https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/spacex-raptor-engine-test-explosion
A SpaceX Raptor engine, designed for the Starship rocket, exploded during a test. The incident raises concerns about the future of Starship.
Musk probably can’t get the good Kosher pickles anymore because he’s been promoting Nazis on Twitter.
Actually I remember when it was still “elite” and it meant you had access to the warez section of a BBS.
the explosion, which took place at its Boca Chica Starbase facilities
The raptor testing stand at McGregor experienced an anomaly
Well, which is it? I'm going to trust NASASpaceflight over this article and go with it was a McGregor. No where near Starbase. And that means it will likely have no effect on IFT4 as this article says.
edit: Adding to this, the author of this article has no idea what they are talking about.
The Raptor engines that are currently undergoing testing are SpaceX’s Raptor 2 engines
So clearly nothing to do with IFT4, as Ship 29 and Booster 11 are already outfitted with their engines, non of which are Raptor 2s.
On its last flight test, IFT-3, Starship finally reached orbital velocity and it soared around Earth before crashing down into the Indian Ocean. On the next flight, SpaceX aims to perform a reentry burn, allowing Starship to perform a soft landing in the ocean.
IFT3 burned up on reentry, maybe parts of it made it to the ocean, but it was not crashing into the ocean that was the problem. IFT4 does not plan on doing a reentry burn. No one does a reentry burn from orbit. Starship uses a heat shield like every other orbital space craft. They are planning to attempt a landing burn, that is probably what they are talking about.
It waw McGregor. And while the explosion was spectacular, it happened on the test stand, so not much damage was done actually.
Yeah anyone following space YouTube has seen this a dozen times already and knows that it was a deflagration likely due to busted lines and not a detonation. The test stand is likely undamaged (In anysignificant way at least) and it was just an engine test of likely raptor 2 design. This has nothing to do with IFT4 or starbase as far as we can tell.
Indeed. We don't know the conditions of the test. Maybe it was running the engines through a simulated flight. Or they were testing the engine in different failure modes to see if it shuts itself down or takes care of the problem correctly. Or they were doing a deliberate test to failure where a RUD is the expected result.
Seriously!
OMG THE SPACEX ENGINE BLEW UP.
Brother yeah, it's a ground up redesign. It's brand new. Shit breaks. This article is a big fat nothing burger. and other comments on here being like SEE SPACEX IS DOG SHIT.... Just telling the world how uninformed they are with no regard for their own dignity lmao
But the headline promised me a "massive explosion" and I'm only reacting to those words. Didn't read the article, nor did I watch the video to see what actually happened.
"Down with Musk!"
Just to be pedantic:
IFT 3 was a suborbital flight, so... either it did not reach orbital velocity, or the upper stage careened so wildly out of control that it borked it.
Its kind of confusing as in the live stream of it they keep saying the phrase orbital velocity, reached orbit, but also say it was intended to be a suborbital flight.
Edit: Yeah as best I can tell it was not even intended to be an orbital flight. https://x.com/planet4589/status/1765586241934983320
Also, the lower stage crashed into the ocean at around mach 2, so maybe that is what they are referring to? Looked like many of the engines did not relight, in addition to significant instability as it traversed back through the atmosphere.
Also also, the 're entry' burn may be referring to attempting to relight the engines while in space? You are probably correct that they mean the landing burn / belly flop???
Edit 2: If they intend to do a suborbital flight, but also reach orbital velocity, this would entail a trajectory leading to a fairly steep descent path, which could need a ... basically a pre reentry burn, to lessen velocity and/or change the descent path to something more shallow.
Its pretty hard to tell actual info about these Starship flights, partially because SpaceX outright lies during their live feeds, is tight lipped about other things, and many sources of coverage are often confused and/or simping for Musk.
One last thing: Does... Starship, the upper stage... even have monopropellant thrusters, or gyros, or anything for out of atmosphere orientation adjustments?
From the IFT3 vid it seemed like either no, or they malfunctioned.
IFT3 was technically suborbital, but only barely. Like a couple hundred km/h short. Literally a couple of seconds longer second stage burn would have put it into a stable orbit. Or the same velocity just with a lower apogee. They intentionally left the perigee just inside the atmosphere so a deorbit burn was not required. This is also the plan for IFT4, iirc. I think they are talking about the bellyflop/suicide burn. It was not planned on IFT3, but is for IFT4.
Both the booster and the ship have attitude control thrusters that you could see firing during the live stream of IFT3. Early prototypes used nitrogen cold-gas thrusters, but were planned to be upgraded to methane/oxygen hot-gas thrusters at some point. I don't recall if/when they were.
Just to further clarify this...
They did the suborbital thing because they wanted to ensure it came in over the ocean.
If they went orbital, and anything went wrong, they'd have lost control of where it would deorbit and land, potentially putting people at risk.
So sure the rocket did not reach orbit.
No one with even a pinch of knowledge on the topic would ever try to dispute they could have if they wanted.
It was for our saftey that they didn't.
IFT3 began to tumble shortly after launch, at least before they opened the "door" where it was obvious. The tumble may have been caused by a leak, and the "reentry" was simply a chaotic mess where the engine(s) began to burn up in the atmosphere, and it was absolutely 100% out of control.
IFT3 finished most of the goals that had been set for that test flight. It was highly successful and they learned a lot that is being applied to IFT4.
The re-entry burn is the burn to slow down your spacecraft below orbital speeds, initiating re-entry.
Every spacecraft that wants to land back on earth after orbiting it needs to do a re-entry burn.
The only exception, theoretically, are spacecraft that return from outside earth's orbit. They could in theory re-enter by steering towards the atmosphere at the right angle. I don't know if they actually do that in practice or slow down to orbital speeds first, though.
