Wildlife officials say SpaceX launch left behind significant damage
(mashable.com)
from L4s@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 27 Aug 2023 02:00
https://lemmy.world/post/3920089
from L4s@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 27 Aug 2023 02:00
https://lemmy.world/post/3920089
Wildlife officials say SpaceX launch left behind significant damage::undefined
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So, something the article mentions is that SpaceX planned for the rocket to explode. That seems odd, why would they want that? Was it to determine what would happen if it did, or to find weak points that could lead to a catastrophic failure in the event of a manned mission? If so, why did it have to be on a launch pad and not in, say, rural Kentucky? It wasn’t going to get off the ground to begin with, so why blow it up on an actual launch pad?
The article that this article links to says that the rocket failing wasn’t the outcome they hoped for but since the launch was a test rather than a critical mission they spun it as a learning experience. Also apparently the explosion was a deliberate self-destruct after the engines failed partway up, so at least that system works.
That didn’t work as expected either. They sent the command for self-destruct and it took a while for the rocket to actually fall apart. Something about the self-destruct charges not being strong enough? It was kind of amazing to see this ginormous rocket pinwheeling through the air before it finally tore apart once the pressure inside lessened enough.
I watched the launch live, they set the expectation that “if it gets off the pad it is a successful test” way before the launch. That wasn’t just post failure spin. They certainly didn’t complete the mission as planned, but they gathered a lot of valuable data. Something tells me that they didn’t expect the pad to be as damaged as it was. I’m guessing their data said there would be damage, but it would be significantly less. Now they know. Unfortunately there are few small errors on a ship that size.
Check out the Wikipedia entry for more details.
en.wikipedia.org/…/SpaceX_Starship_Integrated_Fli…
The Starship launch of April 20 was a test for the BFR (Big Falcon Rocket) and Starship. It was considered a major success as it was able to launch off the rocket pad with no major issues (some of the engines did fail on the first stage but the Launch Vehicle was able to continue). One thing to note is the current test of Starship was to launch and possibly test proper separation (which this launch failed iirc). It was never meant to go and complete a full orbit. This launch was the first test of the entire system (BFR and Starship together), so it acts more of “how far can we go with our current progress?”
Almost all unmanned rockets have a faliure mode of exploding, but this is usually done above a safe area. A bunch of debris falling down is a lot safer than a whole Rocket, loaded with explosive fuel. Starship had exploded above the Gulf of Mexico, far away from any pockets of civilization. Keep in mind, to do this launch, they would have to had clearance from government agencies (not sure which one specifically, probably NASA?) to perform said launch.
I guess one major criticism I have of SpaceX’s trial and error method is that it does cause more environmental damage than NASA’s method (slower development but leads to less lost of vehicles).
Take this with a grain of salt, as I am no means an expert, just an Aerospace enthusiast and am going by what I recall.
They don’t want it to explode, but it is an expected outcome during initial testing like this. Starship is not like any other rocket ever made. It also has very little in common to the existing Falcon 9. Almost all of its design is new and has not been done by any other company. From the steel structure, to the full flow staged combustion rocket engine, an engine design never actually launched previously.
SpaceX operates using iterative design. They build the current design and find and fix issues as they complete it. Once complete they may not even be able to use the specific one they built due to changes in design, but the build teams get extremely valuable experience working with that iterative design and solving issues in the real world.
Most other companies instead spend decades and millions or billions of dollars designing and testing without actually building anything until they have a design they think is final. They then begin to build that model and inevitably discover issues that were never found during design, sometimes requiring large changes in design. See the entire SLS program and subsequent cost-overruns and delays.
In this particular case, it should also be pointed out that the rocket did not explode on the pad, it did lift off. The damage from the pad destruction may have actually been part of the Starship failure, not the Starship itself. The pad structure itself was part of the launch test as well, not just the rocket. The launch caused massive damage to the pad, which was expected and planned for. A water deluge system was planned, but not in place yet. They decided to launch as is to get real world data for what the actual damage to the pad would be. No data existed for what would happen to a launch pad with thrust this high at launch, and the deluge system may not have been enough as designed. No way to know without real world data because it was so far away from any previous tests anyone has ever done for launches. Even the Saturn V, the biggest rocket ever launched, had less than half the thrust at liftoff as the Starship Booster does. The Saturn V had 7.5 million pounds of thrust at launch versus Starship’s 16.9 million pounds of thrust.
