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So what was that? Was Starship’s launch a failure or a success?

29 points by tragiclos 3y ago

throwawayekoj 3y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- josefx 3y ago
  Wasn't that his estimate from a decade ago?
  - throwawayekoj 3y ago
    [flagged]
8bitben 3y ago
Whatever you think about Elon, the push for innovation with Spacex has been admirable. I've been more than a little disappointed with all the "they tried but it blew up" headlines that came in the days following the test flight. The whole point is that this is bigger and more ambitious than any prior attempt - the failure is the most important part, it means you learn something. Anything more than a failure to ignite should be considered a success in my book.
- armada651 3y ago
  The thing is the launch likely failed for reasons that were known beforehand and were noticable even to a layman. They purposefully chose not to have a flame diverter, instead they were hoping to get away with simply blowing up the launchpad beneath them. I respect that they're trying to push boundaries, but this just seems foolish. For a company so focused on reducing cost through reusability, why did they choose to blow up the launch pad upon launch? I understand building a flame diverter for a rocket this massive is an incredible amount of work, but if it makes subsequent launches cheaper then wouldn't that amortize the costs?
  - 8bitben 3y ago
    I think that's a reasonable response. At the same time, if it would have taken several more months to install a flame diverter / metal plating below the launch pad, would that be worth it, or negate the progress made by gathering flight data? I'm not sure we can know that for sure. I would hazard a guess that in the long term, it will have been the right decision.
  - Szpadel 3y ago
    keep in mind this is still a prototype rocket, they have no guarantee that they won't learn anything important about how this should look like or what issues it could introduce they used something they knew to work so there is one less variable that should prevent liftoff at this point there is no reducing the cost phase yet, they try to test assumptions and learn what and how things can go wrong. It's much better that things go wrong at test flight than at mission flight. if they would get lucky and none of the issues would manifest, they could assume that design is perfect and do not try to improve it. so it's good if whatever can go wrong goes wrong at test flight
    - armada651 3y ago
      > if they would get lucky and none of the issues would manifest, they could assume that design is perfect and do not try to improve it. so it's good if whatever can go wrong goes wrong at test flight I agree that the success should be measured in lessons learned from the launch. However we learned next to nothing about the second stage because the first stage failed for reasons that weren't unexpected. So from that perspective the launch could be considered a failure, because they traded getting data on the second stage for learning a lesson that was already known.
      - Szpadel 3y ago
        assuming that this failure was caused by failed engines, I think this is a very important lesson, engines can fail during real missing and if their algorithms couldn't account correctly that, this is a very important thing to improve. and remember, as you already mentioned, that stage 2 won't even start until stage 1 succeeds, so they need to perfect that first. but I see your point, if they would manage to separate before stage 1 failure they could gather more data
- kickopotomus 3y ago
  I agree with this sentiment. I have also been somewhat unsettled by the detractors here. I am not sure if this is purely an American sentiment, but it seems like more of the general population has started to view advancement in binary terms. In both science and public policy, it seems that an increasing proportion of the population view anything less than 100% success/improvement as an abject failure.
  - WWLink 3y ago
