SpaceX's Starship Rocket Ends in Explosion After Launch

[Drum]

Source: New York Times

The most powerful rocket ever built got off the launchpad in South Texas, but did not achieve its most ambitious goals on Thursday.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/04/20/science/spacex-launch-starship-rocket?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

[evolves]

1. Elon's dick blew up?

So sad.

[FalloutShelter]

2. Sad trombone.

[Crowman2009]

35. I'll see your sad trombone and raise you a Price is Right loser horn!

[edbermac]

3. About 6-7 of the 33 engines didn't seem to ignite.

Back to the drawing board.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. From the screenshots I posted below

looks like 5 engines were dead.

[NullTuples]

51. The more engines, the greater the chance some will fail...?

This is the sort of operational statistics gathering + calculations that are used to find an optimal number of say, redundant drives in a server array. Each one adds a substantial additional chance of failure until at some point you have to start planning for two simultaneous failures, then three. And each addition requires even more drives to be added to fail-safe the data. Diminishing returns kicks in. But this is done when the amount of space needed exceeds that of available drives and many drives therefore must be aggregated. But as you can see, there are balancing points that must be heeded, too.

I find it hard to believe that the MTBF of those engines is so near-perfect that the balance point of failure risk to needed thrust is at 33 engines. Or I should say, today proved that their calculations perhaps were off. Or maybe someone at the top of the org chart simply said, "those are the engines we have, I want this to work so do it anyway, it'll work".

[Warpy]

62. Or ignited late, neither was good

Rocket science really is hard. Who knew?

[Happy Hoosier]

95. The rocket is designed to operate...

... with some number of of the main engines out. That's why there are so many.

TO me, it looked like a maneuvering thruster was stuck. They tried to resolve it, failed to do so, and engaged the flight termination system.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. The upper stage didn't separate as expected

and they detonated it as it spiraled back down towards the water.

Some screenshots -

[edbermac]

10. I got this shot of the engines.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. Okay cool - after that it seems at least one more did fire up

but the other 5 didn't.

But even then, the booster didn't separate.

[bucolic_frolic]

7. Rocket tweets like a Twitter birdie

BOOM!!!

[Javaman]

8. it appears to me that eloon's fortunes are turning. nt

[PatSeg]

38. It most certainly does

His bad luck is snowballing rapidly. Of course, I don't think "luck" has anything to do with it. He is the architect of his own undoing.

[dweller]

9. So it landed in the gulf ?

🤔



✌🏻

[Beachnutt]

17. Who's gonna clean that mess up and

who's paying for it ?

[RussBLib]

21. it all went into the ocean

they were not planning on recovering any of the debris. Could make for some interesting diving excursions.

We live 6 miles as the crow flies from the launch pad. Our house shook like a mo-fo, but there are no signs of damage.

[Beachnutt]

41. I guess they think it's ok to trash the ocean

[RussBLib]

43. for centuries, that's where we buried our garbage

extremely short-sighted, obviously. Some countries still use the vastness of the ocean as an excuse to dump.

The future rockets are supposed to all be reusable. Judging by today's incident, that is still a long ways away. They are likely to lose a few more in the ocean before they get it right.

[Shermann]

66. I believe what the prophets said

That the oceans hold their dead

[XorXor]

54. Too deep for it any realistic recovery?

I would think being able to analyze the debris would be an important thing for them. Similar to how NASA had done with the shuttle and how the NTSB does when a plane crashed. I guess if it's way out in the middle of the ocean, then recovery would be too difficult, aye?

[ColinC]

12. #defund spacex

Give somebody else the contracts

[area51]

34. +1 n/t

[IrishAfricanAmerican]

46. Absolutely!

[EX500rider]

67. Like Lockheed/Boeing? If you like paying 4x's more, sure

Not liking Musk seems like a poor excuse to waste tax dollars but YMMV

Launch money:

If we take a look at launch costs, this trend makes a lot of easy sense. SpaceX launches accounted for 60 percent of global launches last year, and the erstwhile-startup can launch its Falcon 9 for a (relatively) modest $80-90 million. ULA tacks on a much higher bill -- the Government Accountability Organization reported (in 2015) their average cost is more than $400 million/flight, based on actual Air Force contracts. Our data confirms both Boeing’s and Lockheed’s contract value vacillating around that amount.

https://www.businessofbusiness.com/articles/spacex-growing-government-contracts/

[ColinC]

72. I do like paying 4X more if that includes treating employees like human beings

…and having a tried and true method to success. I have known many spacex employees and being treated like a human ranks fairly low on the perks spacex provides.

[we can do it]

74. Same here. Spare me the "conservative" bullshit.

[EX500rider]

76. Nobody forces them to work there, they do so by their own free will I believe

The estimated total pay for a Engineer at SpaceX is $167,176 per year.

[ColinC]

78. If they want breaks they may get fired.

They have an Amazon-like assembly line. Sure the pay is great, but many there will happily take a pay cut for a more human work environment if given the opportunity.


So yeah there is some “forcing” going on there. Money isn’t the sole determining factor to a good job, believe it or not.

