totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[CatastrophicFailure]

53 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

True enough, but you know that if a crew had been on the Starliner first flight they would have survived just fine.

Until, perhaps, they burned up on reentry cuz a certain engineer didn't remember Scott Manley's Golden Rule at the last minute and checked the staging. That kind of error is "not supposed" to happen on a mature design. 

56 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Anyway, I'm not here to claim the Starliner hasn't had some embarrassing problems. But I still think there is a double-standard in this forum where SpaceX problems are, if anything, celebrated -- "move fast and break things!" -- while anybody else's problems are attacked.

Again, there's that difference. "Move fast and break things!" Breaking things is an inherent, and necessary part of the process. "Go slow and don't break things!" is an equally valid, if frustrating for spectators, design philosophy too, but in that case things are not "supposed" to break. Breaking things is bad. Something has gone wrong when things should not go wrong. 

59 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Maybe it's just a disconnect in experience. I've been part of this industry for more than 30 years, and I know that internally the attitude toward competitors, while fierce, is quite different from the rather partisan nature of discussions in this forum. And it's hard not to react to partisan attacks with partisan counterattacks.

I think, perhaps, what you're seeing is not so much a double standard as much as (rightfully earned) criticism towards certain other players for very certain things, not just simple tribalism. Most SpaceXers are very supportive of Rocketlab, for instance, through their recent tribulations. But Boeing has been really, really screwing up lately. What began as light rivalry for many of us has turned to frustrated consternation, because a, if not the, major aerospace company should not be making such "rookie errors" as not doing integrated system tests and checking they staging software. Not to mention something as mundane as stuck valves. Boeing should be better than that, it's Boeing for Jeb's sake! 

And then the Chosen One of NewSpace flat out turned to the Dark Side and went full Vader on us... 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

@mikegarrison - what I think you are reacting to is the inadvertent PR success and spectacle that SX has become.

Were it not for BocaChicaGal and NASASpaceflight et.al.'s ability to capture and transmit so much uncontrolled content - SX would be very typical in hiding what they're doing and offering vague, filtered and PR' d commentary on their progress... Just like everyone else.  SX even tried (foolishly) to shut down the feed before they learned to just play for the cameras. 

And it's this spectacle that is not only entertaining but endearing SX to the wider public. 

They did not plan this - they stumbled into it. 

I don't know if anyone could recreate the success - but if you go back to this time last year - I don't think you see such a disconnect between the SX fans and the perception of the other space launch developers. 

Being able to watch the rocket being built tends to allow people to feel connected to the progress and really root for the success.  Seeing the raw steel (instead of a fancily painted craft) silently speaks to it being a test article - and so people are willing to forgive the failures. 

This latest round of bitterness towards BO is not related to that - the lawsuit is doing them no favors in the PR space... But prior to that BO was guilty of overpromising and underperforming.  Even that could be excused to the fickle public by a little humility and communication.  We know Rocket Science isn't for wimps. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Edit - I'll add this - having just read @CatastrophicFailure's post above mine... I think he nails it.

Beyond being normally secretive about production... The other companies have publicly showcased less than stellar results.  That's hard for any company.

What's different about this last year or so is how public this has become... and with some of these companies the public has very little to go on between announcement and demonstration to build good will in this spectator market.  Then we get all excited to see something only to get an 'oof.' 

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Until, perhaps, they burned up on reentry cuz a certain engineer didn't remember Scott Manley's Golden Rule at the last minute and checked the staging. That kind of error is "not supposed" to happen on a mature design. 

I don't know what you are talking about. Capsule recovery was fine on Starliner's OFT-1.

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Again, there's that difference. "Move fast and break things!" Breaking things is an inherent, and necessary part of the process. "Go slow and don't break things!" is an equally valid, if frustrating for spectators, design philosophy too, but in that case things are not "supposed" to break. Breaking things is bad. Something has gone wrong when things should not go wrong. 

Well, once again I think people are dramatically overestimating the difference between what SpaceX does and what everybody else does. Do you really think nobody else builds test articles and prototypes?

