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Initially posted this as a reply, but going top-level, cause the hot takes are too spicy for my liking. So the plan was to test x, y, and z. Launch sequence an

• spuz 3y ago
  That's an interesting point about the flight plan - if the intention of the flight was to test the vehicle at max Q, then the rest of the plan is almost a contingency. SpaceX: We expect the vehicle to reach 40km at which point it will probably blow up. FAA: Ok but what if it doesn't blow up? SpaceX: Well I suppose we could separate the stages. FAA: And then what happens? SpaceX: Well I suppose we could try to land the first stage and launch the second stage into the ocean... etc etc.
  • s1artibartfast 3y ago
    It's not even about the FAA requirements, it is just bare minimum engineering to ask where will this rocket go if it doesn't blow up mid-air?
    • lazide 3y ago
      Well, they could plan on blowing it up I guess?
      • s1artibartfast 3y ago
        That's one answer, but my point is that asking the question and forming an answer is basic development.
    • p1mrx 3y ago
      It's been launched beyond the environment. Nothing's out there.
      • mindcrime 3y ago
        You mean it's been launched from one environment into another environment?
        • marssaxman 3y ago
          probably a reference to this classic comedy sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
          • mindcrime 3y ago
            Oh definitely! As was my response above. :-)
          • ChrisClark 3y ago
            Yes, he was quoting it.
        • deleted 3y ago
          [deleted]
      • ekimekim 3y ago
        Well the problem here is that the front didn't fall off.
  • samwillis 3y ago
    You joke but that's all also import rehearsal for all the teams responsible for each stage of the flight. The compleat plan, in full detail, with the "expectation" that it will happen is essential to learning. If you don't start practicing these details until later in the development you have missed an opportunity to fine tune them and prepare for all eventualities.
    • soperj 3y ago
      > compleat Sorry, i've seen this spelling enough to now ask if this is a word that I don't know about or if it's just a mis-spelling of complete. Not trying to pick on you. I've had errors before, especially in space stuff (altitude & attitude).
      • samwillis 3y ago
        Typo+iPhone+Dyslexia I usually edit my posts after posting (sometimes multiple times), I find going back and rereading them I always find errors. Will leave that mistake for prosperity and context. Dyslexia is both a gift and a curse, but only if you let it.
        • soperj 3y ago
          As far as typos go, this one has been very informative :)
        • InitialLastName 3y ago
          > prosperity Just to help out: you probably mean "posterity" [0] [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/posterity https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/posterity
          • samwillis 3y ago
            I give up ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
      • Taywee 3y ago
  • sandworm101 3y ago
    >> the intention of the flight was to test the vehicle at max Q, then the rest of the plan is almost a contingency. We don't know what the intention or internal expectation was. What we have are public statements, which are generally more conservative in order that every success be an amazing surprise, every failure an expected event. What SpaceX was internally hoping for, what they were aiming for, and the details of what actually happened will remain a mystery for a while.
    • acomjean 3y ago
      I don't think they wanted it to blow up. I was told for something I was working on "if it works perfectly the first time, you may have spent to much time on it. " But they designed it to fly and it did for a while. I'm fairly certain they didn't design it to tumble and explode. If it had flown better and not exploded one would have to say it was more successful. It was a partial success and partial failure.
    • kortex 3y ago
      I don't need to know the internal - it's pretty obvious. When you are test launching a rocket, MaxQ is the moment to test (aside from ignition, which you can test with static fire, so not really "test launching a rocket"). So SpaceX wants to test the booster launch; they have tested everything else on the ground that they realistically can at this point. That means ignition, get off the pad, MaxQ. Everything after that point is gravy. Of course there are plenty of systems after maxq they want to test, but not to sound like a software project manager, but "is the juice worth the squeeze?" Everything past maxq may not happen if the rocket goes RUD before or at that point, so how many points do you really want to be putting into stage separation, boostback, reentry, when those engineers could be triple checking Stage 0, fueling, start sequence, and liftoff? Was it supposed to tumble and explode? Of course not. How many weeks of delay of booster launch is "don't tumble during stage separation" worth? SpaceX says on the order of zero, save it for the next unit in the heckin rocket assembly line (that is wild to say out loud but that's what it is).
