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SpaceX is on the other end of the scale, they continually change their vehicles to make small improvements all the time. It's highly unlikely the same paralysis

by jpgvm 5y ago

SpaceX is on the other end of the scale, they continually change their vehicles to make small improvements all the time. It's highly unlikely the same paralysis could manifest at SpaceX with it's current culture. More likely is a failure of the other extreme where if changes are normalized and something that seems sufficiently simple actually has an outsized impact on the craft. I think such a thing is still relatively unlikely given how much testing and modelling goes into all their changes but it's much more likely than catastrophic failure occurring due to known design deficiencies that are left because they haven't yet caused failures.

14 5y ago
This made me think of a local pilot who didn’t load his load correctly and when he went to climb some of the load shifted back in the plane. The sudden weight caused the plane to nose up and the plane lost lift and fell to the pilot and passenger death. Something as simple as a missing strap can bring down a plane. I can only imagine the amount if potential disasters on a rocket.
- dotancohen 5y ago
  That was a cargo 747, it wasn't the pilots who secured the load. There's actually a video of the plane trying to recover with the COM so far back, it is horrific. EDIT: The video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fpxm0D46iQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fpxm0D46iQ
  - 14 5y ago
    That video isn’t available in my country but the one I was thinking of was some local pilots who crashed.
    - dotancohen 5y ago
      That's horrible. I wonder if the shifting of loads is a common creash precursor.
      - jpgvm 5y ago
        Not that common. The loadmaster is tasked with ensuring cargo is loaded correctly in commercial and military settings. In private aircraft there is generally less or no cargo of note other than the fuel and passengers so it's very uncommon. Because the loadmaster is a member of the aircrew they incentivized to be good at their job and veto unsafe loads because it's their life at stake if the aircraft becomes tail heavy in flight.
        dotancohen 5y ago
        Thank you.

by jpgvm 5y ago

14 5y ago

This made me think of a local pilot who didn’t load his load correctly and when he went to climb some of the load shifted back in the plane. The sudden weight caused the plane to nose up and the plane lost lift and fell to the pilot and passenger death. Something as simple as a missing strap can bring down a plane. I can only imagine the amount if potential disasters on a rocket.

dotancohen 5y ago
That was a cargo 747, it wasn't the pilots who secured the load. There's actually a video of the plane trying to recover with the COM so far back, it is horrific. EDIT: The video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fpxm0D46iQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fpxm0D46iQ
- 14 5y ago
  That video isn’t available in my country but the one I was thinking of was some local pilots who crashed.
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    That's horrible. I wonder if the shifting of loads is a common creash precursor.
    - jpgvm 5y ago
      Not that common. The loadmaster is tasked with ensuring cargo is loaded correctly in commercial and military settings. In private aircraft there is generally less or no cargo of note other than the fuel and passengers so it's very uncommon. Because the loadmaster is a member of the aircrew they incentivized to be good at their job and veto unsafe loads because it's their life at stake if the aircraft becomes tail heavy in flight.
      - dotancohen 5y ago
        Thank you.