I watched this video when it first came out (if you're not following Grady both his channel and recent book are excellent) and I think this part was particularly well put:
> That’s the nature of SpaceX and why many find them so exciting. Unlike NASA that spends years in planning and engineering, SpaceX uses rapid development cycles and full-scale tests to work toward their eventual goals. They push their hardware to the limit to learn as much as possible, and we get to follow along. They’re betting it will pay off to develop fast instead of carefully.
> But this wasn’t just a test of the hardware. It was also a test of federal regulations and the good graces of the people who live, work, play, and care about the Boca Chica area. And, SpaceX definitely pushed those limits as well with their first orbital test.
I think these comments are just because of Elon hate. There are literally a total of 9 residents in Boca Chica who are likely just staying because they like to watch spacex. And FAA violation was largely a myth spewed by newspapers to cater to same audience. The investigation from FAA was normal procedure for any incident like this.
In 2020, David Finlay, SpaceX’s Senior Director of Finance trying to kick out Boca Chica Village residents : 'the scale and frequency of spaceflight activities at the site continue to accelerate, your property will frequently fall within established hazard zones in which no civilians will be permitted to remain'
The article also mentions environmental damage to nearby wetlands and a fire starting in a state park. Whilst immediate risk to life may have been low, the damage to the natural environment is very real.
Sounds like the same techbro idiocy that got people killed just the other week.
Rush replied four days later, saying that he had “grown
tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument
to stop innovation and new entrants from entering their
small existing market.” He understood that his approach
“flies in the face of the submersible orthodoxy, but that is
the nature of innovation,” he wrote. “We have heard the
baseless cries of ‘you are going to kill someone’ way too
often. I take this as a serious personal insult.”
SpaceX has never had a human fatality so far, not even among the ground crew, which is a lot better than the Apollo or the Space Shuttle program, or even some smaller space startups like Scaled Composites. It is typical for large engineering enterprises to rack up fatalities over time, but SpaceX stands at 0 after existing for 21 years, which is actually a remarkable achievement. Of course, they were lucky sometimes; but so were the others in the list.
SpaceX's development program is explosive, but I see no evidence that they are "techbro idiots" who risk actual human lives. The stuff that explodes is remotely controlled hardware, and I am personally fine with that. You can't have rapid technological development with at least some negative externalities.
Ahhh the future. In which techbros idiots whining about regulations and then make mistakes that kill people or leave them with no money. This is why we can't have nice things
No, this is just like the Space Shuttle and OceanGate. Surprises (likely fatal) will keep popping up in this rocket until the day it’s taken out of service, because it’s just thrown together.
That part wasn't well put, it was absurd techbro bullshit. Developing fast instead of carefully works if you're making a ride hailing app or a takeout ordering app or a social network. It absolutely doesn't if you're building a rocket.
If Uber experiences a catastrophic failure, some people might end up earning less money, some people might be late or miss important events. If a rocket experiences a catastrophic failure, debris may destroy the environment around it (as it did) and people on board may die (as they would have if there were any).
You're ranting at the development approach of the company that runs the safest rocket ever flown. Heck, at 130 consecutive successful landings, their first stage touches down more reliably than most rockets have ever flown.
You do realize this 100% worked with the Falcon 9 right? Nearly all things launching into space soon use the F9 to get to orbit and the bottom stage failed to land so much it was a meme until they eventually got it to work. This style of development totally works for aerospace as long as you make sure that the worst happening isn’t that bad. They failed to do that here but otherwise this development strategy is totally fine.
Also this rocket isn’t going to be human rated for a very long time, neither NASA or SpaceX are going to put people in it until it’s done a ton of cargo missions
"There was no payload; this was a test flight with the goal of gathering data not just on the rocket, but all the various systems involved."
I'm out of aerospace for about 15 years and only worked there as a junior engineer, so take this with a grain of salt:
There is always a payload. You could not just launch a rocket with an empty payload fairing. The payload dummies used are not only trimmed for appropriate mass and COG but also for the proper frequency response.
