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

crescent said:
I don't know - it was on fire for some minutes after it landed, after the engines were all shut down. I don't know if it is supposed to do that or not.
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If I had to guess, I would say some insulation blankets burning. Its not fuel, because methane burns blue, when combined with lox it burns pink.

Anyway, its shown as out even on the infrared camera.
 
Good to see there are still people in the skeptics community who have not become Elon haters to the point of hating anything related to Elon... like it has happened to some famous skeptic channels on Youtube (Thunderf00t, Cool Hard Logic, etc)
 
AcesHigh said:
Good to see there are still people in the skeptics community who have not become Elon haters to the point of hating anything related to Elon... like it has happened to some famous skeptic channels on Youtube (Thunderf00t, Cool Hard Logic, etc)
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Oh, I think the man's an utter dick. He seems to be an excellent project manager and very good at process innovation and picking people though.

Starship is a deeply impressive project.
 
AcesHigh said:
Good to see there are still people in the skeptics community who have not become Elon haters to the point of hating anything related to Elon... like it has happened to some famous skeptic channels on Youtube (Thunderf00t, Cool Hard Logic, etc)
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3point14 said:
Oh, I think the man's an utter dick. He seems to be an excellent project manager and very good at process innovation and picking people though.

Starship is a deeply impressive project.
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But that isn't what AcesHigh is talking about. Even I think he's a dick, and ultimately not a very nice person, but he has some brilliant, sometimes off the wall ideas. His critics have repeatedly claimed that this idea or that idea would never work and he has repeatedly made them eat their words.

As to Thunderf00t, I was once a fan - I used to have a lot of respect for that guy and watched his channel, but he has now joined the Elon hate train, criticising anything and everything he says or does. His videos used to mostly be accurate, reasoned engineering, debunking of woo woo like faith healing, homeopathy and alternative medicines and obvious frauds like the self-filling water bottle etc, but his channel has devolved into a series of obsessive inaccurate and often unevidenced rants about Musk. I have now unsubscribed from his channel, and blocked him from my YouTube recommendations.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
- Theodore Roosevelt (26th US President)​
 
smartcooky said:
But that isn't what AcesHigh is talking about. Even I think he's a dick, and ultimately not a very nice person, but he has some brilliant, sometimes off the wall ideas. His critics have repeatedly claimed that this idea or that idea would never work and he has repeatedly made them eat their words.
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I don't disagree with any of that.
 
arthwollipot said:
Interesting!

Inside Spacex's Starship Factory (Starbase) - 8:14
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Interesting indeed.

Despite what people say about Musk being a hard taskmaster, the vast majority of people who work for him love their jobs and enjoy being part of what SpaceX are doing. This hasn't always been that case, but it is now. He has a "no-asshats in the workplace" policy - its sort of saying that, "no matter how skilled or brilliant you are, if you treat others badly in the workplace, you're goneburger, because I can always find someone just as skilled and brilliant as you who is not an asshat!" Its a philosophy that helps create a happy, productive work place.

For those who don't want to watch the video, here are a couple of highlights

Musk challenged his team to build faster and better, so the engineers got their heads together and designed, from scratch, an automated welding machine to weld together the domes that make up the LOX and methane tanks. They built the prototype in one of the construction tents over a couple of weekends and then put the "the knuckle seamer" (as they called it) to work. This welding machine took the welding time down from six to eight days, to a single day

The engineers also conceived, designed and built an automated x-ray machine for inspecting the welds. It went from being an idea in the engineer's minds to being built and tested in four weeks. Previously, the x-ray team would have to shut down the work area before commencing work, and then the job would take a full day. The new machine finished the job in a few hours.

In order to speed up production, Musk doubled the build team in one weekend from 250 people to 500. He held a meeting and asked SpaceX employees at Boca Chica to bring their friends to come work on Starship, but with one condition, that they would be responsible for the work of the new employees. By 12 hours after the meeting, they were already hiring.

The Starship factory runs 24/7 but in order to make sure his workers don't suffer from burn out, he runs a shift system of three days of 12-hour shifts followed by a four-day weekend, and then four days of 12-hour shifts followed by a three-day weekend.