    > I have also been somewhat unsettled by the detractors here. I wouldn't worry about it. The news papers always view it in a sorta pessimistic way. I used to joke about this with spacex's booster landings. When they couldn't stick a landing even though the mission itself was successful, the news sites always made headlines that sounded like "welp, spacex screwed up again" lol :D The news sites will always pick the headline that raises the most eyebrows. As for my liking of spacex but my great distaste for the jackass known as Elon, well, that's nothing new. I was saying that 10 years ago lol. You can still cheer on the accomplishments all of the engineers are spacex are making. That's fine.
    - AstralStorm 3y ago
      The problem with it is this is actually burning many millions of US taxpayer dollars. You think Musk is paying for it? Check SpaceX grants. As for the failure, the Raptor 2 failures have caused a RUD on multiple Starship launches so far. They should be back to static firing the Super Heavy or something, but this is not sexy enough for the billionaire. Until the engine and launchpad works reliably, there is literally no point in launching the boosters when you have high probability of mission failure right at the launch. (Even if it clears the tower.) Musk/SpaceX redefining failure as success is terribly annoying too. If done repeatedly enough it has the potential to tank the whole space program. They obviously wanted to test separation the most (since it was issued despite the control failure) and that failed too.
      - goalieca 3y ago
        The director of nasa calls this a great success. So does a former astronaut. > Thursday's launch was hailed as "a real accomplishment" and "so successful" by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and retired International Space Station Commander Chris Hadfield, respectively. SpaceX agreed. https://www.npr.org/2023/04/21/1171202753/spacex-starship-launch-explosion-cheer-success https://www.npr.org/2023/04/21/1171202753/spacex-starship-la...
- ksec 3y ago
  >Whatever you think about Elon The problem is in modern mainstream media anything Elon does should be painted with a heavy dose of negative brush. All while adding more Social Media hatred to fuel the cycle. You then see a lot of people are actually very supportive of SpaceX and Starship. They dont get the MSM media or Social media boost of their voice. So now MSM and Social Media are changing their tone to question their previous reporting of "they tried but it blew up" and offer some insight to label it more like success.
- anovikov 3y ago
  Success of failure will be defined by the FAA, let's see how will they approach issuing a launch license for the next test. Somehow i'm not too optimistic.
- drewcoo 3y ago
  The media (and pop culture in general) has a different understanding of failure. I think they're wrong. I'm not sure I agree with you either, though. I'm a big believer in failing as often as possible and recovering in such a way that no customer or outside observer notices. And the fact that rockets have a history of audacious risks and fantastic explosions is no excuse for that ongoing pattern. It's not just about fatalities or the raw cost of equipment lost. It's also about confidence and, where applicable, stock prices. Any decent manager should understand that, so maybe it's another example of Musk's companies being mismanaged.
- rich_sasha 3y ago
  I mostly agree, I think what irks is the combination of this approach and hubris at galactic scale (mostly just Musk I think, and some disciples thereof). But hey, a well built rocket with a ton of hubris will still fly.
bigyikes 3y ago
I was in South Padre for the first launch that got scrubbed. wasn’t able to catch the actual launch and explosion :( The answer to the clickbait headline is obviously no :) It was a tremendous success, and getting the rocket off the ground at all is totally remarkable. For SpaceX, data might be the most valuable asset.
- herewulf 3y ago
  IMHO, the headline is a decent philosophical question. The clickbaity ones focus on the explosion, almost ignoring the resounding success of propelling all that mass to 39 km. Sorry you missed the actual launch! I was on the edge of my seat while at the computer.. Hard to imagine what in-person felt like.
xiphias2 3y ago
It survived Max Q on the first launch with older (and different iterations) versions of the engine, what else is needed to make the demo of a first try a success?
- sbierwagen 3y ago
