CatastrophicFailure

People are really seeing what they want to see around all this. Elon said many times prior to the launch that he wanted to mute expectations, and yes that anything clearing the tower and sending telemetry really would be a success. We, as spectators, have been a bit spoiled the last few years. There was plenty of pre-launch handwringing before Falcon Heavy, and even then Musk said he only gave it 50/50. Then it went & turned out to be not only a success but an astounding success, no one was expecting Starman streaming mind-blowing views for six hours before heading off into the wild black yonder. Block 5 has had a perfect record, and even booster landing has become “normal” and rarely fails. I think it’s given the peanut gallery a false sense of security to a degree, we tend to forget that space is hard. Big Space is even harder. We are just a bunch of armchair Monday-morning rocket scientists and as I often say, we don’t have all the data. Some of the best minds in the world who do have all the data examined the situation and thought the pad could survive a single launch. Obviously they were wrong, but we outsiders don’t know how wrong. If, as it appears more and more, this thing was a hair’s breadth away from a RUD the entire time, then the fact that the facilities are still standing at all is nothing short of amazing. Maybe if one thing went a little differently we wouldn’t be having this discussion at all, cuz either the launch site would be completely boned or just barely scratched. Or maybe not. But all we have is pure speculation because, again, we don’t have all the data. I’m not gonna get into this with you beyond this one sentence, but I need to say it. You are WRONG; purely, objectively, bitterly wrong. ok I’m done, /rant_off, that’s enough internet for tonight.

I’m given to think it definitely could not, so they deliberately programmed the stack to move away from it if at all possible. Any kind RUD on/near the pad would have been way worse. A good analogy here is Boeing starting development on the 767 and then getting a contract to also develop the K-767. “No” public money is going into that initial development.

Sorry but this is incorrect. SpaceX has a contract from NASA to develop a lunar variant specifically, and milestones related to that. This launch, and pretty much all Starship development up to this point, was entirely funded by SpaceX.

This flip would/should have happened much higher, too… like 100km instead of only 40, so essentially in vacuum. It sounds pretty crazy, but… structurally, I wonder if it’s a bit like a barrel roll in an aircraft? In a properly executed barrel roll, the aircraft only experiences a constant 1G, so there’s virtually no unusual structural strain (why even an airliner can do it). Anyways, maybe the flip isn’t as violent as it seems by description, if done right. Even like half a G would be plenty to separate the stack and wouldn’t need much additional structure. With all their F9 boost backs, SpaceX does have a lot of experience (read: DATA) flying rockets at unusual attitudes.

One can very easily turn this feature off, if one doesn’t want it. On the flip side, how many “car through a storefront” stories, often resulting in injury or worse, have you seen that can be prevented by safety tech such as this. Do you have a link to the video? Something seems off about the situation.

Could the near-total loss of hydraulic power at that point have any effect on the latches?

First few Ships are one-way, loaded with (among other things) autonomous rovers to build marscrete pads for the two-way Ships. We already know concrete pads can stand up to Ship engines, and Mars would be less punishing.

Confirmed:

Gotta wonder what’s generated more raw data at this point: launch telemetry, or replies to this thread.

Well, since you mention it, if we can genetically engineer giant cow balls (no, the other kind) in space, then doing so on Mars should be fairly trivial. Maybe make them cuboid for more efficient storage, though. Mmmmm, cube steak!

I, too, am sadly all out of likes for the day, so here’s some (roughly) spherical not-cows: One of the advantages of the change to stainless steel is that it has a much, much higher melting point vs aluminum or composite. It’s been mentioned in the past that Starship could (and likely will) lose multiple tiles and still reenter just fine, thanks to all that metal wicking the heat away. It’s actually even better if there’s cryogenic fuel on the other side of that metal, cuz now there’s an even bigger temperature difference, with an energy-sucking phase change, before burn-though can occur. Ever taken a lighter to a water balloon? There was an STS before Columbia mission that lost a C-C tile and would have been LOCV had the hole not been directly over a plain-steel antenna bracket, which withstood the heat just fine. And this stainless is even more tolerant.

That. We. Know. Of.

It’s also worth noting that Elon does not, in fact, run SpaceX in a vacuum (har har). He has an increasingly larger team of incredibly talented people working with him, with access to all the data us plebs will never see, and all of them are on board with the current design philosophies (or they wouldn’t still be working there). He’s not the only one making decisions and it’s actually far more likely he was not the one who first fielded the change from composite to stainless steel, the bilateral instead of trilateral flaps, Mechazilla, etc. And even if he did, all these concepts, to say nothing of the silly little details in which lay the devils, also went through the reviews of many other people who eventually agreed, “yeah, this is workable… as far as we know now.”

No, just... no. All due respect, no. Yes, they NEED to make money in order to fund this thing, both current and future development (we've all played KSP, right?). Since they obviously can't start with flying people on it (and very little economic case for that anyway as @tater points out), that leaves contracts. The same sort currently using the Falcons that have been funding the company all along, they're quite good at it. And everything not spent on operations goes back into R&D. It's a launch company, I guarantee you no one is "making money" off it, and best a lot of folks are simply (and rightly) living comfortably off it. The launch business is really a great way to lose money. Cavalier attitude? I'm sorry but this is just false. I will point you to the rather involved certification process for Dragon, which was done to the satisfaction of even risk-averse NASA, and the biggest issue with it has been a busted toilet. Before anyone ever gets aboard Starship, even launching to it on Dragon, you can bet there will be an equally involved certification process with the FAA, which will involve inventing said process in the... process. Remember, despite the incredible access us plebs have thanks to a few very dedicated content creators, we DON'T have the whole story and don't know everything that's going on behind the scenes. As you yourself said, there's some very intelligent people working there, maybe trust them just a little based on their existing track record of accomplishments.

Not gonna happen. Absolutely impossible. Why? I already have that day off AND will be up early.

Now this one I’m getting up early for…

What other reason?

Not 100% sure on Falcon 9, but usually the first part of the launch, up until like stage sep, is flown “open loop,” the GNC is just flying a pre-programmed “roll this much, pitch this much, pitch a little more” routine. After that it switches to closed loop, where the computer is actively comparing where the rocket IS, to where it IS NOT, and making corrections on the fly. With F9 it might all be the latter now. Old launchers like the OG Atlas actually were largely “remote controlled,” since they couldn’t fit the needed compute power on board yet. So a loss of signal would (and did) kill the launch. I think it’s all GPS-based, plus a landing radar on the booster.

Yeah, gonna need some tour guiding here… why all the square holes on the N-1 model? What’re the two big glazed spheres? Is that real Almaz hardware or another model? Same for VA. Ok, resident Russian speakers, once you stop giggling, what’s “NAECTPO” mean?

Calling it now, T-0 abort to scrub… first time it gets that far, at least.

It’ll clear your yard, alright. Right down to bedrock.

As is tradition, in honor of todays’s weather… https://youtu.be/g-X-9UNu3Nw on second thought… let’s make that…

The standby generator is worth every penny, trust me. ‘Better yet in PG&E land, solar + battery.