I know this, because as a young engineer I did the FE-models of the MaqSat (H2 and B2 IIRC) dummies for the Ariane 5 and spent days trimming their frequency responses.
I think you're taking it too literally. It's meant to convey the meaning of "Delivering a payload wasn't the goal, testing the rocket and all associated systems was the goal".
It seems to be the standard for internet discussions: if there's the slightest caveat to something that someone wrote, even if the meaning should be obvious to a reader from the context, someone else will take the time to point out that caveat.
(As someone who doesn't require absolute precision in all things) I find myself often wondering why. To feel smart? Argumentitiveness? A deep psychological need for precision?
That load doesn't pay though, it's a dummy load. You are talking about mass, the article, if we allow a little more leeway to the term "payload" than the strictest monetary sense, was talking about purpose and the purpose was certainly not to get ballast to Hawaii.
That aside, I presume those frequency responses are not on the electromagnetic spectrum but about mechanical resonance? Was that a process to make the dummy better resemble whatever real payload it was supposed to represent or was that something that simply needs to be done for any load, dummy or not? An interesting little glimpse into what actual rocket science is like for us clueless software-heads.
Yes, mechanical vibrations was what I was talking about, but of course there are also requirements regarding the electromagnetic environment.
Every payload has to be matched to the spectrum of the carrier. For the MAQSATs is was just easier than usual, because of their simplicity. The Ariane 5 Users's manual is actually public[1] and you can look up the actual requirements in Chapter 3, if you are curious.
Thanks for pointing this out. From the phrasing in the article, I assumed it flew indeed empty, just as an aircraft can and frequently does in fact fly without payload (and by that I mean without pax and cargo, whether or not someone paid for it or not).
Starship might not have a real payload at all because in theory it’s only payload is people inside it so it might just have a bunch of mass dummies distributed where they expect weight to be when they build the interior in the future
Looking at the clip of the huge amounts of debris being blasted into the sea and the damage done to tanks. Plus the cloud of sand that covered a town 6 miles away - the answer must be yes:
I am generally bullish on SpaceX, and I'm quick to forgive mistakes in flight - engines, avionics, control systems, etc - that shit is difficult.
But the pad failing is indefensible. Any engineer on staff should have been able to see that as a problem, and if they were over ruled by executives then they have serious problems ahead.
Yes they know the problem, we for sure know Elon himself did know the problem, they went ahead with it anyway. They don't care if they damage some wetlands or create large dust clouds or similar, they simply write it off as a fine which they expect to not affect them in a major way.
I wonder whether there' a reason behind all of this that they absolutely cannot share, perhaps related to the challanges and delays they experienced with the environmental assessment in '22? Maybe that they calculated they'd be better overall taking the hit on the pad in the short term and just getting that (already superceded) rocket launched, rather than opting for yet more bureaucratic delays?
That's what I believe too. They knew it wouldn't be great, and instead of waiting to get it perfect they decide to test the rocket anyway. I doubt they expected the damage they had, but that's why you test, so you know.
I'm not sure how "bad" it was if it also had the noise suppression system (read: a crapload amount of water being pumped into it) and a flame deflection system maybe
They're working without precedent and I don't blame them for wanting to go for it in a full scale test. I don't know if you read the article, but the author, a civil engineer, makes the case that SpaceX deliberately went without a real pad just to see how bad the damage would be. They're planning to use a radically different pad for the next launch: a steel plate upsidedown showerhead with water spraying out.
That will push water directly opposite of the thrust. I expect the water to be pushed backwards, the plate to melt and the exaust to be pushed into the water tank and maybe we will see a steam explosion.
There is a reason flame diverters are diverters instead of blockers. It's much much easier to just throw the exaust to the side instead of trying to fight it head on. Don't try to use force to block it, put a 45 degree angle and use geometry and physics to your advantage.