  Because of the engine failures, thrust wasn't as high as it would be in a nominal flight, so max aerodynamic pressure was lower. It didn't hit the max Q it would experience in a regular launch.
- sebazzz 3y ago
  This was still raptor 1?
  - xiphias2 3y ago
    Not sure, the board member in all in podcast was saying that there were 1000 small changes over time, so it's not just simply raptor 1 and 2.
hooby 3y ago
A bit of both, I guess? The whole thing was a test. The ship and rocket themselves would always have been scrapped afterwards, and the goal of the whole endeavor was to get back as much data as possible. They succeeded in launching the rocket, having it take off and reach max-Q and got valuable data on all that. That's the successful part. They also learnt some hard lessons on launch pad construction. Then the ship failed and the test was aborted - and they never got to test stage separation, which they had planned to do as well. That's the unsuccessful part. So, did they get the data they wanted? Not all they wanted - but an important chunk of it.
- AstralStorm 3y ago
  So they say. Fueling data is redundant (they faced the same issue that caused the hold before a few times). Raptor 2 also has failed before with entertaining but expensive results. If it's in the same way, we do not know. Since they're not saying anything about the data that was gathered or was going to be gathered we're all going by SpaceX marketing. They might have been aiming for structural load data on the coupling, or might not. Engine relighting maybe, or maybe not. They might have been going after trust vectoring, or not...
- SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
  The max-Q they hit was much slower than the intended max-Q would be at, so the aerodynamic pressure was also much lower. So they didn't really gain any data about the performance at the real max-Q.
  - sebazzz 3y ago
    Regardless, that rocket flipped and turned so many times while being top heavy yet the booster only collapsed at the very end. It think that is commendable.
ryzvonusef 3y ago
HN thread from 2015 for the last time SpaceX had a notable failure https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9793555 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9793555 I think sometimes it's good to look back and learn from posterity
- ryzvonusef 3y ago
  On the topic, I think the Falcon Heavy launch has given us unrealistic perspective on the success of experimental launch vehicles. It went so flawlessly that most people online were pissed Elon didn't use it to launch some useful payload and considered his Roadster launch a vanity project, not realizing it could have gone Kaboom just like the Starship launch, and all Elon would have to show for it would have been the shreds of his roadster. When things go successfully, it's all Gwynne Shotwell and her team of Engineers to praise; when it goes south it's Elon and big mouth to blame for the all the issues. Maybe we need to realize it's all a test, that has Elon wanted, there would be NO press coverage and we wouldn't even have known a Test had happened, or that vehicle like Starship even existed. let's just enjoy the show, failures and all.
  - AstralStorm 3y ago
    There's no way for SpaceX to hide a static fire from anyone, much less a launch. It's not a thing. This is not a stealth airplane. Even if unannounced nerds would fish it out.
    - ryzvonusef 3y ago
      True, but without Elon's say so, there wouldn't be 8K slomo and close up drone shots etc. We wouldn't even know it was called starship, or something like that existed. Anyone on the beach could have made a video of the rocket launch itself, but we wouldn't have been able to get the destroyed launch pad pictures etc. We definitely wouldn't have had any video of the insides of the Merlin rocket factory (i am not sure that without access to the spacex video feed and launch countdown, nerds would have been able to timely setup cameras to record something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mX5H_Gaicg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mX5H_Gaicg ) We have shockingly good access to information that no one else gives, imho.
namirez 3y ago
It wasn’t a complete failure. SpaceX will learn a lot from this launch. But I believe this design is not super reliable. Synchronizing 32 rocket engine is not easy. Perhaps this will be a great cargo ship. As for carrying astronauts to Mars, I’m not so sure. Only time will tell.
