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

Still impressive, this is a prototype, there's bound to be flaws in the design, the whole point of testing is to find them, and fix them.
 
"But the ship can't explode!"

"She's made of explodium, sir. I assure you she can, and she will."
 
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Myriad said:
"But the ship can't explode!"

"She's made of explodium, sir. I assure you she can, and she will."
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The announcer was so proud of the perfect touchdown.


The clip I saw cut off with the rocket still sitting on the pad in an unexploded state.
 
Trebuchet said:
How many tries was it before an F9 landed successfully and safely? More than three, IIRC.
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They're going to need at least three more before they have enough to put together another music video.



(Note that the video was made by SpaceX itself. They don't shy from being associated with these sorts of events)
 
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Meadmaker said:
The announcer was so proud of the perfect touchdown.


The clip I saw cut off with the rocket still sitting on the pad in an unexploded state.
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It looked like a pretty hard touchdown to me, and the rocket seemed to be leaning afterwards.
 
crescent said:
Well, it (SN10) went up, came down and landed.

It didn't* blow up.

Seems like the landing legs didn't deploy, it is leaning and looks to be a little bit on fire.

Sometimes those revolutionary things come in incremental steps. This counts.


ETA: I posted too soon. It just blew up, a few minutes after landing. Had to edit the post with a bit of selective strikethrough.
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I love the fact that it blew up but they consider it a success.

We don't all have the same definition of "success", I guess.
 
smartcooky said:
As usual, an excellent analysis from Scott Manley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF9mdMI1qxM
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Just watched that and was going to link it if someone didn't beat me too it. Pointed out stuff I wasn't aware of yesterday.

Belz... said:
I love the fact that it blew up but they consider it a success.

We don't all have the same definition of "success", I guess.
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100% success? No. Mostly successful? Very much so. Or are you going in the direction of the Musk-hater we used to have here who declared the first Falcon Heavy flight a total failure because they didn't land the center core?
 
Belz... said:
I love the fact that it blew up but they consider it a success.

We don't all have the same definition of "success", I guess.
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SN10 was a test article. The object of the exercise was to show that landing the test article as planned was possible... 100% successful on that front.

These test articles are only designed to fly once, to complete the test and prove the concept. SN10 was to be dismantled, the RUD save them the job. The only thing they would have been disappointed about was wrecking their Raptor engines
 
Trebuchet said:
100% success? No. Mostly successful? Very much so. Or are you going in the direction of the Musk-hater we used to have here who declared the first Falcon Heavy flight a total failure because they didn't land the center core?
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Ahhh, Jules Galen - they failed to land the centre core so the whole flight was a failure

Obi-WanLevelStupid.jpg
 
Trebuchet said:
100% success? No. Mostly successful? Very much so. Or are you going in the direction of the Musk-hater we used to have here who declared the first Falcon Heavy flight a total failure because they didn't land the center core?
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Oh, sure. I'm a Musk hater because I don't view exploding rockets as successes.

I'd call it a mitigated success, or a partial success. But then, I'm not a Musk groupie.

smartcooky said:
SN10 was a test article. The object of the exercise was to show that landing the test article as planned was possible... 100% successful on that front.

These test articles are only designed to fly once, to complete the test and prove the concept. SN10 was to be dismantled, the RUD save them the job. The only thing they would have been disappointed about was wrecking their Raptor engines
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You can't possibly be serious. It exploded and it counts as being dismantled after the test?

I'm aware that it was a test. The test, presumably, included the rocket not exploding. So the test at least partially failed.
 
smartcooky said:
Of course not... lighten up a bit! You are taking yourself too seriously.
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Actually, I was taking you too seriously, it seems. I'll remind you that sarcasm and tone are hard to detect in written form.

In any event, the maneuvers were impressive, but it's not like the rocket just missed the platform and landed safely a bit further off. It blew up. That's more than a minor failure, which prompted my original comment.
 
Belz... said:
Actually, I was taking you too seriously, it seems. I'll remind you that sarcasm and tone are hard to detect in written form.

In any event, the maneuvers were impressive, but it's not like the rocket just missed the platform and landed safely a bit further off. It blew up. That's more than a minor failure, which prompted my original comment.
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Well, at least they got a free second, low altitude flight!

(for the removal of doubt, that was a joke)
 
Belz... said:
Oh, sure. I'm a Musk hater because I don't view exploding rockets as successes.

I'd call it a mitigated success, or a partial success. But then, I'm not a Musk groupie.



You can't possibly be serious. It exploded and it counts as being dismantled after the test?

I'm aware that it was a test. The test, presumably, included the rocket not exploding. So the test at least partially failed.
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Note to self: There's no point arguing with Argumemnon.
 
Trebuchet said:
Note to self: There's no point arguing with Argumemnon.
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Oh, please. We've had discussions before and they've mostly been productive. You know I have no ill will toward you. And you do know that what you just did there is against the MA, so why do it? I'll remind you that you kind-of-but-not-really already had me labeled a hater for simply pointing out that a rocket exploding isn't much of a success, but me opining the reverse for you is beyond the pale?

How about this: what's wrong with my argument that one of the fundamental things that a rocket shouldn't do is explode?
 
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?
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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.


On my general impression of what happened yesterday, I would tend to put it in the "failure" camp, because, explosion.

However, wearing my engineering hat, I know that something can be a very big success even if it explodes. A lot of things went right. They learned a lot about the things that they got wrong, so it's not ridiculous to call it a success, in some sense. It's just that if you try to convince people it was a success overall, the existence of gigantic unplanned fireballs makes a powerful impression that any success was, shall we say, less than complete.

Putting it a different way, there are lots of different levels of success, and the marketing department and the engineering department might disagree with what makes a successful test. However, both of them would agree that rockets should not explode.
 
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.
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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?
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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.
 
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
 
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Myriad said:
"But the ship can't explode!"

"She's made of explodium, sir. I assure you she can, and she will."
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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?
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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.
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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.
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But that's the actual goal of the project, to become a regular orbital service with the same reliability as an airline.
 
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