[cubinator]

9 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Well, once again I think people are dramatically overestimating the difference between what SpaceX does and what everybody else does. Do you really think nobody else builds test articles and prototypes?

Others build prototypes, but which of them build a skeleton planetship in a matter of weeks as a prototype? I think the scale and speed of the Starship test program, the concept of it being the fully reusable launch vehicle, and the tiny hint with each test that gets further than the last that it might actually work is what makes SpaceX more exciting.

[tater]

20 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Well, once again I think people are dramatically overestimating the difference between what SpaceX does and what everybody else does. Do you really think nobody else builds test articles and prototypes?

The difference is that we are watching them in real time, and for some of the SS test hops, only a few weeks or months apart.

We've also watched all the SLS tests. There were... 2? They did that one destructive test on the core stage, and Green Run. Any others? The SRB test we saw that. They tweet out crappy capsule boilerplate vids sometimes. LES as well.

I'm sure other manufacturers also do tests—BO must be testing engines, for example. The difference? We don't SEE THEM testing engines.

If Boca Chica was 400,000 acres (Bezos ranch) instead of 400 acres, and with no land except Elon's around it, we'd only see what they show us.

Edited August 20, 2021 by tater

[Silavite]

22 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

I don't know what you are talking about. Capsule recovery was fine on Starliner's OFT-1.

Quote

The second problem, revealed Feb. 6 at a meeting of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), was a “valve mapping error” for the thrusters in the vehicle’s service module. Those thrusters perform a “disposal burn” of the service module after separating from the crew module just before reentry.

Mulholland said the valves were configured for conditions in normal flight for that disposal burn, which, had it not been corrected, could have pushed the service module into the crew module. That could have caused the crew capsule to become unstable, requiring additional thruster firings to reorient itself, or have damaged the capsule’s heat shield.

The second error was detected during the review of the spacecraft software on the ground after the timer problem took place. Mulholland said engineers found the thruster software issue late Dec. 21, with the corrected and reverified code uploaded to the spacecraft around 5 a.m. Eastern Dec. 22, or about three hours before the spacecraft landed at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

“We went hunting immediately after our first software problem, and we found one,” said Jim Chilton, senior vice president of Boeing Space and Launch, of the thruster error. “I don’t think we would have found it if we hadn’t gone looking right after that first one.”

https://spacenews.com/starliner-investigation-finds-numerous-problems-in-boeing-software-development-process/

Edited August 20, 2021 by Silavite
Better source

[CatastrophicFailure]

29 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

don't know what you are talking about. Capsule recovery was fine on Starliner's OFT-1.

What @Silavite said. Y'know, like how in-game you hit 70km and pop the service module only to have it come flying back moments later all "oh, hai Mark Bob!" 

32 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Do you really think nobody else builds test articles and prototypes?

What's getting critiqued aren't boilerplate half-completed, ahem, mockups tho, pokes @kerbiloid with a stick, it's mission-ready hardware that's "supposed" to be finished. If Boeing was blowing up test articles and then being even remotely transparent about it, that would be different entirely, as would a "finished" Dragon capsule that suddenly experienced potentially life-threatening errors. 

[NFUN]

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

I don't know what you are talking about. Capsule recovery was fine on Starliner's OFT-1.

Well, once again I think people are dramatically overestimating the difference between what SpaceX does and what everybody else does. Do you really think nobody else builds test articles and prototypes?

they do... but those aren't the articles whose failure people here are deriding?

[Beccab]

5 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

It's always nice to set the bar as low as possible, because that makes it so much easier to declare success.

Seriously??? If boeing said "This test flight only tests reaching orbit, later we will do 15 more test flights  and then put crew on it" OFT 1 would have been a success. There is an enormous difference between "this is the last test, then we will put people on it and fly to the ISS!" and "who cares if it fails, we need to free the launchpad for the next one waiting in the high bay". Boeing didn't want to do more tests, nor was ready to do more tests, nor  could do more tests without mayor critics on how late they were. Starship was literally a water tank with a raptor that instead of oxygen rich or methane rich was engine rich until a year ago. This is the first test of many, nobody will say "from today, starship is an operational NASA vehicle".