      • baq 3y ago
        They’re also testing the GSE and let’s say the pad failed today’s test scenario
• reeboo 3y ago
  Destin is a national treasure.
• wanderingstan 3y ago
  In my part time work as an artist this has been my experience as well: my best work always seems to happen after a “mistake”, then the pressure is off and I just start playing and experimenting. In the rare case where I execute a planned design with no mistakes, the outcome is generally stale and doesn’t live up to how I imagined it.
  • lazyasciiart 3y ago
    That doesn’t apply here because they have no opportunity to change anything after the mistake, right?
    • SECProto 3y ago
      It absolutely applies here - they didn't want to build the launch mount in Florida until they had actual info from a launch. They also iterate their rockets with each new one (even production rockets, ie falcon 9, gets iterative changes). The lessons from this launch will be key to informing changes before future launches.
    • samus 3y ago
      Well, yeah. In this sense, it's the second-worst thing that could have happened, with the worst outcome being injured or dead people. But they probably didn't expect such a bombastic finale so quickly.
      • krisoft 3y ago
        > they probably didn't expect such a bombastic finale so quickly Is this some mind game you are playing? They said they don't expect the test to go smoothly, and that their goal is to learn as much as possible. They did this multiple times, before the test, during the test, by the CEO, on the stream, everywhere. They told us that if they can learn from the test that is success, if the rocket on top of that clears the tower that is a win. And then you comment that they didn't actually mean any of that. Why? Why is it not easier to take them at their word? > it's the second-worst thing that could have happened, Not at all. As you say the worst thing would be injured or dead people. Second worst would be damage to third party property. Fourth would be breaching their allowed airspace. Third worst would be a failure where the telemetry and tracking also failed and that prevents them from learning.
• 908B64B197 3y ago
  To me it's an incredible achievement. Raptor engine development started in 2012. Starship's development started around the same time. They now achieved max Q and got flight data all the way to booster separation. On real, flight ready hardware. By an all-American team started right here in California using private funding from an already profitable all-American privately developed launch platform (the Falcon 9). This is in contrast to the SLS and it's predecessor the Constellation program (the SLS really being an evolution of the Ares I and V) that started in 2005 and, so far yielded a single successful test flight. Almost 30 billions sunk in "research and development" (for Shuttle derived hardware?). Excluding launch costs. Or even really the crown jewel of the European Union, Ariane 6, a technological dead-end delayed once again and already 15 years behind the Falcon 9.
  • soperj 3y ago
    > This is in contrast to the SLS and it's predecessor the Constellation program (the SLS really being an evolution of the Ares I and V) that started in 2005 and, so far yielded a single successful test flight You forgot to include that this was also by an "all-American team".
    • robin_reala 3y ago
      And that it has to be an “all-American team” due to US legislation.
    • angelbar 3y ago
      there wasn't another choice...
  • KptMarchewa 3y ago
    I don't disagree, but SLS has successfully flown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUiEdqcLg-k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUiEdqcLg-k
    • deelowe 3y ago
      > and, so far yielded a single successful test flight. That's what they said
• outworlder 3y ago
  The thing that bothers me about this rapid unplanned disassembly development methodology is all the environmental damage that this thing is doing. It was bad enough blowing up next to a wildlife preserve, but now they are (with some degree of certainty) blowing it higher up and scattering fragments across a huge area. The rockets are not getting any smaller. > so the only way to test x is with a starship on top. Why did they have to test "x" now? We don't have to go multi decades between launches, but couldn't they have delayed and tested when they had a more reasonable chance of success? Maybe after building a flame trench/diverter too.
  • soperj 3y ago
    The road to the coast likely did more damage than blowing up a hundred vehicles.
    • svnt 3y ago
      Yes good point — we’ve previously done a ton of environmental damage so as long as we are doing less than that it is silly to mention it.
      • soperj 3y ago
        we do a magnitude more environmental damage every day, and it's not brought up, it's not about past environmental damage. People get up in arms about littering, and they liter the air out their tailpipe for hours every week.