Very little about Starship has ever been done before. Almost everything related to the vehicle itself, the first stage booster, and the launch pad are entirely new research with very little theoretical research and development, and with almost no real world testing before. SpaceX is not following anyone here. Just like landing rockets for re-use,they are blazing an entirely new trail here no one has done before. And that means there will be failures along the way, they are 100% expected at this point.
What you said is correct except that they went into it ignoring the lessons of the past. NASA had done tons of testing and knew that the launch pad wouldn’t survive half the Starship’s thrust and designed a launch pad that worked. Space X instead chose to believe that a special concrete would be enough. The new launch pad is missing a flame diverter and will likely be the failure of the next vehicle. The iterative approach doesn’t work if you can’t get a launch clearance from the FAA due to a lack of trust.
Pretty sure they actually did successfully do a half thrust test and it was acceptable.
I’m like 80% sure it was at least half.
They had no idea how bad it would fail given that test.
Edit ya there it is, half thrust. axios.com/…/faa-spacex-starship-investigation-exp…
twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1649800747834392580
I recall something about the engineers in SpaceX wanting to follow NASA’s lesson and Elon basically telling them “trust me, we don’t need that”.
Well, all things considered, Musk is still part of what made SpaceX exist. Real world may work in obscure ways.
It’s only that he didn’t make it happen via his (non-existing) genius. He made it via his deep pockets and ego.
I don’t think you fully got the meaning of my comment. Other than that, Musk’s deep pockets were shallow at some point.
They already did a static fire with the new deluge system and it seems to work just fine.
The FAA has continued to trust SpaceX and issue licenses as they address issues. Keep in mind the FAA issues launch licenses for each of the hundreds of Falcon 9s they’ve launched so far, has issued more launch licenses for them than for any other company ever, and has a long working relationship at this point.
Iterative design isn’t really a problem and we wouldn’t have reusable rockets at this point without it.
They static fired at half the thrust available again. There were no issues when they did that last time as well.
Thanks for putting time and effort into explaining it for us non sciency types. What you said makes a lot of sense
Yes it’s better to test a real rocket. You can only simulate so much. Also launching into the ocean is by far the safest option. And you need to test the actual pad and the huge launch tower.
They didn’t plan for it to explode. The article is quoting another article that explains that the rocket exploded because they triggered the flight termination system after they lost control of the rocket. It got off the ground just fine, aside from the fact that it’s massive engines obliterated the concrete under the launch mount.
Government when Elon asks for 10 billion dollars in subsidies to blow up rockets: 😳
Government when educatiors ask for enough money to buy crayons for the classroom: 😡
Government when a poor veteran needs disability expenses: 😒
“Sorry, our unbelievably massive military budget is only for active duty military. Best we can do is schedule you an appointment to talk to someone next year about the benefits you won’t be receiving.”
Back when I was a dependent, I had a cyst taken care of. They gave me a ton of percocets for the pain I no longer had, because the cyst was taken care of.
I think Elon is a giant cunt and deserves the public backlash he’s getting.
But this is a stupid ass thing to focus on, and a blatant attempt to cash in on bad Musk news.
Yeah, fuck the environment, right? Theres plenty of it everywhere else. /s
This was obviously a mistake that cost them time and money, seeing as how their entire launch site was destroyed. Could they have been smarter? Perhaps. But given how many companies are actively malicious, I’m not too concerned at one that made an honest mistake.
Decades of rocket building says you need energy absorption systems and serious ones. Probably enough papers published on this topic to cover walls of my apartment.
The article mentions deliberate decisions that caused more harm. But it was an “honest mistake” says the comments, so that’s ok.
