3 ms·

The Starship was damaged leaving the pad and blew up. Not a launch until they can definitively say that the damage leaving the pad didn't contribute to the fail

The Starship was damaged leaving the pad and blew up. Not a launch until they can definitively say that the damage leaving the pad didn't contribute to the failure. The commercial rockets are going great though.

imtringued 3y ago
I don't know why you are being downvoted. Launchpad related damage is not a property of the rocket. Space X has launched smaller rockets that have damaged the launch pad. So having a launchpad failure is like having the mission fail in its entirety because you can't build a better rocket to fix the problem, you need a better launchpad. What I am trying to say is that there was nothing standing in the way of a successful Starship launch. The engines were known to work. The booster was known to work. The second stage was known to work. All they did was put it together and test stage separation. This should have been the moment where it became obvious that Starship will be ready for Artemis 3. The first Starship Prototype was launched in 2019. If you assume that they started development in 2018 (Musk has proto starship slides as early as 2011), then it is actually as much behind as SLS, which had to delay its planned launch after five years.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  > I don't know why you are being downvoted. Because a launch is a launch, successful or not. Claiming they are behind SLS is kind of crazy. SLS was supposed to launch in 2017 initially. SLS was a creation of a 2011 Congress Act and of course SLS did not develop any of its own engines and is reusing lots of exiting parts and infrastructure. SLS also had absolutely gigantic amount of money when eating about 2.5 billion $ a year for 10+ years and will eat much much more before its first operational flight. SpaceX in comparison was not able to spend even 1/4 for most of Starships development, by now they are getting into the billions per year but that took a while. SLS is also just a far simpler design, basically a slightly adopted Detla 4 Upper Stage, while Starship is basically highly complex new reusable upper stage design.
panick21_ 3y ago
Of course it is 'a launch'. It just not a successful one. Its the most powerful rocket that ever launched. Period. There is really no discussion on this. Just like the N1 was the most powerful before (by thrust at least if I remember correctly) before. It also was not successful. Just getting to the point of launching a rocket like that, having 33 engines like that is a huge achievement.
- maxerickson 3y ago
  It seems perfectly reasonable to define "launch" of a rocket as payload to orbit, or perhaps following the intended trajectory. The applicable definition from whatever dictionary Google uses is "send (a missile, satellite, or spacecraft) on its course or into orbit." I guess they did send it on a course.
  - signatoremo 3y ago
    There was no payload on the first Starship flight. > The applicable definition from whatever dictionary Google uses is "send (a missile, satellite, or spacecraft) on its course or into orbit." So dictionary is used now to decide if an operation a launch or not? Are you for real?
    - maxerickson 3y ago
      It was certainly an attempted launch. Attempting to launch the largest rocket in history is different than launching the largest rocket in history. Of course the dictionary doesn't decide anything, but they are often consulted when discussing the meanings of words. You could say they have gotten quite far in testing the largest rocket in history, but the end result of their most significant test to date was a loss of the vessel, it didn't launch into orbit.
    - panick21_ 3y ago
      In Starship case, the whole upper stage is the payload. As it was designed to be a second stage reentry test. They likely had some soft of test weight in the starship as well. > So dictionary is used now to decide if an operation a launch or not? Are you for real? I'm not sure what your hangup is, nobody said anything about operational. If you show 1 million people a video of the Starship launching, all those people would call it a launch. If it was operational or successful has nothing to do with anything.

imtringued 3y ago

I don't know why you are being downvoted. Launchpad related damage is not a property of the rocket. Space X has launched smaller rockets that have damaged the launch pad. So having a launchpad failure is like having the mission fail in its entirety because you can't build a better rocket to fix the problem, you need a better launchpad. What I am trying to say is that there was nothing standing in the way of a successful Starship launch. The engines were known to work. The booster was known to work. The second stage was known to work. All they did was put it together and test stage separation. This should have been the moment where it became obvious that Starship will be ready for Artemis 3. The first Starship Prototype was launched in 2019. If you assume that they started development in 2018 (Musk has proto starship slides as early as 2011), then it is actually as much behind as SLS, which had to delay its planned launch after five years.

panick21_ 3y ago
> I don't know why you are being downvoted. Because a launch is a launch, successful or not. Claiming they are behind SLS is kind of crazy. SLS was supposed to launch in 2017 initially. SLS was a creation of a 2011 Congress Act and of course SLS did not develop any of its own engines and is reusing lots of exiting parts and infrastructure. SLS also had absolutely gigantic amount of money when eating about 2.5 billion $ a year for 10+ years and will eat much much more before its first operational flight. SpaceX in comparison was not able to spend even 1/4 for most of Starships development, by now they are getting into the billions per year but that took a while. SLS is also just a far simpler design, basically a slightly adopted Detla 4 Upper Stage, while Starship is basically highly complex new reusable upper stage design.

panick21_ 3y ago

Of course it is 'a launch'. It just not a successful one. Its the most powerful rocket that ever launched. Period. There is really no discussion on this. Just like the N1 was the most powerful before (by thrust at least if I remember correctly) before. It also was not successful. Just getting to the point of launching a rocket like that, having 33 engines like that is a huge achievement.

maxerickson 3y ago
It seems perfectly reasonable to define "launch" of a rocket as payload to orbit, or perhaps following the intended trajectory. The applicable definition from whatever dictionary Google uses is "send (a missile, satellite, or spacecraft) on its course or into orbit." I guess they did send it on a course.
- signatoremo 3y ago
  There was no payload on the first Starship flight. > The applicable definition from whatever dictionary Google uses is "send (a missile, satellite, or spacecraft) on its course or into orbit." So dictionary is used now to decide if an operation a launch or not? Are you for real?
  - maxerickson 3y ago
    It was certainly an attempted launch. Attempting to launch the largest rocket in history is different than launching the largest rocket in history. Of course the dictionary doesn't decide anything, but they are often consulted when discussing the meanings of words. You could say they have gotten quite far in testing the largest rocket in history, but the end result of their most significant test to date was a loss of the vessel, it didn't launch into orbit.
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    In Starship case, the whole upper stage is the payload. As it was designed to be a second stage reentry test. They likely had some soft of test weight in the starship as well. > So dictionary is used now to decide if an operation a launch or not? Are you for real? I'm not sure what your hangup is, nobody said anything about operational. If you show 1 million people a video of the Starship launching, all those people would call it a launch. If it was operational or successful has nothing to do with anything.