Seriously, that was possibly the least meaningful comparison I could think of. You can think what you want of SpaceX, but comparisons like this are absurd

Edited August 20, 2021 by Beccab

[Beccab]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Were it not for BocaChicaGal and NASASpaceflight et.al.'s ability to capture and transmit so much uncontrolled content - SX would be very typical in hiding what they're doing and offering vague, filtered and PR' d commentary on their progress... Just like everyone else.  SX even tried (foolishly) to shut down the feed before they learned to just play for the cameras. 

I disagree. If we didn't have people that can take those pics directly, we would still have:

- the 3 parts of the Everydayastronaut interview, composing over 2 hours and a half of Starship info (which would have told us basically every single piece of info we know of starship except the current amount of parts spotted)

- the various launchpad cams, which are placed in SpaceX land with their authorization

- the occasional informations from Musk on Twitter, which would be enough for a lot of speculation over r/spacex

It's far from the level of info we have now, but it's also very far from the level of info BO publishes. Enough to make SpaceX look still a bitless secretive than the average space company

Edited August 20, 2021 by Beccab

[kerbiloid]

5 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

"Move fast and break things!"

Ask N1 for moar advices, it's her motto. 

20 hours ago, Beccab said:

21 hours ago, Deddly said:

I thought the main purpose of the orbital launch was to test its ability to re-enter and land safely.

To quote musk, "If it clears the tower it's a success".

= "We doubt that it's even able to lift off."

20 hours ago, Beccab said:

Flight will be full of unknowns

Didn't they calculate everything in advance?!

Still strange: why do they not want to launch a cheap 1:3 Starship boilerplate by Falcon to test the full re-entry.
Say, Buran had its Bor for that.

20 hours ago, Beccab said:

Musk said many times that they expect to blow up a lot of them before reentry is successful

So, it's wise to wait for KSP-3 before it flies?

14 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

. I know Elon was talking about leaving the pad without exploding already being a success in Tim Dodd's interview, but he said similar things before Falcon Heavy's first launch and we know how much of a success that was.

Afaik, the Falcon 1st stage is made by DC-X engineers who did it in 90s.

I guess, all they needed that time was money.
In SpaceX they just repeated what they did, for that money.

7 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Starship is not an operational vehicle, it's not even close to being operational.

Then why not just launch a cistern of sand, while the 1st stage is still not being tested?

4 hours ago, cubinator said:

Others build prototypes, but which of them build a skeleton planetship in a matter of weeks as a prototype?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOR-5

Spoiler

 

4 hours ago, Silavite said:

https://spacenews.com/starliner-investigation-finds-numerous-problems-in-boeing-software-development-process/

They yet didn't investigate the Space-X software, lol.

3 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

What's getting critiqued aren't boilerplate half-completed, ahem, mockups tho, pokes @kerbiloid with a stick, it's mission-ready hardware that's "supposed" to be finished. If Boeing was blowing up test articles and then being even remotely transparent about it, that would be different entirely, as would a "finished" Dragon capsule that suddenly experienced potentially life-threatening errors. 

CST-100 has successfully delivered the imaginary crew to LEO and back.
The only system not tested is approaching&docking, but they are standard and were used many times.

And we have seen how the Crew Dragon exploded, even without a rocket.
(Didn't they check its pipes and valves, btw? Don't they have sensors for that?)

2 hours ago, Beccab said:

Seriously??? If boeing said "This test flight only tests reaching orbit, later we will do 15 more test flights  and then put crew on it" OFT 1 would have been a success. There is an enormous difference between "this is the last test, then we will put people on it and fly to the ISS!"

The CST-100 test included also the docking, because why not if they are already there.
The test was successful in everything but particularly the docking.

