In the early days of Starship I was a little bit optimistic. The “move fast and break things” strategy had quickly succeeded when SpaceX was trying to land boosters, so I was hopeful that each exploding Starship was one step closer to a working spacecraft.
But at this point it’s just sad. I don’t see anything resembling progress.
I think the boosters were a “fake it till we make it” thing that luckily worked out. I don’t think Starship will ever make it into space.
That’s a bonkers take. It’s the largest and most powerful rocket in history and it’s already made orbit. The raptor engines are the first full flow staged combustion engines to ever be put into a production rocket (This is a holy grail of rocketry). All estimates suggest that it’s also probably much cheaper to build than any of the other heavy lift rockets. And that was accomplished while also building full reusability into the design…
The work they’ve done is nothing short of astounding. Which makes your take come off as either insane, blind, or biased.
It has not made orbit.
It has done a suborbital flight.
The difference between getting to space and getting to orbit is well, an orbit.
Starship did not achieve the speed needed to maintain an orbit around the earth, if it can do so has not been proven.
Getting something that big off the ground is impressive, but we did it 50 years ago with slide rules and pencils. Getting something off the ground should not be a success for a company that already has an orbital rocket in frequent use. Having 3 vehicles fail to achieve orbit, fail to demonstrate critical features like fuel transfer and engine relight, and fail to re enter the atmosphere while under control, is not a success. I do not buy the SpaceX corporate spin that “everything after clearing the pad is icing on the cake” that’s not good enough for a critical piece of hardware that is supposed to take humans to the moon and land them there.
If ULA can develop a rocket that completes its mission on the first launch, and NASA can do the same, because they take the time to check everything, then why are we giving SpaceX the pass to move fast and break things when it’s clearly not working. They do not have a heavy lift orbital rocket. They have a rocket that can, from all evidence, achieve a suborbital flight while completely empty.
And remember, this is not private money they are burning every time one of these explodes or burns up in the atmosphere. They were given 3 billion American Tax dollars to develop this thing. And now the Government Accountability Office has not even been shown that the Raptor engine is even capable of achieving the mission goals for Artemis. And their test articles are behind schedule and routinely failing in catastrophic ways.
I want to see humans back on the moon in my lifetime. I think we need to go and set up a colony so that we can explore our solar system better and develop technologies for sustaining humanity both off of earth and in the harsh conditions we will face as our climate changes. Anything that threatens the mission of establishing a human presence off of earth needs to be looked at closely and realistically.
Back in the 60’s we knew that the only way to get humans to the moon was to keep the equipment reliable and redundant, anything else was asking for people to die. We seem to have lost that simple insight in recent years, and Starship is the epitome of that hubris. A ridiculously complicated vehicle with a complicated flight plan that has not been shown to work in any capacity. That needs to be pointed out and investigated if for no other reason then it is delaying a major mission.
"Starship did not achieve the speed needed to maintain an orbit around the earth, if it can do so has not been proven. "
Arguing this point makes you seem either uneducated on the launch or just someone shitting on SpaceX because musk. If you were actually familiar with the launch profile you would know starship nearly reached orbital velocities but did not on purpose, so it could reenter the atmosphere and test the heat shield.
So you’d be technically right in your statement, however knowing the full details of the situation makes your take stupid.
You’ve written a whole lot for someone who doesn’t seem to know what they’re talking about.
It has not made orbit.
It has done a suborbital flight.
The difference between getting to space and getting to orbit is well, an orbit.
These statements are intentionally misleading. The starship was less than 100 dv short of orbit when they decided to cut the engines in order to test another flight regime. It takes at least 8500 dv to make orbit, which means they were already 98.8% of the way there and they still had plenty of propellent to spare. All systems were nominal, they could have continued, but they had already proved their capability to make orbit and were now aiming to accomplish more. The fact is, they did achieve the kind of speed you need to reach orbit, but rockets have been able to reach orbit for a long time, that’s not impressive, but rockets have only just begun to start returning to earth.