How is it honest when they were informed by e Employees about the need to dampen the blast? It seems willful and reckless.
It was a stupid failure of engineering, but focusing on the enviromnetalism aspect of the explosion is not particularly rational.
I’d imagine it’s more like every apartment in the building.
One small area of Texas coast getting a little bit of damage from some flying concrete and a big explosion is absolutely nothing compared to what oil companies, cars and trucks, and a million other polluters do every single day all over the world.
Correct.
One bottle in a river and a single use barbecue left in the forest are nothing compared to industrial waste. Thought 200000 people all at once
And if the launch was trash, contributed nothing to the advancement of space travel, and wasn’t paving the way for new development, your comparison would be good.
But since none of those things are true, your comparison is dumb and meaningless.
I’ve seen a lot of people becoming anti-space just because they don’t like the crappy attitude of one guy in the industry. To that I say:
Fuck you. Fuck you so much you stupid, braindead fucks. You’ll condemn our species to stay on a single planet with your idiocy, and you’ll be clapping and drooling the whole way down.
I don’t give a shit if you hate Musk. He’s out of touch, spoiled, and doesn’t deserve even a quarter of the personal credit he gets. But leave space out of it. Not only do advances in space technology give back more to public than any other industry, it’s damn important work. No matter what happens, this planet has an expiration date, and we NEED to get off it.
I think you could use a break dude. Dont get so stirred up.
Im all for space exploration but doing preventable damage to the environment got us to the point that the one planet we are still “stuck on” slowly stops being habitable by us. There will be no space exploration if in 20 years we’ll all be running around fighting for scraps of food.
Also, you sound like that “one guy in the industry”.
200000 people thought to create their own space agencies? Wow!
Well, the environmental review after his most recent failure started immediately. Chunks of concrete landing in the ocean. Mashable? Sure, they’re incentivized to time this article perfectly.
A Musk company seriously damages the surroundings? How unexpected.
tech bro busy creating wild life on mars by destroying the one on earth
As someone who has been following the Starship development closely for a number of years, I’d like to point out a number of flaws with this article, which leaves out critical information and gives it a clear anti-SpaceX bias. Please note that I am most certainly NOT an Elon fanboi. I disagree with a lot of what he says and does. I follow Starship as someone interested in the engineering and technical advancements the workers have been making.
There were only a few pieces big enough to make “foot-deep craters”. Most of the pieces that left the site were far too small to make craters that big (on the order of fist size or smaller). The largest chunks never left the launch site. I was personally there 3 weeks after the launch and saw it myself, and the area is watched constantly by many observers over remote streaming webcams, so it’s unlikely that SpaceX was able to sweep some damage under the rug by removing large pieces from the flats.
Nobody was allowed in except for a small number of SpaceX employees due to safety issues, and even those weren’t for quite some time after the launch. There was some damage to the cryogenic liquid storage tanks and other parts of the site, so it and the surrounding area were off-limits until they could verify that it was safe to be there. Yes, wildlife officials were prevented from accessing the area, but for a very good reason and not just to cover up potential harm to wildlife. It should be noted that SpaceX learned from this experience and are now replacing the vulnerable vertical storage tanks with a number of smaller horizontal ones that will be less susceptible to damage from flying debris.
Applying industry standards to a non-standard rocket program is disingenuous. This rocket is more powerful than any before, so “this is how we’ve always done it” is constantly being challenged and being shown to simply not work in a number of areas. Also, physical space limitations effectively preclude the use of a flame trench at this location. SpaceX fully expected that the concrete under the launch pad as it was at the time of this launch wasn’t going to be sufficient (there had been some damage during static fire tests), so they had already started the process of installing a different system (a water-cooled steel plate, which is now in place and seems to be working well so far during testing). Why didn’t they just wait until the new system was ready? The project badly needed some real-world flight data in order to continue moving forward with development of the next iterations of vehicle, so they went ahead with the launch using the inadequate pad with the understanding that what happened was a possibility, although not a certainty. Waiting was going to be even more problematic for the program, which NASA needs for its Artemis program of landing on the moon (the SpaceX Human Landing System will be based on Starship) in just a few years.
