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Massive damage to Space X’s launch pad…
Looks like the methane storage tanks are hit, and debris tossed everywhere…
Looks like the methane storage tanks are hit, and debris tossed everywhere…
Space X Pad Damage…
- Thread starter mattwithcats
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Learning is tough and expensive for some activities.
Curious Droid Has some interesting comparisons that are the same as the ones I had when I looked at Stage 0. They built everything WAY too close.
How musk works, shortcuts over safety and durability.
I think if he paints the launch pad in red like the brake calipers on Tesla vehicles, would it work?
1st stage of Saturn V produced 7.75 million pounds of thrust. Artemis 1 took the crown in 2022 for the most powerful rocket ever with 8.8 million pounds. Starship claimed that crown and produces 16.7 million pounds of thrust. Kind of in uncharted territory, I’m sure water deluge and proper flame trenches would have helped but to what degree we don’t know given the absolutely massive amount of thrust Starship puts out.
Bollocks.
They have former NASA engineers on staff, they have the budget for computer simulations, they could have engineered their way out of it. They just chose not to, or chose to try and see if they could get away with it.
They're not going to be launching anything this summer either. Repairs and clearance will take longer than that seeing as FAA has to investigate them now for that stunt.
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There was no need for them to "learn". NASA learned for them over a half century ago. It's unbelievable they tried to launch that rocket without a water suppression system built into that launch pad facility.
Even the Space Shuttle required a water and sound suppression system to safely launch. And it only had 5 engines operating at launch...... Not 30 something. They are now saying that both debris and shock waves bounced back, damaging that rocket before it ever left the pad.
Several engines were out, and there was no way it could have ever achieved orbit. It's hard to believe Space X would make such a rookie mistake with such a valuable launch vehicle.
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Let’s try to get the BITOG solutions organized into a single report that SX and the authorities can share …
I'm sure they have capable engineers, if management doesn't want it or understand why it's needed then the talent doesn't get utilized.
This was a test so it really doesn't matter. Now everyone learns something from it which also means teaching management to let engineers do their job, not to mention provide resources ($$$) that previously were likely not allocated.
Sounds like the Flight Termination System failed too. Apparently it triggered, but it was insufficient to terminate it in a timely manner. My guess is that could be the biggest issue preventing a flight anytime soon.
This video from South Padre shows it wasn’t that far from a lot of people. Not good.
This video from South Padre shows it wasn’t that far from a lot of people. Not good.
The end and short is engineering is compromises. Elon compromises things like safety in name quick product to market including space launches , “self driving” and automotive engineering durability and safety.
Exactly.
From what I understand, they saw not insignificant pad erosion at a 50% thrust(which BTW would be right in the range of a Saturn V). How could this not have happened?
NASA knows what they're doing, or rather I should say NASA engineers(and eingineers at their contractors) know what they're doing and have a remarkable success rate when they're listened to. We saw what happened in January 1985 when a few were sounding the alarm bells and "go at all costs" was a higher priority. Years of ignoring valid concerns about foam strikes during launch bit them again in 2003.
It almost feels like Space X just throws out the book. For all the talk of them breaking new ground, etc, they seem to forget about fundamentals that have been known for a long time.
Unfortunately this ham-fisted "I'll do what I want to do and no one knows any better than me" seems to show up at every other company their egotistical man-child CEO operates. If he'd get over himself and actually listen to the people around him, he might actually be able to keep a website operating or launch a rocket without destroying the launch pad. Instead he seems to just ignore or fire everyone who contradicts him.
If nothing else good comes out of this, I'm just glad to see that it seems as though a lot more people now are looking critically at how Space X does things and starting to see the serious issues that are there. As obnoxious as the Tesla fanbois on this site and other places or, and with that the broader group of people who think this charlatan running the show can do no wrong, the Tesla fans have NOTHING on how nasty the ardent Space X fans can be.
Thank goodness this rocket wasn't carrying a crew-that's the one and only silver lining I see in this,.
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They put 49 starlink satellites in low earth orbit and 49 fell back to earth in a few months. So this type of mistake is not new for them. Possibly this is just the difference between being unlimited budget government funded, and privately funded?
People are acting like this was going to work 100% on the first try. It wasn't even expected to leave the pad.
As a counterpoint SpaceX lost tens of Falcon 9's in their attempts at landing them. Failure is not something they are new too.
This was a decision to go, see the damage and then move forward with how to prevent that in the future. There was never going to be people on board or any cargo. It was a test flight just like the numerous others in history that may have ended in failure but proved helpful in the end.
As a counterpoint SpaceX lost tens of Falcon 9's in their attempts at landing them. Failure is not something they are new too.
This was a decision to go, see the damage and then move forward with how to prevent that in the future. There was never going to be people on board or any cargo. It was a test flight just like the numerous others in history that may have ended in failure but proved helpful in the end.
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That had less to do with them and more to due with nature or physics.
It's interesting that according to Elon himself in a twitter space, if the hydraulic didn't fail, this would be a very successful test flight.
But once again, only time can tell if the damage is as minor as Elon said and things can go back to schedule in 1-2 months.
But once again, only time can tell if the damage is as minor as Elon said and things can go back to schedule in 1-2 months.
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