And remember, this is not private money they are burning every time one of these explodes or burns up in the atmosphere. They were given 3 billion American Tax dollars to develop this thing.
So far, the SLS has spent 23 billion tax payer dollars. They have built 1 rocket. But saying they “built” the rocket isn’t even fair, as they salvaged the engines from previous space shuttles, expending engines that had previously been reused. What will they do when they run out of pre-built engines? Prices will go up for sure…
Again, the SLS is attempting to use antique engines and essentially develop nothing new, and it has cost the public $23B. The starship is attempting to develop many ground breaking technologies, is so far achieving more of their goals with every launch. And they’ve spent 3 billion doing all of that.
At this point it may also be worth noting that the SLS has been in development for 14 years, the starship has been in real development for 5-7 years.
I remain in the position I started, to deny that SpaceX is doing something truly astonishing is plain bonkers.
Hey, go boo the actual bad shit Musk is doing. Starship is an amazing feat of human engineering. One that has already made orbit, btw.
Hey, go boo the actual bad shit Musk is doing.
Ok. Boo.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-a-new-space-race-could-be-harming-the-earths-atmosphere
https://www.space.com/rocket-exhaust-pollution-upper-atmosphere
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021EF002612
Sooty exhaust from RP-1 and aluminum oxide particulates from discarded upper stages will not be a problem with Starship.
Starship uses methalox, and the upper stage is designed to be reusable.
True but disingenuous. This statement is often used to mock blue origin for just going 100km straight up into space and then back down, which is very far from reaching orbit. But the flight profile of IFT-3 was so close to orbital velocity, it’s not a significant difference.
“move fast and break things”
Sounds like a slogan for one of Stalin’s “Five Year Plans.”
Too bad that Mark Zuckerberg coined it as a motto for Facebook then, huh?
Lol what kind of comeback is that? We know he said that, dumbass, that was the entire point of their reference. Do you like… Not know who Stalin is?
Fuck this stupid company. No more federal funding for SpaceX.
A few years ago (already) I would have been sad and shocked. Now I don’t give a shit about SpaceTwitter. That douchebag managed to kill all the interest I had for space exploration, a topic I was passionate about for most of my life. He really is that kind of killjoy.
Wow talk about blaming someone else for your waning interest. If you were really into space exploration, you wouldn’t let one person come in the way. A person who doesn’t even know you. Or you don’t know either technically. I’m no Elon shill and I dislike him like everyone else. But I’ll be damned if I lose interest in space just because of him. Even if the whole world was a douchebag, I’d still get out telescoping equipment and gaze at the skies. And oh by the way, if not for SpaceX do it for NASA who were there way before anyone else. Do it for your ancestors who looked at the sky in amazement every night.
I know how you feel I used to love watching all the SpaceX launches, but I just can’t bring myself to care anymore about anything Musk is involved in.
Why would you let that ruin all of space exploration for you? He’s a dick. I don’t give a crap about his company. But exploring the solar system is still absolutely amazing.
Elon Musk promised manned missions to Mars by now, and the beginning of building a base should have started already 2 years ago.
There are many good reasons to hate Musk, he is a liar and a con man.
The people on lemmy are college kid level extremist on literally everything and it would be funnier if it weren’t so exhausting.
college kid level extremist on literally everything
It’s really wearing me out on this platform.
I’m stealing that quote BTW. You can’t stop me.
Maybe he lost interest because of all the bullshit Elon Musk promised that came to NOTHING, remember a few years back he promised there would be manned missions to Mars now… NOW!!! MANNED MISSIONS!!! They were supposed to be well along building a base on Mars that should have started 2 years ago!!
Reality may seem kind of dull compared to the fantasies Musk promised.
Personally I never believed Musk for a second, and I thought Neil Tyson was a blabbering idiot for parroting him. But many fell for it, and my wife thought I was “negative” for not believing and agreeing with them!
But things like the James Webb telescope are 100% cool.