No, it didn’t destroy its launchpad. It destroyed the concrete under the launchpad. The “orbital launch mount”, which is roughly 60 feet above the ground and what the rocket sits on along with a lot of the fuelling and launching equipment, came through largely unscathed and doesn’t seem to have needed much in the way of repairs.
The FAA has not “grounded” Starship. The Starship launch license was always written such that it was only valid for the first launch - regardless of the outcome - and would need to be modified to remove this clause for a second launch. Also, the investigation is a “mishap investigation”, which occurs whenever a launch experiences issues in various categories, including simply not reaching its objective. Mishap investigations are a normal procedure for any launch that has issues. There isn’t any kind of special “SpaceX screwed up” investigation going on, as the article is seemingly implying.
As of the date of this article, the current expectation is that the next vehicle stack (Booster 9 and Ship 25), as well as
I mostly agree although there were some pretty decent chunks that left the launch site at high velocity. NSF’s car was 500 metres away and didn’t fare well at all.
I presume SpaceX have picked up all the pieces by now though… unlikely there was any long term damage.
You say you’re not an Elon fan boy but you’ve gone to great lengths in this comment to bend the truth to make spacex look more favourable.
You can see the giant splashes in the ocean from the debris. That is not a “fist size” object cresting a metre tall splash. youtu.be/nocHO-ScR3c?si=HuzQVtnpgLqkprtC
You leave out that certain wildlife groups were allowed in, it was specifically the fish and wildlife service who weren’t allowed in because they’re part of thr government and could shut the operation down, whereas the other group didn’t have that power.
The paragraph about the flame diverted is pure white knighting. Everyone in the rocketry community knew they needed either a flame diverted or a deluge system. Even spacex knew this, but a combination of expense and wanting to get publicity soon caused Elon to insist on the launch even though everyone knew this would happen after the damage from the static fire. You even say this yourself. Spacex knew this would happen but didn’t give a shit, because keeping Elons ego up is more important to them than the risk of destroying a nature preserve.
This is just arguing semantics. The concrete underneath the launch mount (and now the rocket bidet) are still part of stage 0 which most people would call the launch pad. And if you wanted to get more specific then it would be more accurate to say the concrete IS the launch pad and the OLM is just the tower.
How is it not grounded? They can’t fly again until after the investigation and they get another launch licence. That means they are defacto grounded?
The date of the article doesn’t matter. The quote about it not being ready was from documents written just after launch. Which was 4 months ago now. Andits likely it won’t launch for at least another month, so I would say 5 months is long enough to make that statement fair.
Which had absolutely nothing to do with Elons promises of large amounts of money and has received no pishback whatsoever from environmental groups that aren’t being paid off.
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I mostly agree but I don’t think you can rationalize away not having ANY flame suppression/protection on one of the biggest rockets ever built. Yeah the launch was a “success” in terms of testing and data acquisition but it was disastrous and reckless in terms of safety mitigation and I don’t agree with the rationale that you put forward.
I’m curious what this has to do with technology.
Well, wildlife was destroyed by a popular major technology that’s still going through trials. I think that’s probably why. The whole, you know, technology part.
A rocket. This would probably be better suited for the space communities because, you know, the space part.
You didn’t make it clear where the technology part comes in. Unless we’re going with the broadest sense of the word because literally everything could be connected to technology in some way.
SpaceX is a tech company that’s making new rockets. The tech blew up on the ground, not in space.
Your complaint/comment is invalid, childish, whiny, as well as frankly pathetic and I don’t have the patience to handle you with kid gloves.
Grow up and get over it.
I’d just like to see a bit more to the community than ever single thing that happens with SpaceX, Twitter, and Tesla simply “because they’re technology”. Almost all the comments are even saying how this article is really reaching and stretching the scale problem.
There are two. You are one of them.
Blocked. Not interested in ever seeing your takes again when they’re not based in reality.
Maybe you could have followed your own advice after reading my first comment instead of just being rude.