Its a really interesting look at how things work at Boca Chica - well worth the watch.
 
AcesHigh said:
Good to see there are still people in the skeptics community who have not become Elon haters to the point of hating anything related to Elon... like it has happened to some famous skeptic channels on Youtube (Thunderf00t, Cool Hard Logic, etc)
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Thunderf00t isn't a Musk hater. But he doesn't buy into his kooky ideas, either. I don't think he has anything against SpaceX or Tesla. But the nutty ideas like Hyperloop get a rough treatment. He's also right that for the moment, the Starship is just an empty shell with thrusters.

Same with me. Musk's done some really cool stuff and I applaud him for that and his general futuristic outlook. But I'm not going to worship him or pretend that his feces smell of roses.
 
Belz... said:
Thunderf00t isn't a Musk hater. But he doesn't buy into his kooky ideas, either. I don't think he has anything against SpaceX or Tesla. But the nutty ideas like Hyperloop get a rough treatment. He's also right that for the moment, the Starship is just an empty shell with thrusters.
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I think you haven't watched many of Thunderf00t's more recent videos. He is an absolutely obsessed Elon Musk hater. He hates Tesla, and SpaceX and goes out of his way to ridicule them.

For someone who is supposed to have engineering expertise, he sure makes a lot of fundamental mistakes, for example, stating that the Methalox fuel is dangerous because the slightest spill will cause an explosion as soon as the Methanol comes onto contact with LOX. This is wrong, and I posted as much on one of his videos, telling him that Methalox is not hypergolic, i.e. it doesn't ignite spontaneously, it requires and ignition source just like Kerolox. Turns out he doesn't like people pointing out his mistakes, because his response to this was to block me from commenting on his channel. So, as I said earlier, I unsubscribed and blocked his channel from being recommended.

As for the hyperloop thing, what he does is too stupid for words. Thunderf00t tries to ridicule Musk as if he was actually building it, when in reality, the total extent of his involvement was to run a technology demonstration for students, and to open source the idea to others. While it was his initial idea (although not a new one by any stretch) and while Musk's Boring Company does some contract work for one of the Hyperloop companies, Musk has no direct involvement with it now. However, that has not stopped Thunderf00t from levelling his tirades against the media speculation about Hyperloop, all the while claiming that it is Musk's hyperloop.

I have to wonder if he is like some of the other people whose channels he likes dunking, i.e. the woo woo scammers and new age con artists... in it for the clicks and the money. A Redditor friend of main made an interesting observation about Musk a few months back. He reckons that hating musk has become something of an online cottage industry. It is possible on YouTube to make money being a professional Musk hater. Suckers Amateur Musk haters will flock to your channel and click and subscribe, creating wealth from your hate, they might even sign up to your Patreon and pay you directly to hate Musk.

Thunderf00t might be an above average intelligence Youtuber, but he's also a total asshat, and I can't be bothered with his malarkey!
 
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smartcooky said:
For someone who is supposed to have engineering expertise, he sure makes a lot of fundamental mistakes
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I remember him evaluating a solar powered portable water generator that used a peltier cooler to condense water from air. He went through some calculations supposedly proving that it couldn't work, starting with the latent heat of evaporation for water. Then he multiplied the latent heat by the claimed condensation rate to get a required power output, and voila, the solar cells could never provide nearly that much power.

The problem is that this is not the power required to run the condenser, it's the rate at which energy has to be transferred out of the water. But cooling can be done much more efficiently than 1 to 1 (ie, you can remove 1 unit of thermal energy from something and dump it somewhere else for much less than 1 unit of energy). It's the kind of thing that can easily trip up students, but he's not a student. He should be well past making that kind of fundamental mistake.

The product in question was still lousy (the claimed rates of water generation might be possible in ideal conditions but you won't get those pretty much ever), but not for the reason he claimed.
 
smartcooky said:
I think you haven't watched many of Thunderf00t's more recent videos.
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I watched all of them. So you can stop thinking that.

