• Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more

Merged SpaceX’s Starship Rocket Explodes After Launch/Starship hop

Meadmaker said:
Against my better judgement, I'll actually answer that question.

What's wrong with it is that everyone agrees with you, so it would appear that you are arguing about something everyone agrees with.
Click to expand...

In that case I don't understand why my initial comment was controversial.
 
Belz... said:
How about this: what's wrong with my argument that one of the fundamental things that a rocket shouldn't do is explode?
Click to expand...

I think you have to judge a particular exercise based on the goals set out for that exercise.

When I'm teaching someone to do a handstand, one of the first things I do is to teach them to fall. During the course of a particular session we might then work on a lot of other details, like how to use the grip of the fingers control balance, the alignment of each part of the body, the right way to support and elevate from the shoulders, how to come back to balance if you do start to fall, etc.

But they're going to fall. I don't judge the success of a session based on whether or not the student fell. I judge it based on how well they learned the specific skills we were working on. If it turns out that they don't fall once during a session that would probably be a good sign, but it could also be because they're staying in their comfort zone and not working on the specific skills I'm teaching. I often tell my students "you're trying too hard not to fall".

On the other hand if they're giving a performance, falling is definitely a sign of failure.

With respect to the Starship, it's in the development phase. They're trying to learn specific lessons that can be applied to the next iteration. I think judging success or failure based on whether or not they are learning those lessons seems entirely reasonable.

Not blowing up would probably be a good sign, but I don't think it's the point here.

On the other hand once they've progressed beyond development to actually launching things into orbit, blowing up will definitely be a failure.
 
Last edited:
Roboramma said:
I think you have to judge a particular exercise based on the goals set out for that exercise.

When I'm teaching someone to do a handstand, one of the first things I do is to teach them to fall. During the course of a particular session we might then work on a lot of other details, like how to use the grip of the fingers control balance, the alignment of each part of the body, the right way to support and elevate from the shoulders, how to come back to balance if you do start to fall, etc.

But they're going to fall. I don't judge the success of a session based on whether or not the student fell. I judge it based on how well they learned the specific skills we were working on. If it turns out that they don't fall once during a session that would probably be a good sign, but it could also be because they're staying in their comfort zone and not working on the specific skills I'm teaching. I often tell my students "you're trying too hard not to fall".

On the other hand if they're giving a performance, falling is definitely a sign of failure.

With respect to the Starship, it's in the development phase. They're trying to learn specific lessons that can be applied to the next iteration. I think judging success or failure based on whether or not they are learning those lessons seems entirely reasonable.

Not blowing up would probably be a good sign, but I don't think it's the point here.

On the other hand once they've progressed beyond development to actually launching things into orbit, blowing up will definitely be a failure.
Click to expand...

That's a very good point. But as I said, fundamentally, the last thing you want your rocket to do is explode. It's not a small matter. If I were the CEO of that company I wouldn't be happy with yesterday's events.
 
Belz... said:
That's a very good point. But as I said, fundamentally, the last thing you want your rocket to do is explode. It's not a small matter. If I were the CEO of that company I wouldn't be happy with yesterday's events.
Click to expand...

If I were the CEO of the company, I would make sure that I told the press I was very happy with the day's events. I might even tell that to the employees, or at least some of them. It's possible I might even actually be happy with some of the day's events.

But the "boom" part would definitely put a damper on a lot of the happiness.
 
Belz... said:
Why do you say that? The Apollo mission launches didn't blow up, nor the Gemini or Mercury ones. If SpaceX does their homework properly there's no reason for them not to match NASA's track record.
Click to expand...

Because the more they fly the more times they are exposed to that 1 in a million chance. Even passenger jets still crash.
 
Darat said:
Because the more they fly the more times they are exposed to that 1 in a million chance. Even passenger jets still crash.
Click to expand...

Sure, if Musk ever comes around to try to implement routine orbital flights, I'd agree. But as I mentioned, NASA has a single manned launch incident (Challenger). So it's feasible at least so long as there are few flights done with the utmost of care.
 
Last edited:
Myriad said:
"But the ship can't explode!"

"She's made of explodium, sir. I assure you she can, and she will."
Click to expand...


There was a Doctor Who novel, part of the Missing Adventures series depicting events between the aired episodes, in which the First Doctor went to ancient Venus and met the Venusians for the first time. They were in the early stages of developing their space program, and couldn't figure out why their rockets kept exploding on the launch pad. It was eventually revealed that the crust of Venus was fairly metal poor, and they were building their rockets out of wood.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
What would be the point of just a few flights?
Click to expand...

Well, you know, just like the Mercury and Gemini and Apollo programs had specific objectives and the projects ended when those were met (and/or public interest faded). And even with further projects like today, we're a far cry from commercial launches like the airplane industry.
 
Belz... said:
Well, you know, just like the Mercury and Gemini and Apollo programs had specific objectives and the projects ended when those were met (and/or public interest faded). And even with further projects like today, we're a far cry from commercial launches like the airplane industry.
Click to expand...

What's the objective of the Starship development?
 
Belz... said:
I'm not saying there WILL be few flights. I'm saying that so long as it doesn't become a commercial, widely-used vehicle I wouldn't expect loss of life to occur. I've already said all that.
Click to expand...


But that's the actual goal of the project, to become a regular orbital service with the same reliability as an airline.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

ISF - Join now!

Every member here is approved by hand. No bots, no spam, just people who care about evidence and honest debate.

Membership is free!

Create your free account

Back
Top Bottom