What you're talking about is usually referred to as a de-orbit burn. Sure somebody could call it a reentry burn, but not SpaceX. What SpaceX calls a reentry burn is the maneuver when a Falcon 9 booster lights its engines as it first hits the atmosphere to slow down and move the heating away from it's body. Neither the super heavy booster nor the ship make a maneuver like this.
IFT3 did not make a de-orbit burn, and there is not one planned for IFT4 either.
Thanks for the correction and clarification. Looks like I'll have to return my degree from KSP academy.
Okay? It was on a test stand. That's what test stands are for. Isn't stuff like this almost a weekly occurrence for them?
I imagine they don't necessarily always fail explosively. I don't know how often this stuff actually happens.
A year or two ago they were blowing one up every month or so. They've become more rare recently as they've dialed in the engines.
I don’t know how frequent it is, but the important point is the attitude that test failures can be ok. I don’t know if this one is, but yes there’s a pattern ….
Instead of being so risk averse that you take years and billions extra doing your best to create one of a kind hardware trying be perfect (NASA/Boeing), SpaceX builds many copies, iterate, test frequently, learn from failures. This approach seemed to have worked extremely well for previous rockets, so I’m still cheering them on.
Even just consider this test - the fact that they’re trying to build a rocket engine every week with the goal of automating the process well enough to have high confidence in them, can test it without the rocket, can build a rocket and attach engines later, can use a rocket and replace a failed engine. If this modular approach comes together this is huge!
...what? SpaceX is years behind schedule for delivering crewed space flight to NASA. US tax payers have had to cough up billions of dollars for seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to at least be able to get to space somehow in the meantime.
Iterating and failing is okay, but SpaceX has neither been faster nor cheaper in doing so than NASA's original moon landing program.
SpaceX is years behind schedule for delivering crewed space flight to NASA
You are a few years behind the times yourself. SpaceX first flew crew to the ISS in 2020, and have flown 8 more crewed missions for NASA since then, as well as a few private missions.
Boeing (the other commercial crew contractor) has yet to fly a single human :)
Okay? It was on a test stand.
Test Pad, it was on a test pad.
The footage shows SpaceX’s engine test pad going up in flame.
The reason they use test pads is that iPads are too expensive.
No, it was a test stand at the McGregor rocket testing facility, it wasn't even at Boca chica (the place where all the finished rockets are launched from). This is not a big deal and won't affect their schedule at all.
Weekly explosions on a test pad? No. None of the integrated tests have exploded on the pad. (Edit: like this one, which did)
The last starship on the pad was mid March. It made it up, but fell apart during reentry. Before that, IFT 2 was in Nov 23, and the exploded 8 min up. IFT 1 was over a year ago, and that only made it 4 min after lift off.
Like you say, nobody is making this explosion out to be a deadly emergency but it also probably doesn't inspire confidence when the company fails so much more often than it succeeds. Starship engines have been "unexpectedly" exploding for years.
Fails more often than it succeeds? That's... not even close to accurate.
They've already had more than 50 successful missions this year.
Testing doesn't count as a failure, it counts as test data.
I don't think exploding was part of the test. I don't think being investigated by the FAA in 2020 for failure to listen to warnings about unintended shockwave damage was part of their tests. I don't think losing an entire rocket to a booster explosion last year was part of the test.
I think their tests are throwing things at the stainless steel wall and hoping it sticks.
Yeah, we've got ongoing mars missions and revived transport of facilities even to the moon. Right? We have, right?
Hey, how did the dearMoon mission turn out? We kind of stopped hearing about that, huh.
I tell you what, you're absolutely right that he helped industry. Not any of the people who work in the industry, mind you.
This is dumb. SpaceX is launching over a hundred times per year. PER YEAR. Dear Moon was always a long term goal for anyone in the science community they understood it will never happen before 2030. The large launch quantity has helped reduce launch costs and has enabled small sat launches aka cubesats. Universities can now launch things to space because the launch costs are so low. So your statement that it hasn't helped anyone is patently false. You just have a raging boner against SpaceX, but you are incredibly uninformed. You can either continue in your delusion or see that SpaceX is actually good for the industry, universities, knowledge, and technology over all. That is all. Have a good life, or continue being a miserable hater. Whatever
Remember when the FAA investigated SpaceX's violation of it's launch license over them ignoring warnings of worsening shockwave damage after their botched SN8 landing?
Pepperidge Farms Remembers.
Good lord, everyone please learn a tiny bit about spacex and the state of the space industry instead of letting your (justified) hatred of Elon do the typing.
I dont see whynanyone's surprised, anything Elon is touchung is tainted by association. It's not rocket science.
You're right, Elon Musk being associated with a company is negative. And what SpaceX has accomplished despite that association is truly impressive.
I think around here most people agree that billionaires don't earn their billions, they reach that point having benefited from the efforts of thousands of workers. So why don't we recognize those people's work? Somehow, SpaceX has managed to avoid the meddling that we see from Musk in relation to Twitter and Tesla.
Before SpaceX the U.S. was reliant on Russia's soyuz to get us to and from the space station. We didn't have anything that could launch people into orbit.
Before SpaceX we were launching single use rockets built by companies like United Launch Alliance (ULA), which was founded as a joint venture between defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing. (They're still around and still for the most part suck)
And before SpaceX the cost to do anything in space was extremely prohibitive. NASA didn't and still doesn't really build their own rockets, they contract out, and the contracts had been cost-plus, meaning ULA got an agreed on profit plus expenses. So if the schedule slipped on development or development cost more than expected, they actually make more money. There wasn't much of a private market in space.