He is an absolutely obsessed Elon Musk hater.
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How would you know, since you admitted to not watching his videos anymore?

As for the hyperloop thing, what he does is too stupid for words. Thunderf00t tries to ridicule Musk as if he was actually building it, when in reality, the total extent of his involvement was to run a technology demonstration for students, and to open source the idea to others.
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He ridicules it because it's a silly idea that's never going to get done.

I'm aware that Thunderf00t makes mistakes and is often too enthousiastic about ridiculous silly ideas, but he's not wrong about the loop. SpaceX and Tesla so far have been successes and I hope they keep being so.
 
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Belz... said:
I watched all of them. So you can stop thinking that.
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Fair enough

Belz... said:
How would you know, since you admitted to not watching his videos anymore?
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I know because its part of what caused me to not bother with his videos any more

Belz... said:
He ridicules it because it's a silly idea that's never going to get done.
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I've no problem with that, but he still insists on calling it "Musk's Hyperloop" when Musk clearly has nothing to do with it. He should call it "Medhurst's Hyperloop", but of course, no money to be made from that, it wouldn't draw the amateur Musk haters to his channel.
 
smartcooky said:
I've no problem with that, but he still insists on calling it "Musk's Hyperloop" when Musk clearly has nothing to do with it.
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Well he introduced the name and launched the (modern) concept of the thing. Are you saying he's absolutey not involved in it, in any way, anymore? If so, F00t should indeed stop associating them.

I know because its part of what caused me to not bother with his videos any more
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Well I don't remember him saying much negative about Tesla and SpaceX, and some positive outside of the Starship.
 
Ziggurat said:
I remember him evaluating a solar powered portable water generator that used a peltier cooler to condense water from air. He went through some calculations supposedly proving that it couldn't work, starting with the latent heat of evaporation for water. Then he multiplied the latent heat by the claimed condensation rate to get a required power output, and voila, the solar cells could never provide nearly that much power.

The problem is that this is not the power required to run the condenser, it's the rate at which energy has to be transferred out of the water. But cooling can be done much more efficiently than 1 to 1 (ie, you can remove 1 unit of thermal energy from something and dump it somewhere else for much less than 1 unit of energy). It's the kind of thing that can easily trip up students, but he's not a student. He should be well past making that kind of fundamental mistake.

The product in question was still lousy (the claimed rates of water generation might be possible in ideal conditions but you won't get those pretty much ever), but not for the reason he claimed.
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One thing I noticed was his tendency to round his figures up or down depending on whether the result would be more or less favourable to the case he was trying to make... e.g. 95 gets rounded up to 100 if he needs result in one direction, or rounded down to 90 if he needs a result the other way.
 
smartcooky said:
One thing I noticed was his tendency to round his figures up or down depending on whether the result would be more or less favourable to the case he was trying to make... e.g. 95 gets rounded up to 100 if he needs result in one direction, or rounded down to 90 if he needs a result the other way.
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Oh, he rounds up or down a LOT more than that. That's one thing I don't like about his videos. I mean, 830 is not a thousand, and 1300 is not a thousand either.
 
Belz... said:
Well he introduced the name and launched the (modern) concept of the thing. Are you saying he's absolutey not involved in it, in any way, anymore? If so, F00t should indeed stop associating them.
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The only thing he has to do with it is that The Boring Company, owned by Musk, does some contract work (tunnel digging) for a couple of the Hyperloop startups. That's a similar involvement to claiming DHL and Fedex are involved with the Covid-19 vaccination program because they are transporting some doses..
 
So, they've put the big thing on top of the really big thing.

The result is a really, really big thing. Should make a very big bang...
 
3point14 said:
So, they've put the big thing on top of the really big thing.

The result is a really, really big thing. Should make a very big bang...
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Just awesome!!!

StarshipStacked.png
 
Belz... said:
What's awesome? It looks like a space rocket. :p
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Even if rockets don't interest you, when you realise that the actual rocket itself is 130 metres (395 feet) tall, AND its sitting to top of 25 metre high launch platform, you get some idea of how big that ******* crane is! Whoever built that sucker for SpaceX must have one helluva Meccano set!