If they really want to experiment with unconventional solutions they could make a small scale test with a spent F9 and see if the idea is feasible. For what it's worth, even the F9 uses a flame diverter trench.
I get why they don't want to. It probably means modifying the tower too, probably to make it taller. But I foresee this shower head plate going badly.
It's not "without precedent" - they want to ignore the precedent and the entire concept of careful engineering for the sake of going fast (i.e. less money spent on step-by-step experiments). I think this is as irresponsible as the Titanic submarine. Hardware is not software.
If that is true, it's dangerously irresponsible, both to the protected environment they make their base in, and to themselves in terms of regulatory risks they are exposing themselves to.
It's quite likely that the launch will mean they have to litigate for their right to even keep using the Boca Chica site, given that both locals and environmental protection organizations are now aiming for their guts.
Welcome to anything Musk? Like the newly uncovered “gas” pedal issues affecting all Teslas, that were repeatedly shrugged off as user error, until an independent group found the issue for them?
I am a fan of SpaceX, but I doubt we'll see another test in 2023, and at their pace they are ~5-10 "tests" from having a usable rocket. Starship is still 5+ years away.
And I'm hoping to ship my product in a month, even though we've already put in half a year and have loosely connected backend, frontend, servers and clients, most of which are barely a prototype.
Guess it depends on how you see things. I'd say it was up to SpaceX and they fucked up so badly that yeah, now they're gonna have to wait a long time to do another test, if FAA properly do their job and require more from them.
The failure of the flight safety system is a major screwup. I wouldn't want to be the person who has to talk to the FAA about it. Personally I'm not holding my breath for the next attempt.
How? They clearly have no launch pad system that can survive the back-blast. Unless they just trash another launch pad risking another rocket to debris damage.
I’m curious why stage zero isn’t at the end of a wharf with just good old ocean under it? You might still pump water as well, but why not start in a more supportive configuration?
I’m reminded of all the secondary and tertiary pump systems that go into traditional PWR/BWR nuclear reactor designs because at all costs you most keep water flowing over the core. And then when they did the newer SBWR/APWR designs someone said “uh, I got an idea, let’s just make the upper floors of these things massive water tanks and then, ya know, gravity”
More practically for Starship, I think one problem with the wharf idea is that you need to get a 5000t rocket there. Not unsolvable, but expensive.
In fact, the problem isn't that making a launch pad that is able to withstand the thrust of Starship is impossible, they could have simply copied the Saturn V launch pad design. But the Saturn V launch pad design is (intentionally, for historical reasons) way overbuilt and expensive, prompting SpaceX to attempt a more economical solution.
I have no idea how the physics work here. Does it take more energy to launch against water than solid ground, since the water gives way? is there an equivalent to the "ground effect" in rockets?
Readit News
> That’s the nature of SpaceX and why many find them so exciting. Unlike NASA that spends years in planning and engineering, SpaceX uses rapid development cycles and full-scale tests to work toward their eventual goals. They push their hardware to the limit to learn as much as possible, and we get to follow along. They’re betting it will pay off to develop fast instead of carefully.
> But this wasn’t just a test of the hardware. It was also a test of federal regulations and the good graces of the people who live, work, play, and care about the Boca Chica area. And, SpaceX definitely pushed those limits as well with their first orbital test.
No-one mentioned Elon Musk, yet you're pre-emptively getting defensive on his behalf.
Hasn't SpaceX tried to buy the whole village to avoid any kind of lawsuit happening after those kind of incidents?
SpaceX's development program is explosive, but I see no evidence that they are "techbro idiots" who risk actual human lives. The stuff that explodes is remotely controlled hardware, and I am personally fine with that. You can't have rapid technological development with at least some negative externalities.
Dead Comment
If Uber experiences a catastrophic failure, some people might end up earning less money, some people might be late or miss important events. If a rocket experiences a catastrophic failure, debris may destroy the environment around it (as it did) and people on board may die (as they would have if there were any).