[EX500rider]

80. No one forces them to work there though, Lockheed hires.

But compare about even with SpaceX:

https://www.glassdoor.com/Compare/Lockheed-Martin-vs-SpaceX-EI_IE404-E40371.htm#:~:text=Employee%20Ratings,-Lockheed%20Martin%20scored&text=SpaceX%20scored%20higher%20in%202,Opportunities%20and%20Positive%20Business%20Outlook.&text=Lockheed%20Martin%20employees%20rated%20their,than%20SpaceX%20employees%20rated%20theirs.

[ColinC]

81. Nobody forces spacex to treat their employees like crap either

And since they do, I prefer my tax money go to Boeing. There is a quiet exodus -actually, of folks leaving to Boeing and its competitors. So yes, perhaps folks are realizing they aren’t actually being forced to work there. Although again, as a taxpayer, I will continue to encourage my elected representatives not to seek government investment into companies that treat their employees poorly.

[ColinC]

82. Btw lockheed scored higher in 8 areas. Spacex in 2

Lockheed Martin scored higher in 8 areas: Overall Rating, Culture & Values, Diversity & Inclusion, Work-life balance, Senior Management, Compensation & Benefits, CEO Approval and Recommend to a friend.
SpaceX scored higher in 2 areas: Career Opportunities and Positive Business Outlook.

🤔

[2naSalit]

84. I'd vote for that!

[Doc Sportello]

13. How inspiring!!!

[jcgoldie]

14. "rapid unscheduled disassembly"

[MiHale]

15. That's the best line.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. Howard Hughes's Spruce Goose at least survived its maiden flight (nt)

[PSPS]

19. Not to worry. Untaxed billionaires have lots more money to burn.

[former9thward]

30. Musk paid $11 Billion in taxes in 2021.

The largest payment by an individual in history. He is hardly "untaxed."

[Bengus81]

32. Most of it/all of it on stock options that he exercised

For the most part he pays no taxes because he gets paid in stock. He'd be in a 20% bracket on capital gains. Boo hooo poor guy!

[former9thward]

37. Are those taxes or not?

The poster I was replying to said he did not pay taxes.

[hay rick]

49. A better description of Musk's finances would be overcompensated.

We can reduce his income in all of its forms, or increase his taxes. Or we can maintain the fiction that his level of wealth and income is "earned" and not parasitic.

[PSPS]

85. That's less than 10% so it is essentially untaxed.

[former9thward]

86. No, it was over 40% for that year.

And that rate does not include the 14% CA income tax. You apparently want a "wealth" or total assets tax. We don't have that here and will not.

[PSPS]

88. Not according to his reported income

We're obviously not going to agree on this. I'm of the opinion that anything anyone earns as income over one or two million a year (I'd even settle for over a billion) should have that excess amount taxed at a confiscatory rate, like 90%. If they want to avoid that, let them re-invest the excess in something productive and then deduct that from their taxable income.

[XorXor]

20. Are they still able to rapidly build these to make iterative improvements and try again?

Does that process scale with these larger rockets? I know this was supposed to do this launch over a year ago. So, that alone seems like a departure.

I personally don't want to see SpaceX fail. There are a lot of good engineers, scientists, and technicians working over there. They are not Elon Musk. Their hard work and effort is why we no longer need to hitch a ride with the Russians. The other companies, new and old, have yet to achieve the same success as SpaceX at this time.

[RussBLib]

22. as I understand it...

...there are several new rockets under construction at Boca Chica. I think a couple of them are basically ready to roll out to the launch pad, so it may not be too long before they try again.

[OnlinePoker]

25. On the SpaceX feed, they said they will build 5 Boosters this year

I can't remember the number of Starships, but the engine quantity will be over 200.

[XorXor]

52. That's a crazy number of of engines.

But then again, there is a crazy number of engines on just one of these rockets. I hope they succeed.

[we can do it]

64. Hope they go bankrupt

[EX500rider]

68. So we can pay Lockheed/Boeing 4 times more? great idea nt

[we can do it]

70. How bout not privatizing, great idea.

[EX500rider]

73. It has aways been privatized, NASA didn't build the Saturn 5, Boeing/Douglas/N.American did

[we can do it]

75. Then pay them - they treat people like humans, are aren't psychopathic.

[EX500rider]

77. The estimated total pay for a Engineer at SpaceX is $167,176 per year

[we can do it]

79. I do not care.

[ga_girl]

28. SpaceX is well know for test, break, learn, test

They're in a hardware rich environment, meaning they make multiple iterations of their rockets, with improvements constantly implemented. The best thing about this launch is they didn't lose the Orbital Launch Mount (ie pad).

[electric_blue68]

42. No eloon fan, but I agree

[flying_wahini]

23. I dunno, the space debris in the ocean part kind of galls me.

[OnlinePoker]

27. The plan is to make these fully reusable

They fly these over the ocean to present the least threat of death and destruction to humans during the testing phase. SpaceX's Falcon launch costs are so low because they land and reuse their first stage boosters and payload fairings (over 180 boosters recovered to date). If they can get Starship to work, there won't be any material going into the ocean at all as it will all be recovered. No other rocket company can boast about such an achievement.