If you ever played with Tonka Toys in the sandpit when you were a kid, that alone IS awesome
 
For those that are interested, here's part one of The Everyday Astronaut, Tim Dodd, conversing with Elon.

Whatever you think of the man, he's very interesting to listen to, although I can't help but read "GO FASTER!" into his every glance at the people who are working on his vanity project/vital mission for mankind/somewhere in between*

*delete according to your view.


 
smartcooky said:
Even if rockets don't interest you, when you realise that the actual rocket itself is 130 metres (395 feet) tall, AND its sitting to top of 25 metre high launch platform, you get some idea of how big that ******* crane is! Whoever built that sucker for SpaceX must have one helluva Meccano set!

If you ever played with Tonka Toys in the sandpit when you were a kid, that alone IS awesome
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Oh, you mean an Erector Set. Because that's what you really need when one is constructing a giant phallic symbol.
 
smartcooky said:
Even if rockets don't interest you, when you realise that the actual rocket itself is 130 metres (395 feet) tall, AND its sitting to top of 25 metre high launch platform, you get some idea of how big that ******* crane is! Whoever built that sucker for SpaceX must have one helluva Meccano set!

If you ever played with Tonka Toys in the sandpit when you were a kid, that alone IS awesome
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Liebherr built the crane. It is owned and operated by the Italian heavy-lift firm Fagioli. Which means "beans".
It's been called "Frankencrane" because of all the differently colored components. These things are highly reconfigurable for different requirements.
 
3point14 said:
For those that are interested, here's part one of The Everyday Astronaut, Tim Dodd, conversing with Elon.

Whatever you think of the man, he's very interesting to listen to, although I can't help but read "GO FASTER!" into his every glance at the people who are working on his vanity project/vital mission for mankind/somewhere in between*

*delete according to your view.


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Frankly, I don't give a fat rat's arse what his motivations are for doing this.. its just great that he's doing it.

"Gordon Cooper: You know what makes this bird go up? FUNDING makes this bird go up!
Gus Grissom: He's right. No bucks, no Buck Rogers."
- Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff
 
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smartcooky said:
Even if rockets don't interest you, when you realise that the actual rocket itself is 130 metres (395 feet) tall, AND its sitting to top of 25 metre high launch platform, you get some idea of how big that ******* crane is! Whoever built that sucker for SpaceX must have one helluva Meccano set!

If you ever played with Tonka Toys in the sandpit when you were a kid, that alone IS awesome
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For comparison, the Saturn V rocket was 110.6 metres tall (363 ft). Starship is noticeably bigger.

Super_heavy-lift_launch_vehicles.png


https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Super_heavy-lift_launch_vehicles.png
 
SpaceX’s Starship Rocket Explodes After Launch

This morning's SpaceX launch ended just minutes after liftoff when the rocket exploded. From the New York Times:
SpaceX’s Starship rocket exploded above the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, minutes after lifting off from a launchpad in South Texas. The spacecraft failed to reach orbit, but it was not a fatal failure. Before the launch, Elon Musk, the company’s founder, had tamped down expectations, saying it might take several tries before Starship succeeds at this test flight, which was to reach speeds fast enough to enter orbit before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii. New York Times link
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Haven't we had the whole "reliably getting that puppy up there" thing worked out for generations? Are they experimenting with a new technology or something?

ETA: is it the simple size of the thing that is posing unique problems?
 
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Video below, fireworks about 5 minutes in. Quite why the crowd is whooping and cheering I have no idea.

 
GlennB said:
Video below, fireworks about 5 minutes in. Quite why the crowd is whooping and cheering I have no idea.

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That's the SpaceX business model. They don't aim to have it perfect on the first launch. When trying to get the Falcon 9 to land they had so many failures they made a compilation video set to music.

I think they gave this rocket about a 50/50 chance of clearing the tower. Since it made it to first stage cutoff before failure, it seems to have exceeded the low-end expectation and is considered a success.
 
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