Originally published at: Giant SpaceX "Starship" rocket explodes after takeoff: "everything after clearing the tower was icing on the cake" | Boing Boing
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Still not putting his money where his mouth is and getting in one?
Lightweight.
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I have to admit that it was an interesting launch to watch, in part due to the transparency. For example they broadcast live telemetry information with a graphic showing several of the engines failing in real time, and you could see flashes of light and bits of debris falling off of the rocket at various points.
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SpaceX called it “rapid unscheduled disassembly”
Time for bonuses for that marketing team!
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Yeah, that term has been around in the aerospace industry since at least the 1970s.
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just a wee-bit perplexing…
SpaceX successfully launches giant Starship rocket, explodes minutes later
can it be deemed a “success” if it explodes just after clearing the launch? it’s not like you’d want to add your expensive payload, (or heaven forfend any living creatures), anytime soon, would you?
(“Bah you’re no engineer! This is baby steps!”)
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Looking for admiration in the midst of failure. Priceless.
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Everyone keep in mind that Space X is very much the success it is because of it’s CEO and president Gwynne Shotwell, and the team she has built.
Elon is just the guy who signs checks and takes credit. Don’t give him the satisfaction of letting him own this.
I can only assume she never gets the credit she deserves because if she did, Elon would have to sack her…
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[quote=“FSogol, post:4, topic:246874”]
SpaceX called it “a complete successful rapid unscheduled disassembly”
[/quote]
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I always imagine they have “Elon days” when they know he’s going to be there and they throw up all kinds of cool looking charts and graphics on the wall while hiding the real work in some back room where he can’t fuck it up.
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Totally unsurprising that he’d take credit for any success for himself… after all, everyone knows that wimmin can’t engineer! /s
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Nothing about this rocket is good news. Starship itself will be an underperforming deathtrap, and even successful launches are an appalling assault on the environment.
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Same applies to a lot of “great inventors”. e.g. Edison.
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The “big bunch o’ engines,” design reminds me of the N-1. It is probably simpler than getting the fluid dynamics of a big, F-1 engine right, but more engines means more parts, which means that there are more things to go wrong. How many first stage engines can fail and have it still reach orbit? Are some of the engines INTENDED to cut off early (like the center engine on the Saturn V) to minimize g-forces?
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And we all know what happened to the N1 -
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But will it bring value to the shareholders! Isn’t that the only metric of “success” that actually matters? /s
Because the “great inventor” is all made up capitalist BS designed to concentrate wealth and to justify that concentration. It’s not really how progress is made in producing new knowledge or technologies, which comes from large numbers of people working together to get shit done…
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I don’t know the minimum, but I’ve read elsewhere that they can theoretically have at least 3 out of the 33 engines fail and still have a successful launch. I’m sure they were expecting some failures because they never even got all 33 to ignite simultaneously during the static fire tests.
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