totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[tater]

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

It just went poof and crumpled. 
 

It was weird, it was the section below the frosted-up tank that buckled, and the rest came down. 

Edited April 3, 2020 by CatastrophicFailure

[RCgothic]

Nooooo!

https://twitter.com/ChiewGordon/status/1245974352215998466?s=19

 

It did look like buckling failure of the lower tank with the upper tank loaded above it. That's something that they didn't test with SN2.

Edited April 3, 2020 by RCgothic

[RealKerbal3x]

Darnit

On to SN4 I guess! I wonder how long it'll be before we actually see a Starship leave the ground.

[Elthy]

This didnt look like a failing weld, more like the material/structure wasnt up for the task. They will proably need more bracing or thicker metall to avoid this in the future which would result in more mass...

[Flavio hc16]

25 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Darnit

On to SN4 I guess! I wonder how long it'll be before we actually see a Starship leave the ground.

*on his own rocket power°

why waste time calling when you can see who is not working his ass off?

 

Edited April 3, 2020 by Flavio hc16

[Flying dutchman]

Well.. what did they expect? Filling the top tank while the bottom one is still unpressurised..

[Elthy]

In the SpaceX reddit some are speculating that the lower tank became unpressurised unintentionally, maybe related to the valve problems reported earlier. That would be unfortunate, but not a reason for redesigning.

[Wjolcz]

THAT SUCKS

[sh1pman]

This sets them back for what, 2-3 weeks or less?

[GearsNSuch]

Well, that’s another tin can that a raccoon won’t get its head stuck in. 

[RCgothic]

I'm hearing further rumours that the test was complete and this was a failure of the detanking process. Lower tank depressurised unintentionally.

[XB-70A]

Starships' blown mystery solved.

Spoiler

 

[ThatGuyWithALongUsername]

This is starting to get repetitive...

[Raven Industries]

8 hours ago, ThatGuyWithALongUsername said:

This is starting to get repetitive...

I know, we all dream of the day when it works and Jim Bridenstine can finally go down to the SLS engineers and yell "Elon Musk was able to build this in a field! With a box of scrap metal!" 

Edited April 3, 2020 by Raven Industries

[sevenperforce]

12 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Then you might want this:

Fun fact: I did the math for this comic.

 

[Shpaget]

Hmm, 1,5 cm^3, or 1,14 cm edge. That's entirely reasonably small cube.

Don't give it to your kids, though. It might be a choking hazard.

[sevenperforce]

28 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

Hmm, 1,5 cm^3, or 1,14 cm edge. That's entirely reasonably small cube.

Don't give it to your kids, though. It might be a choking hazard.

Someone on Twitter asked how quickly you would die if you drank that amount of plutonium dissolved in the tea.

The answer is somewhere between two hours and two seconds.

[CatastrophicFailure]

8 hours ago, Elthy said:

In the SpaceX reddit some are speculating that the lower tank became unpressurised unintentionally, maybe related to the valve problems reported earlier. That would be unfortunate, but not a reason for redesigning.

 

[XB-70A]

The SLC-39A Adventure Park has just tested their zip-line.

 

 

 

[Shpaget]

For what kind of fire are they supposed to provide escape route? They don't look nearly fast enough to escape the fires we usually see when rockets start burning at the wrong end.

Is this more of a feel good system than one that's actually supposed to help?

[Terwin]

34 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

For what kind of fire are they supposed to provide escape route? They don't look nearly fast enough to escape the fires we usually see when rockets start burning at the wrong end.

Is this more of a feel good system than one that's actually supposed to help?

It may just be fire codes: any structure intended to hold people needs to have multiple avenues of escape in case of fire.

I think there are stairs, and the elevator, but I also don't think Elevators count as an avenue of escape in the case of a fire, so they have zip-lines.

[sevenperforce]

7 minutes ago, Terwin said:

43 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

For what kind of fire are they supposed to provide escape route? They don't look nearly fast enough to escape the fires we usually see when rockets start burning at the wrong end.

Is this more of a feel good system than one that's actually supposed to help?

It may just be fire codes: any structure intended to hold people needs to have multiple avenues of escape in case of fire.

I think there are stairs, and the elevator, but I also don't think Elevators count as an avenue of escape in the case of a fire, so they have zip-lines.

I've wondered about this as well. Most rocket-related failures do not give advance warning.

That being said, what if a fuel line springs a leak? It's not so severe that you want to trigger the LES but you definitely don't want to waste any time in an elevator.

[mikegarrison]

Zipline escapes date back from the shuttle, I think. Possibly to Apollo.

The shuttle had no LES, so there was no other choice.

Even for launchers that do have an LES, sometimes you might want to get people out of there quickly, but without the guaranteed loss of vehicle (and pad) that a LES pad abort would cause.

[sevenperforce]

5 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Zipline escapes date back from the shuttle, I think. Possibly to Apollo.

The shuttle had no LES, so there was no other choice.

Even for launchers that do have an LES, sometimes you might want to get people out of there quickly, but without the guaranteed loss of vehicle (and pad) that a LES pad abort would cause.

And LES is more likely to injure you than a zipline.

One would hope.