Second SpaceX Starship launch ends with explosion. What happens next?
Second SpaceX Starship launch ends with explosion. What happens next?
Starship is a key part of NASA’s crewed lunar missions, and with government support, SpaceX is pushing its new experimental rocket to the limit.
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In 30-40 more years maybe SpaceX will make progress that isn't just upgrade existing rockets.
I mean... They invented reusable rockets.
Edit: they invented the first reusable liquid-fueled rockets and the first rockets that can autonomously land themselves. NASA used reusable solid rocket boosters on the space shuttle that would deploy parachutes and land in the ocean. Getting a solid rocket booster back into a reusable state seems like a lot of work to me.
They absolutely didn't invent reusable rockets.
They created reusable rockets. Lots and lots of concepts on the drawing board, but theirs was unique and the first one to get made.
The rocket boosters on the space shuttle were absolutely reused. Here's video of one being retrieved.
We can argue about semantics, but they were moreso rebuilt from the same parts than reused as is. NASA found that it would have been much cheaper to build new SRBs after each launch than rebuild them.
SRB boosters are quite close to literally just a big steel tube, and they reused them by dropping them into the ocean under a parachute.
They still had to clean out and refurb every booster launched. And that was without the complex rocket engines that would get destroyed by being submerged in the ocean.
Retrieved, not reused.
The SRBs used on the final shuttle mission were the same boosters used on the first mission. That set was used a total of 60 times. Only 2 sets of boosters were never recovered for re-use. The set from STS-4 had a parachute malfunction, and the set from the Challenger exploded.
Literally reused. What are you talking about.
Creating isn't inventing, and there's wasn't the first to be flown. Man, the SpaceX fans don't really know the history of the industry they make these claims about.
You referring to the DC-X subscale tech demonstrator?
I think inventing is a less well defined term, since anyone with a napkin can claim to invent something to a very low fidelity. The details are the hard part, not the idea itself. So that's why I specified created, since that is inventing to a very high level of fidelity.
There's several other examples. I also don't think inventing is an ill-defined term. That's an absurd thing to even say.
You mind telling what those other examples are, and defining in inventing?
I hope this is simple enough for you.
So it needs to be created in real life, rather than just a drawing or design? Or does creating it only as a design without building it count?
Also, all technology is built on previous work, especially rocketry. That would seem to eliminate the possibility of invention in rocketry due to the clause of your own ingenuity, etc. What's the cutoff for invention vs refinement?
Welcome to the Cult of Musk.
I've had experience with Musk Fans in the past. They all read from the same script, including the "I don't even like Musk" lie.
Who outside of TinTin comics has done a reusable rockets other than SpaceX?
I mean, just basic research would answer this for you. But I'll start you off with an easy one. The SRB on shuttle launches was reusable. Now go forth and look up rocket history.
It depends how you define your terms. The parts were disassembled, cleaned, inspected, and reassembled. That's not what most people think of as reusable, more like refurbishable. And anyway, they didn't save any cost or time doing that vs building new ones, hence why SLS is using them as single use.
It doesn't depend on how I define my terms. It was reused. You literally just fucking said it was reused. What you just described is the exact definition of what everyone considers reused. This is such a stupid conversation to have, and only the SpaceX sense are the ones that ever want to have it.
Also, because you don't seem to know anything about anything, what you described is exactly what SpaceX does. How the fuck did you get this so wrong?
SpaceX did all the inspections for a falcon 9 booster in 9 days. No way they did a full rebuild in that time.
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-falcon-9-new-booster-turnaround-record-21-days/
Yeeeah, so, you didn't read your own link I guess? Because it says, on a Tesla simp blog, that it was a refurbishment. Not an inspection.
Here's a nice write-up from NASA on what the SRB refurb process was. Feel free to read it.
Again, I'm not trying to say these words have a single defined meaning. I'm saying that SpaceX's reusable rockets are in a different category compared to SRBs. Call those reusable and refurbishable if you like, or call them anything else. I just use the reusable refurbishable terminology because that's what everyday astronaut uses.
Do you know the turn around time on an srb? I couldn't find it in your doc or in the wiki.
Sure, fishing a burning bucket out of the ocean is the same as an actual rocket that lands by itself and just needs to be refueled.
If you tried just a little harder, he'll notice you.
Have you not noticed how gross you feel when you talk that way?
Not gross at all, in fact. Feels great. Keep trying, and I bet he mentions you in his next racist tweet. ...but for the "good" reasons.
The shuttle SRB's were really only reusable in the same sense that the engine from a wrecked car can be removed, stripped to a bare block, bored out, rebuilt, and placed into a new car is reusable. Hard to say exactly how long it took to turn around SRB segments, but just the rail transport between Utah and Florida was 12 days each way. SpaceX has turned around Falcon 9 boosters in under a month.
And even with all of that, the most reused reusable segments barely flew a dozen times. There is one Falcon 9 first stage that has now flown 18 times.
You're not wrong about parts having been reused in the past but the scale of what has been done before really doesn't compare to what SpaceX does now.
Looks like you also need to review the publicly available NASA documentation for refurbishment.
Given that time and money I bet NASA could have that and made ones that don't blow up every test.
LOL... NASA has existed for many more decades than Spacex has. The Spacex Falcon rocket is possibly the most reliable rocket available today, launches payloads more often than any other rocket and it's much cheaper than its competitors. You're comparing a brand new rocket design to other, thoroughly tested rockets that have had many iterations. This was literally the second flight of this rocket, they were expecting it to fail.
Maybe if you weren't so blinded by your need to be edgy, you would see the accomplishments SpaceX has made. Starship is not even close to being completed. It blowing up and failing are expected at this stage.
NASA doesn’t build many rockets. They are almost all done under contract.
Given time and money, I'm sure Bob Jones could make a reusable rocket in his back garage. It would just take a lot of both. SpaceX is good at making a lot of progress with little time and money.
How much are you betting? Because I could use some free money, lol.