- ragebol 3y ago
  *33 engines.
- otabdeveloper4 3y ago
  The Starship is basically a modernized clone of the Soviet N1 rocket. (Rocketry is established and legacy tech by now.) The Soviets abandoned that project because they couldn't get their 30 engines to synchronize. Maybe this time AI (c) will help solve the problem. We will watch and see.
  - elurg 3y ago
    > The Soviets abandoned that project because they couldn't get their 30 engines to synchronize. Maybe this time AI (c) will help solve the problem. We will watch and see. Worth mentioning that N-1 was severely limited by the state of electronics technology in late 60s Soviet Union. The first 3 launches of the N-1 rocket didn't even have a digital flight computer, they relied on an [analogue system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket)#Engine_control_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket)#Engine_control_sys...). The Space Falcon Heavy uses 27 engines and it has a perfect reliability record over five launches. Having many engines on a rocket is a solved problem and it even brings some advantages - you can still reach orbit if you lose one or two of them.
    - AstralStorm 3y ago
      Not from Earth you cannot. Run rough TWR calculations. (You can use Falcon Heavy data for that.) You can abort the mission more safely perhaps (if separation works), but not proceed with it really.
moose_man 3y ago
Elon had previously ruled out the trenches because of cost right? This was an expensive learning exercise.
selivanovp 3y ago
It was both. It could’ve ended much better, but the first stage worked for several minutes and provided a lot of data to improve in the future.
sbierwagen 3y ago
Kinda funny that the author didn't draw a connection between the pad damage and the engine failures. If the rocket is blasting a hole in the pad and throwing chunks of concrete hundreds of meters, you figure some of those pieces of debris might have gone upwards and damaged rocket engines?
- modeless 3y ago
  This article was written immediately after the launch, before the extent of the pad damage was known.
  - sbierwagen 3y ago
    Edit buttons exist. This isn't 1950, the article isn't chiseled into stone. Nothing stops him from updating the article with relevant new information. If the excuse is "that's too hard" or "I'm not paid to add information after publishing" then that's just dumb. The video showing a car being smashed by pad ejecta was posted ten minutes after launch: https://twitter.com/SemrauDylan/status/1649050806577164293 https://twitter.com/SemrauDylan/status/1649050806577164293
albertopv 3y ago
Most powerful rocket ever, with 33 engines, lifted off on first attempt and flew a few kms. From my point ot view, considering Spacex philosophy, it's totally a success.
ikrenji 3y ago
rockets blow up. especially in development. i say it was a necessary stepping stone towards making starship a success.
userbinator 3y ago
Perhaps it was a successful failure?
senectus1 3y ago
It failed successfully. It was right from the word go, meant to be a destructive test flight. It flew, it was destroyed and in the process they learned a lot about stage 0 and about the performance of the engines and the structural strength of the whole thing. very very successful.
- ehnto 3y ago
  I am surprised it's been so ambiguous for some. It is what it is, they did a test and learned some stuff. We can bikeshed all day about how good of a test it was but we aren't the ones sifting through the telemetry and making fixes. There was also so much to be impressed by, the integrity of the vehicle at those speeds and spins was really cool to see, and that it got off the ground for the first fully integrated was awesome. Lots went really well. It doesn't take much going wrong to blow a rocket up, so I am impressed with SpaceX in this instance.
efxhoy 3y ago
It’s the biggest and most capable rocket yet and it flew higher and faster than the second most powerful (the N1) ever did. It’s progress. Success or failure of the test itself is secondary. We’re getting closer to the stars.
sebazzz 3y ago
I think it is commendable that so many raptors failed yet no engine blew up and caused a catastrophic failure, remember what happened with SN11 and one of the boosters?