Well, before SpaceX I looked at the space exploration program as a science enthusiast. The missions were rare but important for science. Then this dude came out of nowhere, saying he was about to save the Earth with electric cars and build a station on Mars. And for a moment it really worked. I genuinely thought he was a good billionaire. Then he completely loose his mind, start talking and acting like the worse moron of the universe, and I started studying his statements without the shiny distorting layer. He’s so full of shit it makes me sick. Most of the things he says is nonsense.
So I can’t tell why my brain works that way, but it does. Today I’m more exited by new ways to produce renewable energies on Earth than I am about rockets. That joy I felt for any SpaceX news slipped away.
My comment was just the realization of that. That was weird to be honest, but true.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently announced that Starship’s fourth integrated flight test, IFT-4, could be just days away.
He should really stop predicting things.
As another commenter stated, this explosion is not at “Starbase” where they launch starship. It’s unlikely to have any impact on the launch schedule for Starship. They tested an engine on a test stand and it failed. They will likely learn something from it.
Imagine how much SpaceX could learn if they blow up a crewed starship.
- Musk toadie (probably)
If something is going to blow up, its much better to happen on a test stand than on an actual product or test launch.
Best case would be doing the math beforehand, as they Didn’t do with the flame trench iterations until the water pump system was added. And we know that because other people on youtube did do the math and determined even the special high temperature concrete from NASA wasnt going to be enough by itself.
Good lord, everyone please learn a tiny bit about spacex and the state of the space industry instead of letting your (justified) hatred of Elon do the typing.
Uh huh, totally not the drug addicted scammers fault that he made bullshit claim after bullshit claim, pushing engineers to make reckless decisions, totally not the owners fault.
I’ll grant you that SpaceX has, amongst others, a number of smart engineers, though smart is a relative term if you’re working for elon musk
You wouldn’t say this if you were following the industry at all. Please see my other comment in this thread. SpaceX is dominating, for good reason, and seemingly in spite of musk.
I dont see whynanyone’s surprised, anything Elon is touchung is tainted by association. It’s not rocket science.
You’re right, Elon Musk being associated with a company is negative. And what SpaceX has accomplished despite that association is truly impressive.
I think around here most people agree that billionaires don’t earn their billions, they reach that point having benefited from the efforts of thousands of workers. So why don’t we recognize those people’s work? Somehow, SpaceX has managed to avoid the meddling that we see from Musk in relation to Twitter and Tesla.
Before SpaceX the U.S. was reliant on Russia’s soyuz to get us to and from the space station. We didn’t have anything that could launch people into orbit.
Before SpaceX we were launching single use rockets built by companies like United Launch Alliance (ULA), which was founded as a joint venture between defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing. (They’re still around and still for the most part suck)
And before SpaceX the cost to do anything in space was extremely prohibitive. NASA didn’t and still doesn’t really build their own rockets, they contract out, and the contracts had been cost-plus, meaning ULA got an agreed on profit plus expenses. So if the schedule slipped on development or development cost more than expected, they actually make more money. There wasn’t much of a private market in space.
With SpaceX they created re-usable rocket components, re-established a U.S. sourced crew capsule, and using fixed price contracts they reduced the cost of launch by an order of magnitude. And by publishing fixed prices to get into space, they pretty much by themselves kicked off the private space economy. SpaceX launches more frequently than any other company, and more than any nation.
And they did all that with a better safety record than previous programs! I can’t speak to this particular explosion, but SpaceX has taken an approach where they create new designs quickly, and test them quickly with the potential for explosions, before they put humans at risk on a live launch.
Elon Musk didn’t do all that, the people at SpaceX did. And if anything I’m concerned about the point when he gets tired of fucking up twitter and tesla and turns his attention to SpaceX. I’m hoping the national security aspect of the company will mean responsible adults prevent him from interfering.
And before SpaceX the cost to do anything in space was extremely prohibitive.