        • svnt 3y ago
          It is brought up. People complain about the destruction of the earth due to mining, oil consumption, etc. Large numbers of people exclusively ride transit and use bicycles. Just because some people are hypocrites doesn’t mean we shouldn’t assess the environmental consequences of space travel.
    • outworlder 3y ago
      True, it should have never been built next to a wildlife reserve.
• samwillis 3y ago
  Exactly, the two untested things were stage zero (all the new ground infrastructure) and stage one (booster). I think it's clear one of their biggest lessons is that the construction of the launch mount is wrong, and it REALY needs a flame diverter. Take a look at this photo: https://mobile.twitter.com/LabPadre/status/1649062784167030785 https://mobile.twitter.com/LabPadre/status/16490627841670307... That massive hole in the ground should not have happed, and I suspect that was not an expected possibility. It is a very costly mishap and could mean completely rebuilding the launch mount. With the excavation and rebuild, that could be months or even as long as a year. On top of that there was significantly more debris making its way to South Padre, the political fallout (pun intended) will be significant, and could cause issues with launch licenses going forward.
  • tellurion 3y ago
    One of the response to that tweet has a before pic for comparison: https://twitter.com/intrepidpursuit/status/1649070760198131715 https://twitter.com/intrepidpursuit/status/16490707601981317...
  • dsfyu404ed 3y ago
    Need to see the numbers before passing judgement. Dirt is cheap compared to concrete. Depending on how many cycles the concrete is expected to last it may be cheaper both short and long term to just have "ablative dirt" and bulldoze around afterwards "reloading" the launcher. There's also other variables like how long it takes for the engines to stabilize and the launcher to release the rocket, weight of rocket, etc that would go into it.
    • samwillis 3y ago
      The issue is that that dirt and rocks flying around damages all the other expensive equipment at the launch site. There is going to be some very dead kit down there. They can't do that every time. But big dust clouds also upset people, and SpaceX can't afford to fall out with the locals.
      • 3y ago
• vidanay 3y ago
  That short interview with Cal Breed was the absolute best 60 seconds of video I have seen in quite a while. The raw footage should be re-edited into a longer video.
  • kortex 3y ago
    I could watch him just doing his thing for hours. He's the epitome of all the best things about an artisan/apprentice relationship: "Here's what you did wrong, I'm not mad, but if you continue to f&ck this up it's gonna cost a lot of time, or worse, cause injury". Like just the correct amount of hardass where you learn quick and begrudge them in the moment, but at the end of the day, you know they are right. All too easy to end up too loosey goosey, or just a d!ck.
• bombcar 3y ago
  There's a similar thing with a check ride for a pilot license; the examiner has to tell you when you fail (because plane is expensive, etc) - and ask if you want to continue. Almost everyone recommends that you do even though you're guaranteed not going to pass; because if there's anything else you want it caught for the debrief.
• stephc_int13 3y ago
  I don't like this. I fully understand that rocket launches are going to fail a few times before succeeding, I don't get the need for gaslight. This feels like North Korea style propaganda.
  • s1artibartfast 3y ago
    Where is the gas lighting? They said getting off the launch pad would be a win going into it and people are pointing this out after the fact. There is no hypocrisy or doublethink involved
    • stephc_int13 3y ago
      This is not a total success. Partial success OK. Calling it a huge success feels super weird for me, but I am not American so maybe this is a cultural thing.
      • friend_and_foe 3y ago
        A private company just launched the largest rocket ever built. It was a test. Tests fail, but failed tests aren't failures, theyre learning opportunities. SpaceX had several of these types of failures when testing and iterating on falcon 9. It now sends people to the ISS. There is a PR battle going on with this, there always have been but in particular, Elon is associated very publicly with this company and he's no longer a darling due to the Twitter fiasco. SpaceX has to remind people quite strongly that these are tests, failure is a part of the process, and there will be a big push by his enemies to make this out to be some catastrophic failure because some people want to make him look bad. Its a failure, but it's a testing failure, so its a success. If the entire thing had exploded on the pad I'd agree with you, but it didn't, it made it through several of it's test objectives and was well worth it for the data alone.