29 points by tragiclos 3y ago

throwawayekoj 3y ago

[flagged]

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
josefx 3y ago
Wasn't that his estimate from a decade ago?
- throwawayekoj 3y ago
  [flagged]

8bitben 3y ago

Whatever you think about Elon, the push for innovation with Spacex has been admirable. I've been more than a little disappointed with all the "they tried but it blew up" headlines that came in the days following the test flight. The whole point is that this is bigger and more ambitious than any prior attempt - the failure is the most important part, it means you learn something. Anything more than a failure to ignite should be considered a success in my book.

armada651 3y ago
The thing is the launch likely failed for reasons that were known beforehand and were noticable even to a layman. They purposefully chose not to have a flame diverter, instead they were hoping to get away with simply blowing up the launchpad beneath them. I respect that they're trying to push boundaries, but this just seems foolish. For a company so focused on reducing cost through reusability, why did they choose to blow up the launch pad upon launch? I understand building a flame diverter for a rocket this massive is an incredible amount of work, but if it makes subsequent launches cheaper then wouldn't that amortize the costs?
- 8bitben 3y ago
  I think that's a reasonable response. At the same time, if it would have taken several more months to install a flame diverter / metal plating below the launch pad, would that be worth it, or negate the progress made by gathering flight data? I'm not sure we can know that for sure. I would hazard a guess that in the long term, it will have been the right decision.
- Szpadel 3y ago
  keep in mind this is still a prototype rocket, they have no guarantee that they won't learn anything important about how this should look like or what issues it could introduce they used something they knew to work so there is one less variable that should prevent liftoff at this point there is no reducing the cost phase yet, they try to test assumptions and learn what and how things can go wrong. It's much better that things go wrong at test flight than at mission flight. if they would get lucky and none of the issues would manifest, they could assume that design is perfect and do not try to improve it. so it's good if whatever can go wrong goes wrong at test flight
  - armada651 3y ago
    > if they would get lucky and none of the issues would manifest, they could assume that design is perfect and do not try to improve it. so it's good if whatever can go wrong goes wrong at test flight I agree that the success should be measured in lessons learned from the launch. However we learned next to nothing about the second stage because the first stage failed for reasons that weren't unexpected. So from that perspective the launch could be considered a failure, because they traded getting data on the second stage for learning a lesson that was already known.
    - Szpadel 3y ago
      assuming that this failure was caused by failed engines, I think this is a very important lesson, engines can fail during real missing and if their algorithms couldn't account correctly that, this is a very important thing to improve. and remember, as you already mentioned, that stage 2 won't even start until stage 1 succeeds, so they need to perfect that first. but I see your point, if they would manage to separate before stage 1 failure they could gather more data
kickopotomus 3y ago
I agree with this sentiment. I have also been somewhat unsettled by the detractors here. I am not sure if this is purely an American sentiment, but it seems like more of the general population has started to view advancement in binary terms. In both science and public policy, it seems that an increasing proportion of the population view anything less than 100% success/improvement as an abject failure.
- WWLink 3y ago
  > I have also been somewhat unsettled by the detractors here. I wouldn't worry about it. The news papers always view it in a sorta pessimistic way. I used to joke about this with spacex's booster landings. When they couldn't stick a landing even though the mission itself was successful, the news sites always made headlines that sounded like "welp, spacex screwed up again" lol :D The news sites will always pick the headline that raises the most eyebrows. As for my liking of spacex but my great distaste for the jackass known as Elon, well, that's nothing new. I was saying that 10 years ago lol. You can still cheer on the accomplishments all of the engineers are spacex are making. That's fine.
  - AstralStorm 3y ago
    The problem with it is this is actually burning many millions of US taxpayer dollars. You think Musk is paying for it? Check SpaceX grants. As for the failure, the Raptor 2 failures have caused a RUD on multiple Starship launches so far. They should be back to static firing the Super Heavy or something, but this is not sexy enough for the billionaire. Until the engine and launchpad works reliably, there is literally no point in launching the boosters when you have high probability of mission failure right at the launch. (Even if it clears the tower.) Musk/SpaceX redefining failure as success is terribly annoying too. If done repeatedly enough it has the potential to tank the whole space program. They obviously wanted to test separation the most (since it was issued despite the control failure) and that failed too.
    - goalieca 3y ago
      The director of nasa calls this a great success. So does a former astronaut. > Thursday's launch was hailed as "a real accomplishment" and "so successful" by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and retired International Space Station Commander Chris Hadfield, respectively. SpaceX agreed. https://www.npr.org/2023/04/21/1171202753/spacex-starship-launch-explosion-cheer-success https://www.npr.org/2023/04/21/1171202753/spacex-starship-la...
ksec 3y ago
>Whatever you think about Elon The problem is in modern mainstream media anything Elon does should be painted with a heavy dose of negative brush. All while adding more Social Media hatred to fuel the cycle. You then see a lot of people are actually very supportive of SpaceX and Starship. They dont get the MSM media or Social media boost of their voice. So now MSM and Social Media are changing their tone to question their previous reporting of "they tried but it blew up" and offer some insight to label it more like success.
anovikov 3y ago
Success of failure will be defined by the FAA, let's see how will they approach issuing a launch license for the next test. Somehow i'm not too optimistic.
drewcoo 3y ago
The media (and pop culture in general) has a different understanding of failure. I think they're wrong. I'm not sure I agree with you either, though. I'm a big believer in failing as often as possible and recovering in such a way that no customer or outside observer notices. And the fact that rockets have a history of audacious risks and fantastic explosions is no excuse for that ongoing pattern. It's not just about fatalities or the raw cost of equipment lost. It's also about confidence and, where applicable, stock prices. Any decent manager should understand that, so maybe it's another example of Musk's companies being mismanaged.
rich_sasha 3y ago
I mostly agree, I think what irks is the combination of this approach and hubris at galactic scale (mostly just Musk I think, and some disciples thereof). But hey, a well built rocket with a ton of hubris will still fly.

