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SpaceX grounded after a rocket explosion caused extensive environmental damage
- cratermoon 4y agoIn the linked video from SpaceX's twitter feeds you can see the splashes in the surf as debris scatters outward, starting at about 16 seconds. https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1649097087248891904?s=20 https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1649097087248891904?s=20
- grecy 4y agoThe headline is extremely misleading. 1. SpaceX are not grounded at all. They launched a Falcon 9 today, and have a Falcon Heavy about to launch. 2. All launch providers are "grounded" when there is an anomaly, this is nothing out of the ordinary.
- mwint 4y agoYou're being downvoted, presumably because bird man bad, but this is 100% correct.
- refulgentis 4y agoThat’s true, They think bird man bad and They are bad.
- lisper 4y agoNeither of you are 100% correct. Starship is grounded [1]. The rest of the SpaceX fleet is not. [1] https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-faa-mishap-investigation https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-faa-mishap-investigati...
- yellowapple 4y agoThat doesn't contradict what either of them wrote.
- lisper 4y agoThe original claim was that "SpaceX are not grounded at all." That is analogous to saying that "Boeing is not grounded at all" after the 737MAX was grounded. I would not consider either statement to be "100% correct". Part of Boeing's fleet was grounded, and part of SpaceX's fleet is grounded. It is true that only part and not all of either manufacturer's fleet was grounded, but to say that either one was "not grounded AT ALL" [emphasis added] is not accurate.
- mouse_ 4y agoI appreciate your clarity.
- mjamesaustin 4y ago3. The damage was caused by debris from the rocket launch, not the subsequent explosion. The explosion happened miles above ground.
- fallingknife 4y ago"Extensive environmental damage" lol. Dug a hole and threw some scraps around. Building the suburb I live in did much more extensive environmental damage than anything SpaceX has done.
- lukas099 4y agohttps://www.tpr.org/environment/2023-04-27/photos-spacex-is-grounded-after-rocket-explosion-caused-extensive-environmental-damage https://www.tpr.org/environment/2023-04-27/photos-spacex-is-...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ProAm 4y agoIs your suburb surrounded by state and federally protected lands? And induce pollution and damage over 113 square miles?
- fundad 4y agoObviously if his suburb polluted protected lands, he would care as little as the Princeling.
- cratermoon 4y agoDo protected endangered species nest in your suburb?
- fallingknife 4y agoThey sure did before it was a suburb!
- wedn3sday 4y agoSomeone needs to take a look at this guys suburb, damn.
- uoaei 4y agoOnce a mistake is made, it's ok for others to make the same mistake. Gotcha. Just taking notes for the next time you criticize anyone about anything.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hoofhearted 4y agoWhoever manufactured that mini split system attached to the c-container should use that picture for advertising lol. Seriously though, I think it’s a Mr. Slim or an LG, and it’s really the only recognizable object in that picture of the launchpad. I’ve seen many Mr. Slims used for climate control in high heat situations before. They are pretty standard in big buildings for telecom rooms, small server rooms, and any rooms that control critical equipment with sensitive electronics. Pretty much all fire alarm control rooms and elevator control rooms use them for temp and humidity control. I’ve never considered a mini split being used next to a rocket pad though! I wonder what equipment was in that container that needed to be that close, but cool.
- lukas099 4y agoSo many questions. What is a mini slit system? What is a c-container? What is a Mr. Slim?
- etrautmann 4y agoI too was confused. I believe the parent is referring to the air conditioner module in the bottom right of image #5 on the blue container. It looks to be facing away from the launch pad and protected from debris by the container though, so I'm not sure how that would support the claim of durability.
- AYBABTME 4y agoGod forbid if a quails nest is disturbed or charred as we attempt to reach the stars. I'll contemplate the moral dilemma as I head to the grocery store to buy some quail eggs.
- ggoo 4y agoYou sound like a pretty hateful person.
- wrycoder 4y ago“Vegetation within a few hundred yards of the launch pad was singed. A little more than a quarter mile south of the launch pad, a fire burned about three acres, charring a quail’s nest.”
- test098 4y ago> The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) documented that the debris cloud deposited material as far as six-and-a-half miles north of the launch pad. The agency said in a statement that the debris cloud was made of pulverized concrete. > Broken concrete — some pieces the size of golf balls, others the size of car engine blocks or larger — was spread out over nearly three-quarters of a mile in some directions. > Craters from large pieces of concrete were as large as six feet across and a few feet deep. Some pieces hit the ground so hard they were submerged in the sand, leaving only an empty crater with rebar jutting from it. > If SpaceX starts launching routinely — as it plans to — wildlife may leave the area around the launch site. > "If these major disturbances, in addition to actual damage to the habitat, happen consistently every month, every week, birds and other other wildlife are not likely to use that habitat," LeClaire said. > "It sure seemed like the decision to not do these very basic channels or flame protection or systems that you see everywhere else was a matter of convenience," Roesch said. > SpaceX initially had plans to extend its launch pad facility another 17 acres into the wetlands surrounding Boca Chica Beach. But after the company gave conflicting and insufficient information, the Army Corps of Engineers pulled its permit application for the project.