Edited August 20, 2021 by kerbiloid

[Beccab]

S20 testing dates have also been published, 24th August being the primary with the 25th and 26th as backup

https://www.cameroncounty.us/spacex/

Last, the Giga Bay concrete prep began, with the first steel erections set to begin 1st september

 

[RyanRising]

7 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Last, the Giga Bay concrete prep began, with the first steel erections set to begin 1st september

I get what you’re going for with Giga Bay, but I don’t think it follows the pattern. We’ve called the ones that exist “mid bay” and “high bay,” so I think a natural extension of that would be to call this new one the “wide bay.”

Or maybe they’ve actually called it that at some point, and I’m far too late and up against far too much with this criticism. 

[Beccab]

1 minute ago, RyanRising said:

I get what you’re going for with Giga Bay, but I don’t think it follows the pattern. We’ve called the ones that exist “mid bay” and “high bay,” so I think a natural extension of that would be to call this new one the “wide bay.”

Or maybe they’ve actually called it that at some point, and I’m far too late and up against far too much with this criticism. 

I am actually 50% sure that some insider proposed that name because internally SpaceX was calling it like that, but don't quote me on it. Every name is fine until we have an official word on it

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Nothing for nothing... But hasn't Boeing had some other high profile software problems recently? 

... 

@Beccab

7 hours ago, Beccab said:

If we didn't have people that can take those pics directly, we would still have... 

I think you are putting the cart before the horse.  The E-Astronaut video - which is an unprecedented behind the scenes tour - only happens because SX was forced to learn how to play to the cameras. 

8 hours ago, tater said:

If Boca Chica was 400,000 acres (Bezos ranch) instead of 400 acres, and with no land except Elon's around it, we'd only see what they show us

This - were it not for the uncontrollable outside videos... There is no reason for SX to put out their own.  They'd be like every other company in that regard - mostly because they are in the business of building rockets, not entertaining us.  But because of the folks I referenced - they adapted... And it's working in their favor. 

I remember what watching this (and related) industry was like 40 years ago.  If you were lucky you would get a glossy, staged photo of a satellite TRW was working on, or a gorgeous cut-away of turbines and rocket engines from Boeing, or Lockheed or an infographic about actuators from Signal - which you could keep and show your friends.  You got these from trade shows.  You knew most of the big companies' names, some of what they did and kind of liked them. 

But you did not 'root' for them. (well, unless you held stock). There wasn't anything to watch.  Everything was behind closed doors until it was released. 

Now we get to see quite a bit... And you have fans. 

That's new. 

[Beccab]

1 minute ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I think you are putting the cart before the horse.  The E-Astronaut video - which is an unprecedented behind the scenes tour - only happens because SX was forced to learn how to play to the cameras. 

We don't really know that, EDA came in contact with Musk first during a press conference and would have been a youtuber with or without SpaceX. At this point, we would be going basically to the point of "if SpaceX was much more secretive in general it would be almost as secretive as BO". The only thing that we know wouldn't happen without the cameras everywhere is what comes directly from having those, i.e. Brendan's diagrams, Mary's pics and 3dcentric's OLT construction videos, everything else is For All Mankind level speculation. Not that I'm opposed to a for all mankind with the starting point of spacex not allowing cameras on pointed to their stuff, I just think it wouldn't have too much public

[Minmus Taster]

5 hours ago, RyanRising said:

I get what you’re going for with Giga Bay, but I don’t think it follows the pattern. We’ve called the ones that exist “mid bay” and “high bay,” so I think a natural extension of that would be to call this new one the “wide bay.”

Or maybe they’ve actually called it that at some point, and I’m far too late and up against far too much with this criticism. 