With all due respect, it obviously does work; on account of the Falcon 9 rocket being the safest (and cheapest, given its capability) rocket ever.
> debris may destroy the environment around it
"Destroy the environment" invokes some rather grandiose associations for what is essentially pulverizing a steel tube in the middle of nowhere.
> and people on board may die
Perhaps you have missed the part where those tests are conducted with the explicit intention of figuring out failure modes.
SpaceX Crew Dragon is "one of two U.S. human-rated orbital transport spacecraft". This is a result of the same developmental process.
Also this rocket isn’t going to be human rated for a very long time, neither NASA or SpaceX are going to put people in it until it’s done a ton of cargo missions
NASA human fatalities: 15
It's almost as if there's benefit to running iterative tests to get real-world data. Who would've thought
I'm out of aerospace for about 15 years and only worked there as a junior engineer, so take this with a grain of salt:
There is always a payload. You could not just launch a rocket with an empty payload fairing. The payload dummies used are not only trimmed for appropriate mass and COG but also for the proper frequency response.
I know this, because as a young engineer I did the FE-models of the MaqSat (H2 and B2 IIRC) dummies for the Ariane 5 and spent days trimming their frequency responses.
http://astronautix.com/m/maqsat.html
(As someone who doesn't require absolute precision in all things) I find myself often wondering why. To feel smart? Argumentitiveness? A deep psychological need for precision?
That aside, I presume those frequency responses are not on the electromagnetic spectrum but about mechanical resonance? Was that a process to make the dummy better resemble whatever real payload it was supposed to represent or was that something that simply needs to be done for any load, dummy or not? An interesting little glimpse into what actual rocket science is like for us clueless software-heads.
Every payload has to be matched to the spectrum of the carrier. For the MAQSATs is was just easier than usual, because of their simplicity. The Ariane 5 Users's manual is actually public[1] and you can look up the actual requirements in Chapter 3, if you are curious.
[1] https://www.arianespace.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Arian...
Really, I do appreciate people like you who do not abstain from explain things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EsqMLT0Hzw&t=74s
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/04/spacex-s...
But the pad failing is indefensible. Any engineer on staff should have been able to see that as a problem, and if they were over ruled by executives then they have serious problems ahead.
This issue was a measured known risk for the team/leadership
https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/12tapz0/elon_...
(Total speculation, of course)
There is a reason flame diverters are diverters instead of blockers. It's much much easier to just throw the exaust to the side instead of trying to fight it head on. Don't try to use force to block it, put a 45 degree angle and use geometry and physics to your advantage.
If they really want to experiment with unconventional solutions they could make a small scale test with a spent F9 and see if the idea is feasible. For what it's worth, even the F9 uses a flame diverter trench.
I get why they don't want to. It probably means modifying the tower too, probably to make it taller. But I foresee this shower head plate going badly.
It's not "without precedent" - they want to ignore the precedent and the entire concept of careful engineering for the sake of going fast (i.e. less money spent on step-by-step experiments). I think this is as irresponsible as the Titanic submarine. Hardware is not software.
It's quite likely that the launch will mean they have to litigate for their right to even keep using the Boca Chica site, given that both locals and environmental protection organizations are now aiming for their guts.
Deleted Comment
[0]: https://youtu.be/xfFhKqGrNYg
I’m reminded of all the secondary and tertiary pump systems that go into traditional PWR/BWR nuclear reactor designs because at all costs you most keep water flowing over the core. And then when they did the newer SBWR/APWR designs someone said “uh, I got an idea, let’s just make the upper floors of these things massive water tanks and then, ya know, gravity”
More practically for Starship, I think one problem with the wharf idea is that you need to get a 5000t rocket there. Not unsolvable, but expensive.
In fact, the problem isn't that making a launch pad that is able to withstand the thrust of Starship is impossible, they could have simply copied the Saturn V launch pad design. But the Saturn V launch pad design is (intentionally, for historical reasons) way overbuilt and expensive, prompting SpaceX to attempt a more economical solution.