PB666 Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 3 minutes ago, mikegarrison said: That's not the kind of attitude that breeds success. That's the kind of attitude that breeds a failure every six launches. Well of so then we just throw in a conspiracy to mix things up. How many private rocket companies other than ULA have had a run longer than 6 flights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CptRichardson Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 (edited) 1 hour ago, tater said: Right, I'm a dupe of the conspiracy, building 7, etc. We all get exactly where you are coming from. I have not said "You are a dupe of a conspiracy." I have said "This basically unheard of error mode happening to a company with a proven record and who have demonstrated extremely good engineering and handling practices, and especially with their coming up major world-first milestones is highly unusual/straining SoD, and should at least be examined as a possibility due to the sheer number of factors that coming together that make it at least theoretically possible, with the hopes that it's some new form of failure mode that nobody could have anticipated." Perhaps you should stop reading too much into it? As for the reconstruction that is giving the current 'event at the fill valve' explaination circulating around, he took the initial frame of the blast and turned its opacity almost to zero and lined it up perfectly with a frame of the rocket from pre-detonation and it centers in on the fill valve as the center of the blast based upon the artifact rays of the blast flare in the image. Edited September 2, 2016 by CptRichardson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 If you think there was human intent involved in what happened, my statement is 100% accurate. %$#@ happens, and they blew up a rocket as a result. It's not more complicated than that. I'm well aware of the internet sleuths. I'll trust people who have more data. They also seem to forget that the fill valve is also the path of least resistance for overpressure in the vessel itself by definition when it is being filled (it's a hole in the tank). All it would take was a breach, and a spark. It;s like a plane crash, it's rarely one cause, it's usually a constellation of causes (assuming it's not CFIG, though those often have multiple human causes). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tw1 Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 1 hour ago, CptRichardson said: As for the reconstruction that is giving the current 'event at the fill valve' explaination circulating around, he took the initial frame of the blast and turned its opacity almost to zero and lined it up perfectly with a frame of the rocket from pre-detonation and it centers in on the fill valve as the center of the blast based upon the artifact rays of the blast flare in the image. That's an interesting analysis technique. Simple, ideal for fixed cameras, and if you took multiple angles and viewed the whole video, it sounds like it would be a good place to start. That is, as long as the analysts have the right knowledge of explosion physics and the rocket's construction. Would something like this be done in official investigations? It sad to hear this news, more delays on rocket science. But looking for a bright side, better to find faults now, than with a more valuable cargo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 It's unfair. As the burst happened in the second (i.e. unused) stage we again still don't know if the first stage is reflyable and KSP designs are relevant. Would be interesting if somebody would combine both videos matching timeline and scale. (myself don't have video soft at my place). I.e. if capsule launches a half-second after the tanke bursts. Spoiler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 7 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said: On a more positive note, Shortly after I read that I found this coub: Dragon would be safe, I guess. @kerbiloid 14 minutes ago, kerbiloid said: Would be interesting if somebody would combine both videos matching timeline and scale. (myself don't have video soft at my place). I.e. if capsule launches a half-second after the tanke bursts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 Very nice, thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nibb31 Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 3 hours ago, mikegarrison said: That's not the kind of attitude that breeds success. That's the kind of attitude that breeds a failure every six launches. No, it's called statistics. That's what risk assessment involves. "Attitude" is irrelevant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 (edited) So, when the booster stays on ground, Dragon LES with T/W=6 is exactly enough to escape from the fireball. Imagine, if it bursts when booster gives 4g, so effective acceleration of the capsule relative to the fairing is 1-2 g... Here we can get that T/W of LES should be not 6, but 6+4 = 10 at least. (Usually 12..18) Edited September 2, 2016 by kerbiloid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nibb31 Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 2 hours ago, CptRichardson said: I have said "This basically unheard of error mode happening to a company with a proven record and who have demonstrated extremely good engineering and handling practices, and especially with their coming up major world-first milestones is highly unusual/straining SoD, and should at least be examined as a possibility due to the sheer number of factors that coming together that make it at least theoretically possible, with the hopes that it's some new form of failure mode that nobody could have anticipated." So you are claiming malicious intent, because SpaceX is so awesome it can't screw up ? That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard today. Every design has its flaws. All procedures have loopholes. Everybody makes mistakes. Accidents happen. SpaceX is under a lot of pressure, and employees take the brunt of that pressure. They are notoriously overworked and underpaid. Their procedures and paperwork are leaner than the rest of the industry. It wouldn't be surprising if corners got cut somewhere down the line. There are all sorts of things that could have caused the explosion, inside and outside the rocket. We simply don't have enough evidence yet, and unless there is some evidence found, malicious intent is way down on the list of probably causes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kryten Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 (edited) What happened today was that a vehicle containing over five hundred tons of liquid oxygen and