The T H I C Bay /j

 

[Minmus Taster]

Daily Hopper be speaking facts:

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 hours ago, Minmus Taster said:

The T H I C Bay /j

 

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Relevant to the topic of 'showcasing failure to demonstrate why success is amazing':

Watch these humanoid robots fall flat on their faces (cnn.com)

 

[StrandedonEarth]

29 minutes ago, Minmus Taster said:

Daily Hopper be speaking facts:

 

If it was safe it wouldn’t be fun, and vice versa

[zolotiyeruki]

@mikegarrison your points are well taken.  IMO, SpaceX gets all the love vs Boeing because:

• There's a bit of David-and-Goliath going on.  Regardless of the reality, there's a perception that the government is putting its thumb on the scales in favor of Boeing (dollars awarded for comparable if not exactly similar objectives, for example).  Regulators seem to turn a blind eye toward Boeing, while standing in SpaceX's way.  Again, that's the perception, not necessarily the reality, but it's there.  And when those legacy contractors appear to be throwing obstacles in SpaceX's path, it comes across as rent-seeking, whether those objections have merit or not.
• Boeing's been doing aerospace for a long, long time, so there's a expectation that stuff they make will Just Work.
• There's not much to show (again, for the average public) for the billions of dollars and years of work put into SLS.  ("C'mon, you had a massive head start, with engines already built, and SRBs already developed and tested.  What's taking you so freakin' long!? We went from nothing to landing on the moon in eight years!")
• There's a long-festering animosity toward government and military contractors who appear to consistently overpromise, underdeliver, overcharge, and underperform.  A perception that their goal is to milk the taxpayer for as much money as possible, rather than deliver exciting, groundbreaking stuff.
• Whatever the actual engineering challenges, to the non-techy public, there's nothing exciting about Starliner or SLS.  All of that stuff has been done before, and many times.  It's Just Another Space Capsule and Just Another Big Rocket, doing the same kind of things we've already seen.  To the uneducated, there's a perception of "we've been doing this for fifty years.  Why are they having so much trouble with it?"
• On the other hand, SpaceX are doing something novel and exciting.  If it were not for booster recovery, there'd be (from the public's perspective) not much interesting about the Falcon 9, because it'd be Just Another Big Rocket.  But flipping your booster around after stage separation, and attempting to recover it by landing it on a barge in the middle of the ocean, while livestreaming it, is exciting and new.  If/when SS/SH is ready, it is promising to cut launch costs by an order of magnitude.  That's exciting.
• SpaceX have consistently set the bar low, so some level of success is guaranteed.
• SpaceX have something to show frequently.
• SpaceX show their failures, and their failures are benign, if not outright fun ("How not to launch an orbital class rocket booster")
• The frequency with which SpaceX "show" stuff gives assurance to the public, because we can witness the progress being made.  "Whoops, we ran out of TEA-TEB.  Easy fix." Rather than "It'll take us six months and umpteen million dollars to analyze this software glitch."  On the other hand, (e.g. Starliner) when you don't see the progress along the way, you expect the finished product to be "just right."

Again, a lot of this is just perception. 

[tater]

SpaceX is also innovating with their own money. Booster recovery was not part of COTS, for example.

SS/SH managed to get sold as a service to NASA for LSS, but they are building it regardless. The Apollo era contractors (now all merged together into either Boeing, LockMart, or Northop Grumman) are filled with capable engineers who want the same things as the rest of us—they are in the space biz because they are spaceflight geeks, after all—but they have limitations based on the fact that they can only build stuff that is contracted. Really novel ideas maybe get some funding to try small scale tests, but short of winning a NASA contract for something ambitious, they are stuck working on what is paid for, and maybe writing papers for conferences about stuff they could build if someone would pay for it.

 

[Beccab]

8 minutes ago, tater said:

SS/SH managed to get sold as a service to NASA for LSS, but they are building it regardless. The Apollo era contractors (now all merged together into either Boeing, LockMart, or Northop Grumman) are filled with capable engineers who want the same things as the rest of us—they are in the space biz because they are spaceflight geeks, after all—but they have limitations based on the fact that they can only build stuff that is contracted. Really novel ideas maybe get some funding to try small scale tests, but short of winning a NASA contract for something ambitious, they are stuck working on what is paid for, and maybe writing papers for conferences about stuff they could build if someone would pay for it.

And even if you manage to get a contract for ambitious stuff, that doesn't keep it from getting cancelled a meter short of the target, see X-33