcomes?
  - NikolaeVarius 6y ago
    Nah engines are able to turn off after ignition. Thats what the Raptor safety is. Usually the blow or moment is when it lifts off the tower with one notable exception that I know of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Redstone_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Redstone_1 Technically the Shuttle go or blow moment is when the SRBs are turned on. But yes, otherwise in the spirit, it will either blow up or be generally sucessful.
    - aardvarkr 6y ago
      So you’re saying that if the engines had been off the starship wouldn’t have exploded? Try again bud. That’s still an object full of compressed methane and liquid oxygen falling at terminal velocity.
      - NikolaeVarius 6y ago
        This is such a straw man that I don't even know where to begin to answer.
    - valuearb 6y ago
      So you are admitting that what Musk meant was they had a 2/3s chance of an explosion.

pertymcpert 6y ago

Was it a complete failure?

nikolay 6y ago
Well, nothing is a complete failure ever from your point then - you always learn from mistakes.
- sirk390 6y ago
  Yes, but if it explodes during launch you learn only a little(you don't have any data for flight and landing) Here it went almost perfect because they have the data for everything to be able to fix issues
- mlyle 6y ago
  We have launch, controlled flight through the desired test regime, and a botched landing. And as others have said, it's either complete success-or-explosion that's expected in this area.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pertymcpert 6y ago
  What point was that? I just asked you a question.
ChrisFoster 6y ago
No, I'd say it was an almost-complete success. The point of this was to test several things which they've never tested before and gather data to drive design improvements. They successfully tested: ascent under three engines, flap-controlled aerodynamic descent to the landing site, the landing flip maneuver - including drawing propellant from the header tanks - and final landing burn. They didn't stick the landing, but it looks like they got test data from all the planned test activities. The explosion will prevent gathering some data from post-flight inspection, but other than that I doubt it has much affect on future development. To look back on SN5/SN6 testing, they stuck the landings with those prototypes, but the prototypes themselves are now obsoleted by the new prototypes in production (up to SN16?!)

elihu 6y ago

They had to get a lot of things right on the first try for a successful landing. They got a lot of them right, but had trouble with fuel pressure at the end and landed too hard because there wasn't enough thrust. As problems go, that's a relatively simple one that they ought to be able to address. The ascent appears to have been successful (though for a few moments it looked like something caught on fire and I'm not sure if that was planned or expected). The glide worked. The rocket was able to navigate to the landing pad. Next time they'll be working with a lot more information. This seems like overall it was a success, even though they're down one rocket and three engines. A failure would have been the rocket blowing up on the pad during launch or other similar mishap from which they wouldn't have learned much aside from "make sure that doesn't happen again".

fastball 6y ago
The fire after first engine cutoff was just extra gases from the cutoff engine getting trapped and burning off.

jryle70 6y ago

Since you're are such impressively unimpressed, maybe you could tell us what the objectives of this test were and how SpaceX failed to achieve them?

nikolay 6y ago
No, I'm commenting on Elon Musk's comment. I would have taken a humble: "Sorry, we blew up this (literally), but we're gonna get better after learning from our mistake." You blow things up, you fail. No excuses, sorry! Don't start a test knowing it most certainly will fail! Start a test when you're a lot more confident!
- sitharus 6y ago
  But it didn’t fail, landing wasn’t a test objective.
  - restalis 6y ago
    Landing may not have been one of the primary objectives, but it clearly was an objective, since they didn't just let it crash at will after having completed the flight maneuvers.
- DarmokJalad1701 6y ago
  > Don't start a test knowing it most certainly will fail! Start a test when you're a lot more confident! Good thing you aren't the one designing these things.
- mkl 6y ago
  The purpose of a test is to gather the data you need to improve. Scientists and engineers constantly start tests knowing it will most likely "fail". Actual failure would be a test that didn't produce any data.
  - nikolay 6y ago
    No, an explosion and destruction of equipment is a failure. Why do you keep dancing around this truth? It is a failure everywhere else in the world! You should've listened to the commentary of foreign anchors! They don't look at it as a success!

restalis 6y ago

You're right that the destruction of equipment and loss of material resources in general is a failure that could have been prevented with a more cautious approach, but that's not the entire picture. Another resource, one that Mr. Musk cares more about, is time. He both affords to and is willing to throw material resources at the technology development problem, even at a loss (i.e. the stated "1/3 chance of success"), just so he could "move fast and break things" (from time to time, if it comes to that). In this context, even with that prodigious blow at the end, having at least some of the testing goals met can be a genuine success in Musk's own eyes, not just a sell for the rest of us. The political actors, on the other hand, had to play the perception image game because that's the world they reside in. The politicians' primary objective in that space program has always been the prestige that comes attached from bearing it to fruits. Sure, in a race they went on in a similar fashion and threw copious amounts of material resources, but for them the cost of technical failures were not so much about loosing material as were about loosing face, hence the propaganda that had to handle/mitigate that. Same rocket science development game, different rules for the actors involved.