        • stephc_int13 3y ago
          Again, not complete failure, but partial success. No matter how you spin it they did not achieve 100% of the objectives. And yes the media honeymoon with Elon Musk is clearly over, and I think this is for the better (including for his own sanity)
• rektide 3y ago
  "makes as many mistakes as possible" is such a wonderful attitude! learn something, especially when you are in unexpected terrain.
  • nerpderp82 3y ago
    Causally attributed mistakes as possible. Mistakes on their own aren't useful unless you can determine a causal relationship.
    • pixl97 3y ago
      There are also mistakes versus the unknown, you can only know the true value if its a mistake after measurement. The key is to measure the value at the earliest possible time to reduce the amount of sunk costs. And simulation doesn't buy you anything here either. Simulation will many times cost more than an actual test article and still may not simulate reality accurately.
      • nerpderp82 3y ago
        > true value if its a mistake after measurement Exactly! This realization should lead to a lot of thinking around the experimental design and the level of characterization of the inputs.
• sixothree 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • kortex 3y ago
    "If you want peace, prepare for war" Sure our MIC has grown a bit fat on the teat, and the US government has done some very unpleasant things, but to totally boycott someone cause they work on weapons systems, I don't think is really the right mood. I believe he work(s/ed) on anti-ship guided missiles. I'm sure the Ukrainians are grateful to all those who worked on guided missiles when a Javelin pops a T-72 or the Moskva was sunk. (not saying Destin worked on the Javelin, or that the Ukraine ASGM was built using tech. Just the general concept)
    • sixothree 3y ago
      Honestly, I don't care. I'm not saying you're wrong. I just don't flipping care. Your justification is in no way a response to my preference. I don't want to celebrate people who work in this field as a form of entertainment. It has no place in the media I consume as entertainment.
      • rblatz 3y ago
        No one cares what you think.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• ge96 3y ago
  yeah it's sad so much hate first time in a long time a rocket of this scale (number of engines) since N1 has been made
• Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  I think the thing that a lot of people are still stuck at is the NASA attitude of "we've spent a lot of money on this already, we Need to make sure it works first try". Whereas SpaceX is more like Kerbal Space Program in that if it blows up, at least you're having fun. And while they had some failures early on with their early rockets, the Falcon 9 is now a very reliable craft that's done dozens of successful missions, successful recoveries (which I think they still consider a bonus rather than a goal) and re-uses, and a streamlined launch process, which has become more economic - and possibly profitable - over time. I will add "possibly" profitable though, given that it feels like the majority of their launches is for their own Starlink project, which is costing them billions - but it's a project to ensure use and reuse of their rockets, instead of the company going stale waiting for customers.
  • chasd00 3y ago
    i think people forget they crashed a lot of starships doing the suborbital tests before they got one right. I think we'll see the same with the booster, expect more qualified tests success before you see something a layperson would call 100% success.
  • gridspy 3y ago
    To build on what you said: Elon Musk also said during one of the Tim Dodd interviews that the shuttle had so many limitations because they locked in the design too early. One limitation is the difficult, fragile and hard to reuse heat-shield on the shuttle. The NASA approach makes it far to expensive to change the design down the road, since that requires resetting all the analysis. Whereas the SpaceX approach never stopped changing things and always tested them in flight. Much cheaper to take a known good and polished design like Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon and do the analysis after you've proven it works well for non-human flights.
  • octobus2021 3y ago
    I know I'm being nitpicky, but Falcon 9 completed 223 missions since 2010 with 221 being total success, and 60 missions completed in 2022 alone. So way more than "dozens".
• verdverm 3y ago
  I'm not sure they reached the Max Q they were after. Sure the announcer said those words, but given how many engines were out very early, they were not likely at the intended altitude or speed. You can see when the call out Max Q, the vehicle is already travelling at an angle, not in line with the trajectory. You can also hear a time gap between when the announcer says "max q" at the intended time and when control says it later, when even more engines are out. The launch pad is not in great shape either https://twitter.com/LabPadre/status/1649062784167030785 https://twitter.com/LabPadre/status/1649062784167030785
  • inglor_cz 3y ago
    They certainly reached some Max Q, given that Q is bounded continuous function on a finite interval.