With SpaceX they created re-usable rocket components, re-established a U.S. sourced crew capsule, and using fixed price contracts they reduced the cost of launch by an order of magnitude. And by publishing fixed prices to get into space, they pretty much by themselves kicked off the private space economy. SpaceX launches more frequently than any other company, and more than any nation.
And they did all that with a better safety record than previous programs! I can't speak to this particular explosion, but SpaceX has taken an approach where they create new designs quickly, and test them quickly with the potential for explosions, before they put humans at risk on a live launch.
Elon Musk didn't do all that, the people at SpaceX did. And if anything I'm concerned about the point when he gets tired of fucking up twitter and tesla and turns his attention to SpaceX. I'm hoping the national security aspect of the company will mean responsible adults prevent him from interfering.
And before SpaceX the cost to do anything in space was extremely prohibitive.
As opposed to now..
With SpaceX they created re-usable rocket components
Nobody had done that before? Wasn't the promise that they would do few quick checks, refuel, and send it back up same day?
Before SpaceX the U.S. was reliant on Russia’s soyuz to get us to and from the space station.
Nasa had do use Soyuz because crew dragon was late. SpaceX won the contract then underdelivered a late product. Basically exactly what ULA or Boeing would have done.
Wanna talk about Artemis?
Meaning no disrespect, it's clear from your response you're not familiar with space history. And that was my point - a lot of people are jumping in here and making negative comments just because of the Musk association without knowing or caring about the reality.
The space shuttle (the U.S.' s previous manned "reusable" vehicle) was retired in 2011, and the Crew Dragon was ready in about 2020. NASA was not forced to use Soyuz because of a delay in the Crew Dragon, it was because the Space Shuttle had two previous fatal disasters, was way more expensive than planned, and would be even more expensive to keep running. I didn't know this until looking at the wikipedia just now, but early safety estimates put the chance of catastrophic failure and death of the crew between 1 in 100 to as low as 1 in 100,000. After those two disasters they re-evaluated and put the risk as high as 1 in 9.
NASA was willing to take a chance on other contracts for commercial vehicles because it had no other options. It awarded contracts both to SpaceX and ULA. The first is doing dozens of uncrewed launches per year and has flown 12 crewed missions. The other is doing like 3 launches per year, has yet to fly Starliner with a crew, and costs more per launch.
The space shuttle vehicle itself was re-usable. The "external tank" was discarded and not re-used. The solid rocket boosters would fall into the ocean, and then would have to be recovered, examined and refurbished. Those tanks/boosters represented a huge portion of the cost. While the space shuttle was slightly more re-usable, other rocket launches would be single use. What SpaceX did that no one else had before was a controlled vertical landing of the booster. In other words, it landed under power and standing up. That's very difficult, and a game changer since it skipped the recovery step, and they didn't require the time and cost of examination / refurbishment the way the space shuttle components did.
What is it you want to say about Artemis?
I like to think that Musks obsession with Twitter saved SpaceX. Thankfully he seems happy to just give them money and do the odd walk around tour during milestones.
They really have turned around our space capabilities.
Man, this is really downplaying the history that was legitimately made by the incredible people at SpaceX. It actually felt to many of us like we had just gone to the Moon for the first time.
Dunno about anyone else but I was freaking out.
Elon founded SpaceX in 2002. He said he wanted to build reusable, cost effective space platform where rocket boosters could land themselves and be refurbished with low turn-around times to fly multiple missions.
People laughed at the idea of a rocket that could land itself upright. And after countless tests that resulted in magnificent fiery failures and flops, a private American company is now responsible for launching crew and cargo to the ISS so we don't have to rely on Russia or ELA alone, and has more recently gone on to develop the largest rocket ever made.
In the 22 years since it's inception, SpaceX has designed it's own:
Say whatever you want about his beliefs, his opinions, his shit takes-- point me to another company that has done even half of that in that amount of time, or had nearly as monumental of an impact on the global space industry and America's access to space in the last two decades.
And if y'all haven't yet already, do yourselves a favor and look up NASASpaceflight on YouTube, watch their most viewed videos, which should be some of the SpaceX tests. You'll come to understand why shit blowing up is normal and a good thing with SpaceX: because they prototype and develop iteratively and rapidly, intentionally testing to failure so they know exactly how far from failure their nominal conditions would be. If they did not do this, the platform would not be safe and they would be getting fucked by a camel wearing another camel's skin for kicks.
Important to point out that a lot of NASA's problems are probably caused by Congress: their attempts to "save money" by re-using designs, the risk of NASA losing funding if any rocket they make fails, their insistence on having NASA support government military contractors, etc
This is a lot of what is preventing them from taking the rapid prototyping and iterative approach of SpaceX.
I’d have a lot more sympathy for this comment if people would actually do this in reference to Space Billionaires. I’ve had far too many conversations online and elsewhere where the individual shits on NASA for space industry problems and worships Space Billionaires because [some convoluted “government bad rich entrepreneurs good” reason] and their problems aren’t really problems. I’m not saying you’re part of the billionaire sycophant club, but I’m not against musk’s well deserved criticism as he sacrifices people in his rush, and probably work quality suffers alongside them.
Is it ok to shit on NASA for dumping so much money into developing Starship?
Also the SLS doesn't seem much better. But at least they've been around the moon on the SLS.
Personally I'd rather they work on developing spacecraft that can be launch on Falcon 9 or Falcon 9 Heavies, even if it meant multiple launches and assembling things at the ISS before going to the Moon and onwards. Doing this during the Apollo era was difficult because docking operations weren't all that reliable and there was no ISS back then so giant rockets was the way to go. But things have changed and dumping insane amounts of money into building massive rockets seems like a waste of money and probably isn't as safe as using proven rocket systems.
Also the SLS doesn't seem much better.
