Starship liftoff planned for Thursday, April 20
- Thread starter Snagglefoot
- Start date
A SpaceX engineer had said that success would be having the rocket clear the launch tower.
I’ve heard that said today, but the plan was for the booster to return under its own power and land gently on the ocean (then tip over and sink). Then StarShip was going to fly around the earth and crash-land just north of Hawaii.
Seems the Elon cultists have rewritten the script after-the-fact.
https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/20230414_Starship_ReEvaluationEA.pdf
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It wasn’t Elon that said that.I’ve heard that said today, but the plan was for the booster to return under its own power and land gently on the ocean (then tip over and sink). Then StarShip was going to fly around the earth and crash-land just north of Hawaii.
Seems the Elon cultists have rewritten the script after-the-fact.
Cultists? Odd.
Here’s the flight plan, straight from the FAA. Just “Clearing the tower” was never the plan.
https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/20230414_Starship_ReEvaluationEA.pdf
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while that was the plan, and apparently a full plan must be filed, staff had said prior to launch that just clearing the tower would be a success. A fair point and probably with some truth, but also some hedging of bets.
These things happen when you push limits....and there will probably be more failures on the way to success.
wemay
Site Donor 2023
I believe Musk hinted at this being the first step, not expecting much more than what we got. Steps in the right direction.
That wasn't one of their engineers, it was one of their PR people speaking at a press conference afterwards. If the rocket had blown up on the pad, I'm sure their PR people would still have said that it was a success because the engines ignited. Well, at least one of them anyway.
The huge number of engines (33 of them IIRC) for one thing. That's a 33x increase in the risk of a catastrophic failure and that's much too risky in the minds of most safety oriented people. NASA was worried when they used 5 engines on the Saturn V in 1969. The Space Shuttle had a number of launch aborts due to engine failures and/or insufficient thrust and that only used three main engines.
It would be like making the world's biggest car and strapping in 33 lawn mower engines and launching it down the back stretch of Daytona. And then claiming that it was a success because it crossed the Starting Line.
You should Google it. Space travel is hard; rockets explode regularly. There is only so much you can test. And this was one big rocket!
Brilliant, terrific success for the 1st launch of booster 7 / stacked Starship. The much improved booster 9 will launch in approx. 2 months. Multi engined rockets may be able to launch with some engines out, as we saw today. More fuel can be pushed through the working engines, or, ascend with reduced thrust (lower acceleration). If this launch had lower acceleration, that could have contributed to losing more engines from debris. It did seem very slow moving off and clearing the tower. Seeing the rocket ascending with 5 or 6 engines dead, what a stunning sight.
Based on what I have read so far:
Engine damage likely caused by debris on lift off (concrete). Water deluge system not fully implemented (and that was ok because this booster is older technology already, they just wanted to get it launched and not delayed for the water system)
Failure of stage separation - HPU problem? (hydraulic power unit)
Rocket intentionally blown up after it did not separate (standard operating procedure, to prevent intact rocket from falling back to ocean/earth)
Huge kudos to the NASA/Apollo program for doing what they did with 1960's technology and 5 huge engines. This is incredibly difficult to do.
Based on what I have read so far:
Engine damage likely caused by debris on lift off (concrete). Water deluge system not fully implemented (and that was ok because this booster is older technology already, they just wanted to get it launched and not delayed for the water system)
Failure of stage separation - HPU problem? (hydraulic power unit)
Rocket intentionally blown up after it did not separate (standard operating procedure, to prevent intact rocket from falling back to ocean/earth)
Huge kudos to the NASA/Apollo program for doing what they did with 1960's technology and 5 huge engines. This is incredibly difficult to do.
Never said you did.
I just don’t believe any engineer at SpaceX truly thought that was a great outcome, or a successful test.
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Yep. Too bad. Try, try again.
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