• ChuckMcM 3y ago
  Good analysis of the goals of this test. That said, the failure was interesting to me. In the SpaceX feed they were waiting for the second stage to separate and light, and it didn't do either. So first question is why didn't it separate? I think that is the relevant one because I would expect them to have interlocks that would prevent the second stage from starting up if it were still attached to the booster. The interlocks would explain not starting up the second stage engines. One anomaly I noticed was that the booster did not appear to shut down 100%, ever. If that was the case, that would be important because the onset of "zero g" from engine shutdown is a well tested way for the next stage to know that the stage below it has stopped firing. Some (many? all?) spacecraft rely on the physics of the expended boost stage being much lighter than the remaining stack. This disparity means atmospheric drag on the lower stage has a bigger effect than it does on the upper stage. If the second stage retention system "lets go" when it detects zero-g, then the two pieces will begin to separate, slowly at first, and then faster when the very un-aerodynamic opening to the top of the booster gets into the slip stream. Depending on how the second stage interlock works, it could be timed (wait t seconds and then light up) or radar (wait for distance between first and second stage) or some communication between the booster and the stage. By time is cheap, but risks a slowly separating booster being "too close" and having it become damaged from the blast of the vacuum engines starting up. Radar is likely most reliable (and most expensive), and comms would work by there is a lot of ionization going on at that speed that makes them more difficult. So questions I would look at; First, if all the raptors didn't shut down, why not? Second, did the booster attempt a rotation and re-entry burn with the second stage still attached? Third, is there a way to "abort to orbit" this scenario where the second stage decides to let go and light up even though the first stage hasn't shut down? Fun to watch though, its a pretty amazing rocket and that they didn't have 4 (or 5) of the raptors firing when it started off was another thing to look into. On pad aborts are a thing too, but as the parent states, there are faults that you won't get any useful data, and those you note and continue on through. I think the non-start of the raptors was of the latter.
  • chasd00 3y ago
    a few seconds after liftoff a hydraulic unit on the bottom of the booster blew off. That could have had all kinds of ramifications for further events down the road like stage separation and MECO. I'm actually surprised it maintained as good of control is it did given i'm sure that controlled at least some of the gymbaling too. The cartwheel is on purpose. They're using the angular momentum of the flip for boost back to fling the starship off instead of the usual explosives. I think it cartwheeled multiple times because of multiple attempts to get Starship to separate. Whatever was holding Starship to the booster wasn't letting go which could have been a hydraulic failure (see my first paragraph).
• hef19898 3y ago
  Just in case, if Arianne 6s first launch fails as well, can cut them as much slack as we cut SpaceX here in HN? Or do we go full Ariane cannit builf rockets, because of legacy and Europe blocking innovation?
  • baq 3y ago
    Arianne 6 is sorely needed and is a decade behind right now. Not sure it deserves cutting it slack… though I’ll cheer when it gets off the pad as I cheered when the starship did.
  • timeon 3y ago
    Seems bit petty dragging Arianne here.
• fivestarman 3y ago
  [flagged]
• KennyBlanken 3y ago
  > I didn't read a flight plan, but I imagine they must have spelled out each possible outcome exhaustively. Uh, yeah, about that...these commercial space flight companies are less than awesome about correct flight plans. Virgin Galactic, for example, wildly blew their flight plan on the flight with His Sirness aboard...and suffered zero repercussions for it, I might add.
• dfgdfg34545456 3y ago
  > SpaceX did the X, we got max Q. What does this mean?
  • detaro 3y ago
    max Q is the point of largest aerodynamic load during a launch/flight.
    • jayzalowitz 3y ago
      ELI5: The atmosphere is pushing back against you, like how you feel wind when you run, but as you go higher in the air there is less of it to push back against you, so at a certain point the push back is less.
• asdfman123 3y ago
  The more time I spend on this site the more I realize everyone here watches the exact same YouTube channels.