Are you joking? The SLS is a pretty major step backward for American spaceflight. If we continue flying the SLS, and make all the launches we plan (spoiler alert, that isn't going to happen) then the cost per launch could be as low as $2 billion. But more likely we will end the SLS program when it proves to be a never ending money sink, and with so much money put into development, we'll end up with a per launch cost upwards of $5 billion. Meanwhile, for that price it can only manage to get 95 tons to low Earth orbit.
Compare this to the Saturn V, which could lift more and cost much less, even when adjusted for inflation. The Saturn V cost $185 million, or $1.23 billion adjusting for inflation. And it could put 141 tons into low Earth orbit.
To sum up, this new rocket is much less capable and much more expensive than what we were doing 55 years ago.
You could of course also compare this to what spaceX is doing... Their aim is to make a rocket of similar payload capability 100-150t, but with a per launch cost of about $100 million via reusability. That's an order of magnitude of improvement, that's huge.
That's actually a really good question. The short answer is that we don't remember how to. A lot of the techniques used to actually make the parts were poorly documented. That was partly on purpose, everything was top secret because we didn't want the Russians to know how we were doing it all. And now, all the people who did those jobs have gotten old and left the industry.
Their aim is to make a rocket of similar payload capability 100-150t, but with a per launch cost of about $100 million via reusability.
Elon Musk promises a lot of things, but doesn't have a good track record on delivering.
SLS has at least been around the moon. I agree that it's a step backwards, but Starship is two steps backwards. Just seems to be a knock-off of the Space Shuttle (which also proved to be a bad idea) that's being developed by just blowing shit up. I hope I'm wrong about Starship, it would be awesome it it worked. But it's the same goes fore the Space Shuttle too.
But more likely we will end the SLS program when it proves to be a never ending money sink, and with so much money put into development, we’ll end up with a per launch cost upwards of $5 billion.
SpaceX has already blown through $5 billion and hasn't launched anything yet. Well yeah I guess they got it into space briefly... spinning out of control until it burnt up. They haven't even gotten to the part of testing to make see if the heat tiles that we see peeling off the thing will make it go full Columbia on a regular basis. If it ever works it'll be a long time before that thing gets man rated.
Like I say, SLS sucks but it's has a successful launch and has gotten around the Moon. Actually successful not SpaceX "successful".
SpaceX is currently losing the "bad idea space race" to NASA. The only winners in the Space race will be the billionaires that'll make a lot of money from making giant rockets that go nowhere.
Elon Musk promises a lot of things, but doesn't have a good track record on delivering.
SpaceX has a fantastic track record of delivering. So I'm not sure what you're talking about. Just look at the dragon capsule and compare that to Boeing's Starliner. They got funding to the exact same thing and they started work around the same time. So far dragon has done 10 cargo missions and 13 crew missions without any major problems. The Starliner has done 1 test mission in which there were major problems (including a parachute that didn't deploy... yikes), and only recently, years later, 1 crew mission.
Is the SLS a failure? I guess not... but it's not worth the 30 billion we have already put into it for a technological step backward. Calling it a success is like calling the Concord a success, that vehicle flew too.
But the idea that spaceX is losing the space race is just laughable. They're clearly dominating the space race. They put the Russian commercial launch program completely out of business (the Russian space program actually named SpaceX as the reason they gave up). These days SpaceX launches more rockets than the rest of the world combined. Through the savings they see with reusability they can undercut all their competition and still make a great profit. The starship promises to do that to a much greater extent. They're on track to be able to produce these for something in the area of 100 million a piece, and then be able to reuse them up to 100 times. This could bring launch costs down immensely. Can you imagine launching 100 tons to orbit for $10 million? Think of all the things that would suddenly be possible.
SpaceX is essentially two companies. One company uses the Falcon 9 launch system, launches from Cape Canaveral and is very successful. The other company is directed by Elon Musk and launches giant fireworks from Boca Chica.
The Boca Chica SpaceX is burning money and does lame brained shit like not building a proper launch pad just chucking whatever up there. This siphons off money from the Falcon SpaceX which takes away from improving the Falcon 9 launch system, and also siphons off money from NASA.
Given that they're throwing away money at Boca Chica, other competitors will catch up and overtake the Falcon 9.
Kinda like Tesla not improving quality control and doing stupid shit like the Cyber Truck and allowing competitors to catch up in making sensible EVs.
Musk is an idiot but no one can tell him no at his companies. At least SpaceX was smart enough to send him to Boca Chica to play around so he wouldn't screw up the part of the business that actually works.
Well, basically that whole post is simply incorrect.
SpaceX is definitely 1 company the whole company has the same CEO (Gwynne Shotwell) who oversees the whole operation. And for what it's worth, the highly successful falcon 9 definitely was one of those "Lame brained" ideas once. "Landing an orbital class rocket is ****impossible" that was the prevailing wisdom, because it had never been done before. SpaceX is experimenting, figuring out what's actually possible and redesigning a rocket from the ground up. The falcon 9 was the first phase of redesigning, it proved that you can make a rocket cheaper and you can further optimize a staged combustion cycle rocket engine, more than anyone has in the past, and finally it proved that you can land a booster and reuse it. The starship is phase two of that process, (Reusing the whole thing). They've switched from kerosene to methane, a change that will make engines much more reliable for extended use. They've figured out how to make very large rocket bodies out of sheet metal. And they've figured out how to mass produce the first ever reliable full flow staged combustion engines (That's a very big deal)! In short, nothing about Starship is "Lame brained".
The Boca Chica SpaceX is burning money ... This siphons off money from the Falcon SpaceX which takes away from improving the Falcon 9 launch system,
The boca chica facility is not taking money away from development of falcon 9, there is no development of falcon 9, it's done, the design set in stone. Ever since they started ferrying astronauts NASA needs them to stick with a set design. They got that design (called block 3) approved for crew use by NASA and from this point on they're only allowed to make very minor changes to the rocket.
