https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/spacex-starship-rocket-reaches-key-milestone-then-explodes
Starship is a key part of NASA’s crewed lunar missions, and with government support, SpaceX is pushing its new experimental rocket to the limit.
As much as I really really hate that asshole, this was a success. The hot staging technically worked and the Starship got to space. Iterate on the booster top heat management and fix whatever went wrong with Starship and it will be fine.
It actually is, and it worked pretty well in this case. The first launch was pretty pre mature, they could have gotten more data out of if they had taken a little more time. But this one was pretty much the sweet spot of getting into the interesting parts of fight, but not waiting for diminishing returns.
Yes. Like, they literally corrected everything that went wrong in the first test. And it only took 7 months.
launch pad blown to shreds -> fully intact water suppression system
Engines exploding on takeoff -> all engines on both the booster and ship operational on first ignition
stage separation failed -> HOT staging successful
Self-destruct system didn't destruct fast enough -> self destruct happened immediately
The next launch will probably focus on the fail points of this launch. That is, re-lighting the engines on the booster after turnaround. And whatever caused the starship to go off course (?) and activate the self-destruct.
meanwhile Boeing discovers some valves were stuck, takes half a year to fix it only to discover they're still stuck, gonna need another half a year... oh wait, we took too long trying to fix it, we gotta completely replace them, that'll be another year...
He's using the same strategy with the app formerly known as Twitter. Only there, he's really testing every wrong path.
Rocketry is kinda different. Testing to failure can be very useful, and if you have the resources to throw at it repeatedly, can let you iterate much faster.
You can only pick two:
NASA usually picks quality… and nothing else. SpaceX picked speed and quality.
Fuck Musk, first and foremost, but this flight has been a success, they have successfully separated the booster which was very cool to see.
What happens next?
A rich asshole keeps raping the corpse of TRW in hopes of becoming a land baron of LEO activity. All while America’s gov lets him, cause capitalism and a fear of possible overreach (aka no real ethical guidance) means he’s too rich to be touched.
All while the internet gets flooded with hate speech, the skies ruined by satellite constellations, the soil polluted from rockets that can’t even reach orbit (despite nasa’s previous progress) and that’s not even counting the gemstone mining… etc.
I mean... They invented reusable rockets.
Edit: they invented the first reusable liquid-fueled rockets and the first rockets that can autonomously land themselves. NASA used reusable solid rocket boosters on the space shuttle that would deploy parachutes and land in the ocean. Getting a solid rocket booster back into a reusable state seems like a lot of work to me.
I mean, just basic research would answer this for you. But I'll start you off with an easy one. The SRB on shuttle launches was reusable. Now go forth and look up rocket history.
Sure, fishing a burning bucket out of the ocean is the same as an actual rocket that lands by itself and just needs to be refueled.
It depends how you define your terms. The parts were disassembled, cleaned, inspected, and reassembled. That's not what most people think of as reusable, more like refurbishable. And anyway, they didn't save any cost or time doing that vs building new ones, hence why SLS is using them as single use.
It doesn't depend on how I define my terms. It was reused. You literally just fucking said it was reused. What you just described is the exact definition of what everyone considers reused. This is such a stupid conversation to have, and only the SpaceX sense are the ones that ever want to have it.
Also, because you don't seem to know anything about anything, what you described is exactly what SpaceX does. How the fuck did you get this so wrong?
SpaceX did all the inspections for a falcon 9 booster in 9 days. No way they did a full rebuild in that time.
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-falcon-9-new-booster-turnaround-record-21-days/
The shuttle SRB's were really only reusable in the same sense that the engine from a wrecked car can be removed, stripped to a bare block, bored out, rebuilt, and placed into a new car is reusable. Hard to say exactly how long it took to turn around SRB segments, but just the rail transport between Utah and Florida was 12 days each way. SpaceX has turned around Falcon 9 boosters in under a month.
And even with all of that, the most reused reusable segments barely flew a dozen times. There is one Falcon 9 first stage that has now flown 18 times.
You're not wrong about parts having been reused in the past but the scale of what has been done before really doesn't compare to what SpaceX does now.
Looks like you also need to review the publicly available NASA documentation for refurbishment.
They created reusable rockets. Lots and lots of concepts on the drawing board, but theirs was unique and the first one to get made.
Creating isn't inventing, and there's wasn't the first to be flown. Man, the SpaceX fans don't really know the history of the industry they make these claims about.
You referring to the DC-X subscale tech demonstrator?
I think inventing is a less well defined term, since anyone with a napkin can claim to invent something to a very low fidelity. The details are the hard part, not the idea itself. So that's why I specified created, since that is inventing to a very high level of fidelity.
I've had experience with Musk Fans in the past. They all read from the same script, including the "I don't even like Musk" lie.
Given that time and money I bet NASA could have that and made ones that don't blow up every test.
LOL... NASA has existed for many more decades than Spacex has. The Spacex Falcon rocket is possibly the most reliable rocket available today, launches payloads more often than any other rocket and it's much cheaper than its competitors. You're comparing a brand new rocket design to other, thoroughly tested rockets that have had many iterations. This was literally the second flight of this rocket, they were expecting it to fail.
Maybe if you weren't so blinded by your need to be edgy, you would see the accomplishments SpaceX has made. Starship is not even close to being completed. It blowing up and failing are expected at this stage.
Given time and money, I'm sure Bob Jones could make a reusable rocket in his back garage. It would just take a lot of both. SpaceX is good at making a lot of progress with little time and money.