- AYBABTME 4y ago
- gladiatr72 4y agoWhat's really too bad is how long we waited to notice all the brilliant old fuckers from the AtlasV project were turning into old dead fuckers who couldn't help anyone with anything. It is completely understandable that the tech they developed and stupid shit they pulled (and learned from) were importantly held secrets at the time, but we just had to have a space shuttle. The only thing that is stupid about this test are the number of times the very same problem has occurred for the other 3-dozen teams of (actual fucking) rocket scientists who've had to relearn these lessons over the last 50 years. Oh, well. (shuffles off to watch TNG reruns)
- Veedrac 4y agoYou mean Saturn V? I'm struggling to see the relationship to Atlas V.
- gladiatr72 4y agoYes. Dammit. Saturn V (thank you)
- deelowe 4y agoI don't understand how this is relevant.
- crdrost 4y agoOne funny bit of context is that I remember I enjoyed reading this story linked from HN and then came back to read the comments only to find it was flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35590279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35590279 So uh, us-a culpa. But yeah I assume that they can't actually correctly isolate the protected wildlife lands from the rockets even with the added protections on the launch site itself, just fundamental physical limitations of how quiet a rocket that size can be... I don't know whether that will actually invalidate their permitting etc. or not though.
- mhio 4y agoDebris creation and cleanup is fairly well defined in the Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) done by Spacex and signed off by the FAA and relevant agencies for the Boca site to be used for starship launches. They probably thought it was more likely to be rocket pieces, rather than concrete pieces, but managing incidents affecting the surrounding area was not some unpredicted, program ending scenario. Clearly Spacex will have to provide fixes and mitigations to the FAA for the mishap investigation to be closed and obtain the next launch license, but that process is pretty normal for any launch failure. (Not so much the throwing slabs of concrete around, that's not normal!) PEA - https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/2022-06/Final_PEA_Executive_Summary.pdf https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/2022-06/Final_PEA_Ex...
- crdrost 4y agoYeah, so they talk about that in the link above. > SpaceX convinced FAA to approve a site that would host launching the Largest Rocket in History under NEPA’s Environmental Assessment (EA) process, which is saved for projects that do not have a “significant impact” to the environment. This action was and is eyebrow-raising, as no major spaceport has ever been authorized under this process, always requiring a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). An EIS is the default multi-year approval process specified under NEPA. The FAA piggybacked on an existing 2015 authorization for SpaceX’s operation of 2-3 annual launches of the much smaller Falcon 9 rockets to forward this streamlined Starship “low impact” approval process through the system. So the basic question I’d have would be, say, “Is the FAA going to say, ‘you need to actually cross your Ts and dot your Is’ because SpaceX comically underestimated everything about Starship in ways that contemporaries found obvious.” Your observation is kind of orthogonal to my question. It's not an uninteresting read, it's just that I was asking a metaquestion about the document you cited in the first place. Kinda like a Jehovah’s Witness tract I got last Monday that had a section “how can I know that the Bible is reliable” where the answer consisted entirely of Bible quotes, I think that's interesting internal discussion but it didn't really address the original question. A follow up article from the author, https://blog.esghound.com/p/spacexs-texas-rocket-caused-a-big https://blog.esghound.com/p/spacexs-texas-rocket-caused-a-bi... , puts the metaquestion this way: > An EA is a scaled-back, shorter, and less burdensome process. But the catch is that it can only be deployed if the Impacts described are below a level considered “Significant.” ...My argument when writing about “Starbase” from day one has been that the FAA and SpaceX didn’t seek to determine what the actual impacts from Starship development would be, but rather tailored the results of their studies in such a manner to demonstrate that the project would be “insignificant,” preventing years of further delays an EIS would require... I am certain that the Fish And Wildlife Service will, at minimum, ask these questions. FAA could say “we need an EIS now,” which would be a significant blow to SpaceX. I do not expect this to occur and instead they will reevaluate the EA and make changes to mitigate the debris field debacle we observed on 4/20. ... Litigants may seek to have the courts order FAA to complete a new EIS, or they may settle for FAA agreeing on even more mitigations, offsets or concessions. I’d be shocked if we don’t see a large, well-funded lawsuit filed in the coming weeks. So it's a question phrased in the form of prospective answers, but yeah that's the gist, I am curious to see how the permitting situation will work out in the wake of this blunder.
- pavon 4y ago>If SpaceX starts launching routinely — as it plans to — wildlife may leave the area around the launch site. > “If these major disturbances, in addition to actual damage to the habitat, happen consistently every month, every week, birds and other other wildlife are not likely to use that habitat,” LeClaire said. This quote in the article is a bit off base. SpaceX isn't going to be demolishing their launch pad like this every month. They are obviously going to have to fix the problem if they want to fly regularly. The concern is if they took unmerited risks that led to it happening to begin with, and if it might happen again the the process of finding a solution.