Musk is an idiot but no one can tell him no at his companies.
I actually agree that Musk has some problems and seriously needs some people who can tell him "no". He needs that in his companies and he needs that at home, I think he's got some addictions he needs to deal with before they ruin him.
Uh huh, totally not the drug addicted scammers fault that he made bullshit claim after bullshit claim, pushing engineers to make reckless decisions, totally not the owners fault.
I'll grant you that SpaceX has, amongst others, a number of smart engineers, though smart is a relative term if you're working for elon musk
You wouldn't say this if you were following the industry at all. Please see my other comment in this thread. SpaceX is dominating, for good reason, and seemingly in spite of musk.
I've been against the space industry/NASA/etc's bullshit love of Elon's fucked up project ever since the idiot took over. If they can't see how he has mismanaged every single thing he's ever touched and pulled out of every single contract with them because of him, they have serious issues.
Maybe now NASA will come to their senses, kick SpaceX to the curb, and work with someone actually competent.
Please see my other comment in this same thread. It's not like Tesla or Twitter where they're clearing slipping and releasing bad product. Look at the actual accomplishments!
As much as we on lemmy might look down on consumers of conservative news, I'm really surprised by how similarly reflexive and uninformed a lot of the comments here are.
So that obliterated launchpad is just normal, then? That empty star ship launch that managed to tumble in space was normal? SpaceX alway cheering and laughing when rockets blow up is normal? SpaceX dominates because they receive our tax dollars. Without that, they'd be dead in the water long time ago
One only has to read any current news about how mismanaged SpaceX is and how many problems they are having to recant this "we love Elon and can't imagine not having our dicks all the way up his ass" attitude about SpaceX or anything that incompetent, privileged little shit runs.
Cry harder. Without SpaceX the US space industry would be worse than Russia right now. SpaceX launches hundreds of rockets per year and saves NASA millions in launch costs, and can actually launch people into space, unlike Boeing
Relying on a company so unpredictable and full of problems and errors is worse than not going to space at all. Your unnatural love for that laughable idiot Musk is going to get astronauts killed.
SpaceX makes the most reliable rockets in the world https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/02/spacexs-falcon-9-rocket-has-set-a-record-for-most-consecutive-successes/
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-successful-commercial-rocket-launcher
Keep talking and making a fool of yourself
Also trying to conflate my defense of a rocket company for some sort of love for an oligarch is beyond stupid. Get some help, you need it.
Relying on arstechnica (full of bullshit) and GWR (sensationalistic bullshit) to prove your claim? How deep in Elon's asshole are you?
A few years ago (already) I would have been sad and shocked. Now I don't give a shit about SpaceTwitter. That douchebag managed to kill all the interest I had for space exploration, a topic I was passionate about for most of my life. He really is that kind of killjoy.
Why would you let that ruin all of space exploration for you? He's a dick. I don't give a crap about his company. But exploring the solar system is still absolutely amazing.
The people on lemmy are college kid level extremist on literally everything and it would be funnier if it weren't so exhausting.
Maybe he lost interest because of all the bullshit Elon Musk promised that came to NOTHING, remember a few years back he promised there would be manned missions to Mars now... NOW!!! MANNED MISSIONS!!! They were supposed to be well along building a base on Mars that should have started 2 years ago!!
Reality may seem kind of dull compared to the fantasies Musk promised.
Personally I never believed Musk for a second, and I thought Neil Tyson was a blabbering idiot for parroting him. But many fell for it, and my wife thought I was "negative" for not believing and agreeing with them!
But things like the James Webb telescope are 100% cool.
Well, before SpaceX I looked at the space exploration program as a science enthusiast. The missions were rare but important for science. Then this dude came out of nowhere, saying he was about to save the Earth with electric cars and build a station on Mars. And for a moment it really worked. I genuinely thought he was a good billionaire. Then he completely loose his mind, start talking and acting like the worse moron of the universe, and I started studying his statements without the shiny distorting layer. He's so full of shit it makes me sick. Most of the things he says is nonsense.
So I can't tell why my brain works that way, but it does. Today I'm more exited by new ways to produce renewable energies on Earth than I am about rockets. That joy I felt for any SpaceX news slipped away.
My comment was just the realization of that. That was weird to be honest, but true.
Elon Musk promised manned missions to Mars by now, and the beginning of building a base should have started already 2 years ago.
There are many good reasons to hate Musk, he is a liar and a con man.
SpaceX is still making tremendous progress compared to NASA. I'm as annoyed with Musk as everyone else, but it's looking like they're the biggest hope we have right now of actually making progress with space exploration.
But are they really making progress? NASA has pured billions into SpaceX, are they really getting what they were promised? AFAIK the answer to that is No-No-No and No, because they are so far behind, and haven't met any requirements for what SpaceX was supposed to do for the NASA manned moon mission Artemis.
This is focused more on NASA's problems with the Artemis program, but I highly recommend reading this article.
Basically the whole Artemis mission plan is riddled with issues, and SpaceX and Blue Origin are required to have major breakthroughs in space refueling tech for their required roles to even be possible. With how many different issues the project has, it looks like the only good thing we may get out of the project is these breakthroughs (if they happen).
@Fubarberry @Buffalox "Smarter Every Day" on Youtube did a talk pointing out the issues with artemis, to a room full of stakeholders.
it was glorious.
SpaceX launched the biggest rocket every to be launched in history, three times at this point, and you're questioning whether they're "making progress?"
As I said, you've prioritized hating Elon Musk over everything else.
If you think he's a liar and a con man, then why even bring up his promises? They're obviously false. SpaceX has done great work despite who their current CEO is.