As opposed to now…
With SpaceX they created re-usable rocket components
Nobody had done that before? Wasn’t the promise that they would do few quick checks, refuel, and send it back up same day?
Before SpaceX the U.S. was reliant on Russia’s soyuz to get us to and from the space station.
Nasa had do use Soyuz because crew dragon was late. SpaceX won the contract then underdelivered a late product. Basically exactly what ULA or Boeing would have done.
Wanna talk about Artemis?
Right, and that’s the joke. All that talent and progress is tainted by Elon’s actions.
I’ve been against the space industry/NASA/etc’s bullshit love of Elon’s fucked up project ever since the idiot took over. If they can’t see how he has mismanaged every single thing he’s ever touched and pulled out of every single contract with them because of him, they have serious issues.
Maybe now NASA will come to their senses, kick SpaceX to the curb, and work with someone actually competent.
Cry harder. Without SpaceX the US space industry would be worse than Russia right now. SpaceX launches hundreds of rockets per year and saves NASA millions in launch costs, and can actually launch people into space, unlike Boeing
Relying on a company so unpredictable and full of problems and errors is worse than not going to space at all. Your unnatural love for that laughable idiot Musk is going to get astronauts killed.
Please see my other comment in this same thread. It’s not like Tesla or Twitter where they’re clearing slipping and releasing bad product. Look at the actual accomplishments!
As much as we on lemmy might look down on consumers of conservative news, I’m really surprised by how similarly reflexive and uninformed a lot of the comments here are.
So that obliterated launchpad is just normal, then? That empty star ship launch that managed to tumble in space was normal? SpaceX alway cheering and laughing when rockets blow up is normal? SpaceX dominates because they receive our tax dollars. Without that, they’d be dead in the water long time ago
One only has to read any current news about how mismanaged SpaceX is and how many problems they are having to recant this “we love Elon and can’t imagine not having our dicks all the way up his ass” attitude about SpaceX or anything that incompetent, privileged little shit runs.
I’d have a lot more sympathy for this comment if people would actually do this in reference to Space Billionaires. I’ve had far too many conversations online and elsewhere where the individual shits on NASA for space industry problems and worships Space Billionaires because [some convoluted “government bad rich entrepreneurs good” reason] and their problems aren’t really problems. I’m not saying you’re part of the billionaire sycophant club, but I’m not against musk’s well deserved criticism as he sacrifices people in his rush, and probably work quality suffers alongside them.
Is it ok to shit on NASA for dumping so much money into developing Starship?
Also the SLS doesn’t seem much better. But at least they’ve been around the moon on the SLS.
Personally I’d rather they work on developing spacecraft that can be launch on Falcon 9 or Falcon 9 Heavies, even if it meant multiple launches and assembling things at the ISS before going to the Moon and onwards. Doing this during the Apollo era was difficult because docking operations weren’t all that reliable and there was no ISS back then so giant rockets was the way to go. But things have changed and dumping insane amounts of money into building massive rockets seems like a waste of money and probably isn’t as safe as using proven rocket systems.
Also the SLS doesn’t seem much better.
Are you joking? The SLS is a pretty major step backward for American spaceflight. If we continue flying the SLS, and make all the launches we plan (spoiler alert, that isn’t going to happen) then the cost per launch could be as low as $2 billion. But more likely we will end the SLS program when it proves to be a never ending money sink, and with so much money put into development, we’ll end up with a per launch cost upwards of $5 billion. Meanwhile, for that price it can only manage to get 95 tons to low Earth orbit.
Compare this to the Saturn V, which could lift more and cost much less, even when adjusted for inflation. The Saturn V cost $185 million, or $1.23 billion adjusting for inflation. And it could put 141 tons into low Earth orbit.
To sum up, this new rocket is much less capable and much more expensive than what we were doing 55 years ago.
You could of course also compare this to what spaceX is doing… Their aim is to make a rocket of similar payload capability 100-150t, but with a per launch cost of about $100 million via reusability. That’s an order of magnitude of improvement, that’s huge.