bigyikes 3y ago

I was in South Padre for the first launch that got scrubbed. wasn’t able to catch the actual launch and explosion :( The answer to the clickbait headline is obviously no :) It was a tremendous success, and getting the rocket off the ground at all is totally remarkable. For SpaceX, data might be the most valuable asset.

herewulf 3y ago
IMHO, the headline is a decent philosophical question. The clickbaity ones focus on the explosion, almost ignoring the resounding success of propelling all that mass to 39 km. Sorry you missed the actual launch! I was on the edge of my seat while at the computer.. Hard to imagine what in-person felt like.

xiphias2 3y ago

It survived Max Q on the first launch with older (and different iterations) versions of the engine, what else is needed to make the demo of a first try a success?

sbierwagen 3y ago
Because of the engine failures, thrust wasn't as high as it would be in a nominal flight, so max aerodynamic pressure was lower. It didn't hit the max Q it would experience in a regular launch.
sebazzz 3y ago
This was still raptor 1?
- xiphias2 3y ago
  Not sure, the board member in all in podcast was saying that there were 1000 small changes over time, so it's not just simply raptor 1 and 2.

hooby 3y ago

A bit of both, I guess? The whole thing was a test. The ship and rocket themselves would always have been scrapped afterwards, and the goal of the whole endeavor was to get back as much data as possible. They succeeded in launching the rocket, having it take off and reach max-Q and got valuable data on all that. That's the successful part. They also learnt some hard lessons on launch pad construction. Then the ship failed and the test was aborted - and they never got to test stage separation, which they had planned to do as well. That's the unsuccessful part. So, did they get the data they wanted? Not all they wanted - but an important chunk of it.

AstralStorm 3y ago
So they say. Fueling data is redundant (they faced the same issue that caused the hold before a few times). Raptor 2 also has failed before with entertaining but expensive results. If it's in the same way, we do not know. Since they're not saying anything about the data that was gathered or was going to be gathered we're all going by SpaceX marketing. They might have been aiming for structural load data on the coupling, or might not. Engine relighting maybe, or maybe not. They might have been going after trust vectoring, or not...
SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
The max-Q they hit was much slower than the intended max-Q would be at, so the aerodynamic pressure was also much lower. So they didn't really gain any data about the performance at the real max-Q.
- sebazzz 3y ago
  Regardless, that rocket flipped and turned so many times while being top heavy yet the booster only collapsed at the very end. It think that is commendable.

ryzvonusef 3y ago

HN thread from 2015 for the last time SpaceX had a notable failure https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9793555 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9793555 I think sometimes it's good to look back and learn from posterity

ryzvonusef 3y ago
On the topic, I think the Falcon Heavy launch has given us unrealistic perspective on the success of experimental launch vehicles. It went so flawlessly that most people online were pissed Elon didn't use it to launch some useful payload and considered his Roadster launch a vanity project, not realizing it could have gone Kaboom just like the Starship launch, and all Elon would have to show for it would have been the shreds of his roadster. When things go successfully, it's all Gwynne Shotwell and her team of Engineers to praise; when it goes south it's Elon and big mouth to blame for the all the issues. Maybe we need to realize it's all a test, that has Elon wanted, there would be NO press coverage and we wouldn't even have known a Test had happened, or that vehicle like Starship even existed. let's just enjoy the show, failures and all.
- AstralStorm 3y ago
  There's no way for SpaceX to hide a static fire from anyone, much less a launch. It's not a thing. This is not a stealth airplane. Even if unannounced nerds would fish it out.
  - ryzvonusef 3y ago
    True, but without Elon's say so, there wouldn't be 8K slomo and close up drone shots etc. We wouldn't even know it was called starship, or something like that existed. Anyone on the beach could have made a video of the rocket launch itself, but we wouldn't have been able to get the destroyed launch pad pictures etc. We definitely wouldn't have had any video of the insides of the Merlin rocket factory (i am not sure that without access to the spacex video feed and launch countdown, nerds would have been able to timely setup cameras to record something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mX5H_Gaicg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mX5H_Gaicg ) We have shockingly good access to information that no one else gives, imho.

