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This is the first incident I've heard of that seems concerning, but admittedly I've not followed the matter closely. I've heard they had some incidents on the
by bigbubba 6y ago
This is the first incident I've heard of that seems concerning, but admittedly I've not followed the matter closely. I've heard they had some incidents on the pad, or the one they crashed earlier this week, but neither of those concern me since failure in those scenarios is obviously something they plan for (nobody would be nearby.)
- HarryHirsch 6y agoI found that tank testing incident where a fuel tank exploded during static pressure testing below rated pressure extremely worrying. Pressure vessels are well understood, they aren't supposed to fail like that. Don't they examine their welds at Space X?
- bigbubba 6y agoSuch a failure seems reasonable to me, such a pressure vessel obviously needs to be as light as possible to maximize payload. But making it lighter will make it weaker. And even today there are limits to computer analysis, hence why they would do pressure tests at all; if the models were foolproof then why would anybody test pressure vessels? Pressure vessels are tested because their danger is well understood. Testing would be a waste of time if outcomes were certain, so failure during tests is not concerning. (This rocket falling over was presumably not part of a test to see whether it will fall over.)
- interestica 6y agoI mean, that's why they test? Can one presume that there was an improvement based on that outcome?