He was saying several years ago that he would be start building a Mars base in 2022 and have manned missions in 2024 which are both basically no closer today than they were then, that was a lie.
He said he would build hyperloops that would be cheap fast efficient across the country, that was a lie, that we now know was to stop building public transport.
He said in 2016 that full self driving that was safer than a person driving would be ready in 2017, and that was something they could do TODAY (in 2016). He repeated that lie in 2019, even claiming people could make up to $200000 per year if they bought a Tesla, because they could drive as autonomous taxi's beginning 2020. He claimed buying anything other than a Tesla would be stupid, because Tesla cars were the only ones that could do that. Except they couldn't and they still can't.
There is a very clear picture that Elon Musk is lying through his teeth, and he cons people into investing in and buying his products under false pretenses.
Okay? I thought we already established that he's a liar. You really sound like a fan of the guy since you follow his every word, but none of this detracts from the accomplishments of the engineers working at these companies.
I know how you feel I used to love watching all the SpaceX launches, but I just can't bring myself to care anymore about anything Musk is involved in.
Wow talk about blaming someone else for your waning interest. If you were really into space exploration, you wouldn’t let one person come in the way. A person who doesn’t even know you. Or you don’t know either technically. I’m no Elon shill and I dislike him like everyone else. But I’ll be damned if I lose interest in space just because of him. Even if the whole world was a douchebag, I’d still get out telescoping equipment and gaze at the skies. And oh by the way, if not for SpaceX do it for NASA who were there way before anyone else. Do it for your ancestors who looked at the sky in amazement every night.
Different philosophy. Play it safe and analyze everything extensively to make sure you don't have a PR nightmare. That leads to less aggressive designs and longer schedules, but looks better for the public and Congress.
And they don’t even have a goal of more than one launch a year and billions of dollars per launch. Artemis is the same old flag waving BS: do it once to say you’re first, then lose interest.
Starship’s goals of reusability, frequent launches, order of magnitude cost reductions can be the foundation of the next jump in space industry/exploration
A disposable rocket at $4 billion dollars a pop, if not more. They built one rocket, they may build a second and maybe even a third. Eventually.
SpaceX is not building a rocket, they are building a rocket factory. A factory that will mass-produce fully reusable rockets.
DEFINITELY not first try. I was there in their first try... and second... Still didn't see it launch.
At a greater cost than every starship built to date combined...
Congrats?
I expect they'll be able to launch 2, perhaps even 3 more Artemis rockets before the program is cancelled and the rocket architecture abandoned due to unreasonable cost.
Where's your evidence proving exactly how much Starship has cost in total? Or wait, maybe you are just making bullshit up because you have no idea how much it has actually cost them because they don't disclose that information like NASA does.
SpaceX can likely build and launch a fully expendable version of Starship for about $100 million. Most of that money is in the booster, with its 33 engines. So once Super Heavy becomes reusable, you can probably cut manufacturing costs down to about $30 million per launch.
This means that, within a year or so, SpaceX will have a rocket that costs about $30 million and lifts 100 to 150 metric tons to low-Earth orbit.
Bluntly, this is absurd.
For fun, we could compare that to some existing rockets. NASA's Space Launch System, for example, can lift up to 95 tons to low-Earth orbit. That's nearly as much as Starship. But it costs $2.2 billion per launch, plus additional ground systems fees. So it's almost a factor of 100 times more expensive for less throw weight. Also, the SLS rocket can fly once per year at most.
The starship is built out in the open, the whole world can watch. Because of that, there are pretty good estimates for how much construction costs. If you take the more pessimistic estimates, my statement would still hold true.
Also, as a reminder, even without knowing exact numbers you can still make some ballpark assertions with confidence. For example, Jupiter has the mass of more than a dozens earths. I could look up the actual number, but I can be pretty damn sure it's more than twelve.
Bruh its a TEST STAND TEST STAND this is not the Frist time a engine exploded on a test stand raptor engines in their development phase are supposed to explode. Elon musk has said if something doesn't explode then you did something wrong
If you're testing for fail state, sure.
If you're testing for sustained burn, you fucked up. Time to science and figure up how to unfuck it.
Personnel are evacuated from McGregor whenever a test is to be performed, just like they are with Starbase.
There is absolutely zero chance anyone got hurt. This isn't Boeing.
I'm confident enough in that to put my money where my mouth is.
SpaceX has been very transparent about their testing procedures and it is established that testing locations are always evacuated for any kind of test, as is required by the FAA. If you really wanna cast doubt on this, then why don't we put some money on it?
Your response is even more sus. You keep your money, Comrade. Sounds like you need it
oh aren't you a treat. For a second I almost had you mistaken for one the few Moskal typewriter monkeys who remembered to bring a joke book, but now I'm beginning to worry that you're own of my those fellow constituents of ours who's succumbed to the brain rot.
At least we won't have to worry about you voting for a few more years, judging by the way you act kiddo. Or perhaps you are old enough, but the polling place is too sus for your precious intellect.
Word of advice though, if you'd want any hopes of being employable or perhaps even making IRL friends, ditch whatever this is you think you're doing with your attitude, it just ain't working in your favor. While you're at it, might also help to learn the definition of the word "untenable"-- if you need a visual example, any mirror should do the trick.
Anyway, maybe put down the smartphone and walk a natural trail or visit the library bud. Based on your comments, you owe it to yourself badly. I mean, if you fancy yourself a socialist then why aren't you taking advantage of the freely available public recreational services that our tax dollars fund to live a better life? Everyone else is, and it makes dealing with this late stage capitalist hellscape just a bit more tolerable.
Holy shit you have a lot of free time! Don’t you have a sticker you should be putting on your car?!!