[XorXor]

53. I'd venture a guess they will try to recover as much of the debris as possible

in order to help them improve the design to prevent this.

[vanamonde]

24. I had something similar happen to me

As a young nerd in the 60's I built and flew Estes model rockets. Many of them. The flagship of my fleet was their 4 engine cluster powered Saturn 1B model.

Those who shared this hobby with me will remember that in order to ignite the solid fuel engines you stuck a high resistance wire up into the engine, securing it there with a wad of tissue (they later improved on this technique).

Failure to ignite was a common problem even with one engine, for many reasons. Getting four to ignite simultaneously was a real trick.

On the maiden launch only two of the four engines ignited. The now underpowered rocket rose about 6 feet off the ground then fell back to earth, suffering serious but repairable damage.

At least it didn't blow up.

[RobinA]

31. Remember It Well

The paper wad would fall out periodically. Good times.

[RAB910]

26. This

Link to tweet

[LudwigPastorius]

55. LOL

[dalton99a]

57. +1

[durablend]

60. With himself in it?

[nevergiveup]

29. The launch of SpaceX rockets should be saved for the 4th of July.

[CaptainTruth]

33. Elon probably fired all the non-exploding-rocket engineers.

[Crowman2009]

36. But hey, at least those libs got pwned on Twitter!

[Crowman2009]

39. Kind of weird how all the SpaceX worshippers at Boca Chica were applauding like idiots.

Were they all drunk or on shrooms? Any other rocket company would be in stunned silence if something like this happened.

[LudwigPastorius]

56. Yeah, not so much like NASA...more like a cult.

[Crowman2009]

59. An actual engineer would be in stunned silence, or pissed off.

And in the case of the Soviet engineers of the N1 rocket, worrying if their going to be sent off to Siberia.

[FredGarvin]

40. Mission Accomplished

Glad so see that the first hurdle was passed!

Initial stage worked as designed.

I'm proud of these engineers and scientists having successfully launched the largest rocket ever built.

Science FTW!!!!!

[VGuerra276]

44. The greatest environmental disaster

I live in the Rio Grande Valley and am an environmental activist fighting Space X, the border wall, and LNG development. Boa Chica beach was one of the most pristine beaches remaining in the state / country, until space x moved in. Hailed by local government leaders as great growth opportunity, Musk has been given carte blanche to do whatever he wants. He has evaded regulatory mandates and had avoided most or all of the 75 mitigation requirements listed in the EA. The FAA has totally failed us. So has USFWS. This is an area where there exists federally protected lands...the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. It also contains protected National and State park land where some of the last civil war battles were fought. Last but not least, the area is home many endangered animals, reptiles, and plant species. It is where the Rio Grande River meets the Gulf of Mexico. This is a critically sensitive area and not a single governmental entirety, from the small local entity all the way to the top federal entity, gives a shit about the abject destruction happening, not just with the launch, but with daily space x operations. Today, my heart is broken. . I mourn for the dead and deaf animals who could not withstand the much greater volume of the launch than what was anticipated in the EA. Those now deaf birds, animals, reptiles are soon to be dead, too.

[Delphinus]

50. {{hugs}}

Thank you for sharing your story ... welcome to DU, a place where we will understand your pain.

[brer cat]

61. I hope you will keep us posted on what is happening in your part

of the state. We are raping our planet and we need eyes on the ground.

[marble falls]

93. Time for Elon Musk to get the hell out of Dodge.

[republianmushroom]

45. I would say this was a failure. IMO

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

47. Tough luck Eloon

[dchill]

48. And I STILL think privatizing space was a bad idea...

...just like privatizing anything else.

[EX500rider]

71. It has aways been privatized, NASA didn't build the Saturn 5, Boeing/Douglas/N.American did

[dchill]

83. They didn't run the program!

[EX500rider]

87. Are you under the impression NASA had no rockets explode?

Including two space shuttles with full crews?

[dchill]

89. You must be nuts about Elon and privatization.

And no. I'm 71. I've seen it all. That's why I don't favor privatization.

[EX500rider]

90. Don't care for Elon one way or the other

Do care for innovative and cheaper ways to get to space which SpaceX is providing.

SpaceX booster satellite to orbit $80 million.

ULA booster satellite to orbit $400 million.

That's not just a little bit cheaper.

And relanding and reusing the first stages, genius.

[dchill]

91. Which?

Genus - a principal taxonomic category that ranks above species and below family, and is denoted by a capitalized Latin name, e.g. Leo

OR

Genius - just an insult to a real genius.

[BeyondGeography]

58. Pitchbot says

Link to tweet

?s=61&t=EcvWMxA1syxTf8zqNwq-IA

[we can do it]

63. Hahahahaha

[C Moon]

65. Elon must be getting some parts from North Korea.

[honest.abe]

69. Self-driving issue no doubt.

[marble falls]

94. Launch failure or design failure ...

[Kennah]

96. All part of his Twitter strategy