namirez 3y ago

It wasn’t a complete failure. SpaceX will learn a lot from this launch. But I believe this design is not super reliable. Synchronizing 32 rocket engine is not easy. Perhaps this will be a great cargo ship. As for carrying astronauts to Mars, I’m not so sure. Only time will tell.

ragebol 3y ago
*33 engines.
otabdeveloper4 3y ago
The Starship is basically a modernized clone of the Soviet N1 rocket. (Rocketry is established and legacy tech by now.) The Soviets abandoned that project because they couldn't get their 30 engines to synchronize. Maybe this time AI (c) will help solve the problem. We will watch and see.
- elurg 3y ago
  > The Soviets abandoned that project because they couldn't get their 30 engines to synchronize. Maybe this time AI (c) will help solve the problem. We will watch and see. Worth mentioning that N-1 was severely limited by the state of electronics technology in late 60s Soviet Union. The first 3 launches of the N-1 rocket didn't even have a digital flight computer, they relied on an [analogue system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket)#Engine_control_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket)#Engine_control_sys...). The Space Falcon Heavy uses 27 engines and it has a perfect reliability record over five launches. Having many engines on a rocket is a solved problem and it even brings some advantages - you can still reach orbit if you lose one or two of them.
  - AstralStorm 3y ago
    Not from Earth you cannot. Run rough TWR calculations. (You can use Falcon Heavy data for that.) You can abort the mission more safely perhaps (if separation works), but not proceed with it really.

moose_man 3y ago

Elon had previously ruled out the trenches because of cost right? This was an expensive learning exercise.

selivanovp 3y ago

It was both. It could’ve ended much better, but the first stage worked for several minutes and provided a lot of data to improve in the future.

sbierwagen 3y ago

Kinda funny that the author didn't draw a connection between the pad damage and the engine failures. If the rocket is blasting a hole in the pad and throwing chunks of concrete hundreds of meters, you figure some of those pieces of debris might have gone upwards and damaged rocket engines?

modeless 3y ago
This article was written immediately after the launch, before the extent of the pad damage was known.
- sbierwagen 3y ago
  Edit buttons exist. This isn't 1950, the article isn't chiseled into stone. Nothing stops him from updating the article with relevant new information. If the excuse is "that's too hard" or "I'm not paid to add information after publishing" then that's just dumb. The video showing a car being smashed by pad ejecta was posted ten minutes after launch: https://twitter.com/SemrauDylan/status/1649050806577164293 https://twitter.com/SemrauDylan/status/1649050806577164293

albertopv 3y ago

Most powerful rocket ever, with 33 engines, lifted off on first attempt and flew a few kms. From my point ot view, considering Spacex philosophy, it's totally a success.

ikrenji 3y ago

rockets blow up. especially in development. i say it was a necessary stepping stone towards making starship a success.

userbinator 3y ago

Perhaps it was a successful failure?

senectus1 3y ago

It failed successfully. It was right from the word go, meant to be a destructive test flight. It flew, it was destroyed and in the process they learned a lot about stage 0 and about the performance of the engines and the structural strength of the whole thing. very very successful.

ehnto 3y ago
I am surprised it's been so ambiguous for some. It is what it is, they did a test and learned some stuff. We can bikeshed all day about how good of a test it was but we aren't the ones sifting through the telemetry and making fixes. There was also so much to be impressed by, the integrity of the vehicle at those speeds and spins was really cool to see, and that it got off the ground for the first fully integrated was awesome. Lots went really well. It doesn't take much going wrong to blow a rocket up, so I am impressed with SpaceX in this instance.

efxhoy 3y ago

It’s the biggest and most capable rocket yet and it flew higher and faster than the second most powerful (the N1) ever did. It’s progress. Success or failure of the test itself is secondary. We’re getting closer to the stars.

sebazzz 3y ago

I think it is commendable that so many raptors failed yet no engine blew up and caused a catastrophic failure, remember what happened with SN11 and one of the boosters?