You really think it took any time at all to write that? I was on Reddit for more than a decade, writing diatribes is second nature to me.
Besides, at least I put some thought behind my comments which is obviously more than can be said about some particular individuals.
As in the military and NASA aren't allowed to pay them to launch things? That's the vast majority of the government funding they've gotten.
In the early days of Starship I was a little bit optimistic. The "move fast and break things" strategy had quickly succeeded when SpaceX was trying to land boosters, so I was hopeful that each exploding Starship was one step closer to a working spacecraft.
But at this point it's just sad. I don't see anything resembling progress.
I think the boosters were a "fake it till we make it" thing that luckily worked out. I don't think Starship will ever make it into space.
That's a bonkers take. It's the largest and most powerful rocket in history and it's already made orbit. The raptor engines are the first full flow staged combustion engines to ever be put into a production rocket (This is a holy grail of rocketry). All estimates suggest that it's also probably much cheaper to build than any of the other heavy lift rockets. And that was accomplished while also building full reusability into the design...
The work they've done is nothing short of astounding. Which makes your take come off as either insane, blind, or biased.
It has not made orbit.
It has done a suborbital flight.
The difference between getting to space and getting to orbit is well, an orbit.
Starship did not achieve the speed needed to maintain an orbit around the earth, if it can do so has not been proven.
Getting something that big off the ground is impressive, but we did it 50 years ago with slide rules and pencils. Getting something off the ground should not be a success for a company that already has an orbital rocket in frequent use. Having 3 vehicles fail to achieve orbit, fail to demonstrate critical features like fuel transfer and engine relight, and fail to re enter the atmosphere while under control, is not a success. I do not buy the SpaceX corporate spin that “everything after clearing the pad is icing on the cake” that’s not good enough for a critical piece of hardware that is supposed to take humans to the moon and land them there.
If ULA can develop a rocket that completes its mission on the first launch, and NASA can do the same, because they take the time to check everything, then why are we giving SpaceX the pass to move fast and break things when it’s clearly not working. They do not have a heavy lift orbital rocket. They have a rocket that can, from all evidence, achieve a suborbital flight while completely empty.
And remember, this is not private money they are burning every time one of these explodes or burns up in the atmosphere. They were given 3 billion American Tax dollars to develop this thing. And now the Government Accountability Office has not even been shown that the Raptor engine is even capable of achieving the mission goals for Artemis. And their test articles are behind schedule and routinely failing in catastrophic ways.
I want to see humans back on the moon in my lifetime. I think we need to go and set up a colony so that we can explore our solar system better and develop technologies for sustaining humanity both off of earth and in the harsh conditions we will face as our climate changes. Anything that threatens the mission of establishing a human presence off of earth needs to be looked at closely and realistically.
Back in the 60’s we knew that the only way to get humans to the moon was to keep the equipment reliable and redundant, anything else was asking for people to die. We seem to have lost that simple insight in recent years, and Starship is the epitome of that hubris. A ridiculously complicated vehicle with a complicated flight plan that has not been shown to work in any capacity. That needs to be pointed out and investigated if for no other reason then it is delaying a major mission.
"Starship did not achieve the speed needed to maintain an orbit around the earth, if it can do so has not been proven. "
Arguing this point makes you seem either uneducated on the launch or just someone shitting on SpaceX because musk. If you were actually familiar with the launch profile you would know starship nearly reached orbital velocities but did not on purpose, so it could reenter the atmosphere and test the heat shield.
So you'd be technically right in your statement, however knowing the full details of the situation makes your take stupid.
And it was a safety measure in case they lost control that would ensure it would burn itself up and not become space junk. This guy is a nut job lmao. SpaceX is badass!
setting all politics and social issues from the CEO aside.
Right but I think that was their point though no? That, for safety reasons, they didn't make it to orbit. Seems like a pretty cut and dry "no" they didn't make it to orbit just like that person said. And the reason was that they didn't know if it would make it. Which kind of supports their point.
I'm not going to claim to know enough either way (besides Elon Musk being an idiot), but they don't seem wrong there.
It seems like you guys are mad that it didn't make orbit and get defensive when people point it out.
Because the longer a launch goes the easier it is. Basically there are critical phases of flight and there's the actual continuous operation of the rocket all the time. Things like clearing the tower, max q, stage separation, engine re-lighting are all insanely complex operations, but once all that's done and all you need to do is burn the engines for longer it's pretty easy to just burn more rocket fuel on a flight that has been working the whole time. its something that is much less risky to the mission going on. Things can go wrong, but the chance is much higher during one of those complex things.
While completely empty.
An empty vehicle does not have the same performance as one with cargo.
Ignoring this point make you seem either uneducated on space flight or just someone blinded by the tech bro philosophy of “trust me bro it’ll work next time”
¯_(ツ)_/¯ while starship performance is ass compared to what they want they could still have easily put cargo onboard, you are talking about the most successful and likely profitable spaceflight company in history here you know?
SpaceX gets a lot of credit from space fans because they have proved the haters wrong time and time again, people just like you were saying the exact same garbage about falcon 9 and reusing the booster, now that SpaceX succeeded at that they practically own earth's entire launch industry and will revolutionize it again with starship.
I'm sure we will get lots of "failures" (expected test vehicle losses) along the way for you to doom on, but at the end of the day SpaceX will be the winners like they always are at the end of the day.
You've written a whole lot for someone who doesn't seem to know what they're talking about.
It has not made orbit.
It has done a suborbital flight.
The difference between getting to space and getting to orbit is well, an orbit.