kerosene, hundreds of kilos of hypergolic propellants, significant amounts of outright pyrophoric material, and wrapped in a thin film of flammable metal, exploded. That is not suspicious. That's the natural state of such an object. That's why space is hard. Edited September 2, 2016 by Kryten Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Streetwind Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 56 minutes ago, kerbiloid said: As the burst happened in the second (i.e. unused) stage we again still don't know if the first stage is reflyable and KSP designs are relevant. This was a fresh first stage that's never flown before. Even if it launched fine it would have made no statement about whether or not first stages are truly reflyable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YNM Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 Sorry for my probably lame question, but I just noticed a thing - there's some sort of flash (either artifact or something) before the fireball. Does it mean that something was "ignited" in before the explosion ? Or is it just a camera artifact ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegarrison Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 1 hour ago, Nibb31 said: No, it's called statistics. That's what risk assessment involves. "Attitude" is irrelevant. No, really it's not. Do you work in the aerospace industry? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Baron Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 Attitude ... i spoke with Jeb. With his grin he said "You've seen it. It exploded. So ?" :-) I know no technical details, but i think they will find the problem, elimination it and/or redefine the procedures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 4 minutes ago, Green Baron said: i spoke with Jeb. With his grin he said "You've seen it. It exploded. So ?" :-) Need more struts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Streetwind Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 Here is a great summary of what we know so far, without any editorializing or unmarked speculation: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/50rr9v/falcon_9_amos6_static_fire_anomaly_faq_summary/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frozen_Heart Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 Noooo Falcon :'( Is there any idea what caused it yet? A good thing this happened before crew are being flown so they can fix a potential flaw before then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
softweir Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 (edited) There has been a bit of talk about "attitude", but people have been conflating our attitude with that of SpaceX. My attitude is "sh1t happens. Rockets explode. They were due one. <jeb>It was pretty!</jeb> Let's hope our favourite space company can deal with this without suffering excess financial loss, and no human fallout (ie redundancies) occurs." (Sacking(s) due to incompetence are another thing entirely.) After all, I am not in any way connected to SpaceX, I have no influence over their work practices, technical decisionmaking or corporate "attitude". I have the luxury of taking any attitude I please! SpaceX and other parties involved in the investigation will take a very different attitude. They will be digging through all their hi-res footage and telemetry data and trying to pinpoint the causes of this accident, and will bend over backwards to make sure it doesn't happen again - their company depends on it, their jobs depend on it. Elon Musk is extremely rich but his pocket won't be infinitely deep, nor the pockets of other investors or banks he may tap to keep SpaceX afloat if they start to have too many accidents. Everybody in the company ought to be aware of this, and will do their best to avoid financial stability becoming an issue. Noooo Falcon :'( Is there any idea what caused it yet? A good thing this happened before crew are being flown so they can fix a potential flaw before then. Nope. All we know is something went boom. Some amateur video analysis places the observed centre of the boom close to one of the fuel filling ports, but we don't know if that is relevant. We await a potentially long and complex investigation. Edited September 2, 2016 by softweir Added answer to another post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PB666 Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 (edited) 2 hours ago, softweir said: Nope. All we know is something went boom. Some amateur video analysis places the observed centre of the boom close to one of the fuel filling ports, but we don't know if that is relevant. We await a potentially long and complex investigation. Thats not true, it caused 5 or so folks here to just bubble over with strut speculation, conspiracy theories and other diatribe. It must have been an intergalactic psychotacheon ray. Edited September 2, 2016 by PB666 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K^2 Posted September 3, 2016 Share Posted September 3, 2016 16 hours ago, kerbiloid said: Need more struts. That was my exact thought when I saw it go up in flames. "Why did the upper stage explode? Probably needs more struts." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitchz95 Posted September 3, 2016 Share Posted September 3, 2016 Was the upper stage even supposed to do anything during the static test? It seems like the last thing you'd expect a problem from on the ground. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegarrison Posted September 3, 2016 Share Posted September 3, 2016 (edited) 15 minutes ago, Mitchz95 said: Was the upper stage even supposed to do anything during the static test? It seems like the last thing you'd expect a problem from on the ground. Whatever it may or may not have been supposed to do, I'm pretty sure it wasn't "blow up". (From what I've read, they expected to just fuel it and then defuel it after the first stage engines were tested.) Edited September 3, 2016 by mikegarrison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrandedonEarth Posted September 3, 2016 Share Posted September 3, 2016 53 minutes ago, Mitchz95 said: Was the upper stage even supposed to do anything during the static test? It was just supposed to sit there and look pretty,,,, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PB666 Posted September 3, 2016 Share Posted September 3, 2016 (edited) 1 hour ago, mikegarrison said: Whatever it may or may not have been supposed to do, I'm pretty sure it wasn't "blow up". In KSP blowing up is ALWAYS an option. Edited September 3, 2016 by PB666 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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