These statements are intentionally misleading. The starship was less than 100 dv short of orbit when they decided to cut the engines in order to test another flight regime. It takes at least 8500 dv to make orbit, which means they were already 98.8% of the way there and they still had plenty of propellent to spare. All systems were nominal, they could have continued, but they had already proved their capability to make orbit and were now aiming to accomplish more. The fact is, they did achieve the kind of speed you need to reach orbit, but rockets have been able to reach orbit for a long time, that's not impressive, but rockets have only just begun to start returning to earth.
And remember, this is not private money they are burning every time one of these explodes or burns up in the atmosphere. They were given 3 billion American Tax dollars to develop this thing.
So far, the SLS has spent 23 billion tax payer dollars. They have built 1 rocket. But saying they "built" the rocket isn't even fair, as they salvaged the engines from previous space shuttles, expending engines that had previously been reused. What will they do when they run out of pre-built engines? Prices will go up for sure...
Again, the SLS is attempting to use antique engines and essentially develop nothing new, and it has cost the public $23B. The starship is attempting to develop many ground breaking technologies, is so far achieving more of their goals with every launch. And they've spent 3 billion doing all of that.
At this point it may also be worth noting that the SLS has been in development for 14 years, the starship has been in real development for 5-7 years.
I remain in the position I started, to deny that SpaceX is doing something truly astonishing is plain bonkers.
Hey, go boo the actual bad shit Musk is doing. Starship is an amazing feat of human engineering. One that has already made orbit, btw.
When a company of his does bad it's his fault, when one does good it's other people's fault?
The guy's a fucking prick, don't get me wrong.
Yeah, I despise Musk but the circlejerk "it's his fault it failed / he has nothing to do with its success" (especially on Lemmy) is just ridiculous
Hey, go boo the actual bad shit Musk is doing.
Ok. Boo.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-a-new-space-race-could-be-harming-the-earths-atmosphere
https://www.space.com/rocket-exhaust-pollution-upper-atmosphere
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021EF002612
Sooty exhaust from RP-1 and aluminum oxide particulates from discarded upper stages will not be a problem with Starship.
Starship uses methalox, and the upper stage is designed to be reusable.
If you don't see progress, it's because you're not paying attention. Each test flight of starship has performed better than the last.
True but disingenuous. This statement is often used to mock blue origin for just going 100km straight up into space and then back down, which is very far from reaching orbit. But the flight profile of IFT-3 was so close to orbital velocity, it's not a significant difference.
It is a significant difference. When it comes to orbit, there is no close enough, either you’re going fast enough or you’re not. They have not shown this thing can do what they say it can.
IFT-3 was completely empty and the tanks were full. Where is the weight of the crew decks, the solar panels and batteries, life support equipment, docking mechanism, food, water, and cargo? These are not trivial things, and they weigh a lot. Proving an empty shell can achieve a suborbital flight and be just barely not be in orbit is not proof of anything useful.
If they had shown there was a significant amount of delta-v left with this empty test article, then that’s one thing. But those tanks had a whisper of fuel left in them. I don’t believe for a second that it would have gotten that close when it was full of over a hundred tons of additional equipment.
I can't say I know enough about the subject to agree or disagree in general, it seems pretty clear to me that these people are sore about the fact that the billion (trillion?) dollar corporation they pathetically stan for didn't make it to orbit.
Like I think it really gets to them.
DeltaV is the amount you can change your velocity in space.
To put it another way, if a semi truck company says it’s new truck can haul 20 tons of cargo 500 miles on one tank/charge, and then during the press release with an empty trailer, it has to pull to side of the road at 400 miles driven because it’s out of gas, do you think it can get to 500 miles when it has 20 tons in the back? And the previous 2 press releases had the vehicle spontaneously detonate just after leaving the driveway.
That’s what starship did, it ran out of gas at almost the finish line while completely empty. There’s no way it can get itself + 100 tons to orbit if it can’t even get itself to orbit.
The point is a more accurate analogy would be the truck pulling over after 494 miles, with plenty of charge left in the batteries, because they decided not to continue the test during rush hour.
Sure, technically they didn’t make 500 miles, but they were pretty damn close, encountered nothing preventing it, and chose not to for other reasons. Continuing those few extra miles serves no purpose at this time,and is arguably contrary to successful testing
Also this is just an engine test at McGregor. They used to blow them up much more often as they were finding the limits. Nowadays it's much less common, hence why it's news when they broke one.
Lol what kind of comeback is that? We know he said that, dumbass, that was the entire point of their reference. Do you like... Not know who Stalin is?
Will every reader know that? Will every reader also know the finer nuances of the 3 downward arrows, one of them referring to Stalin's authoritarianism? I'm not here to score sick comebacks? 🤷♀️
Huh that's interesting...
Maybe we can hear directly from them about their views on Stalin:
The Three Arrows were adopted as an official social democrat symbol by the SPD leadership and the Iron Front by June 1932. Iron Front members would carry the symbol on their arm bands. The slogan "neither Stalin's slaves nor Hitler's henchmen" was also used by the SPD in connection with the symbol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Arrows#Weimar_Republic
So lol at you falling for some kind of bullshit agitprop just so you can attempt a clever comeback on Lemmy.
I'm using it as a general anti-fascist symbol, and I like the idea of vandalizing swastikas with it.
Im authentically perplexed as to where we disagree and why you're in "sick dunk" mode. Do you think I'm simping for Stalin? The 3 arrows appeal to me for the same reasons they do you, seems.
Will every reader also know the finer nuances of the 3 downward arrows, one of them referring to Stalin’s authoritarianism?
Yeah it seemed like you were implying (or actually just saying) that one of the arrows refers to Stalin's authoritarianism. Which is a bad thing, right? Do we agree on that? And I have it as my profile pic... So I dunno how else I was supposed to take your comment?
And to be clear, again, it is not true that one of the arrows refers to Stalin in any way.
