totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[wumpus]

4 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

SpaceX chose to locate in the middle of a wildlife sanctuary.

Chose. To.

Maybe if they had done a better job of not setting the place on fire or covering it with debris then they would be given the benefits of more trust.

That was a huge unforced error, although I'm not sure where you can find undeveloped land on any US coastal area that isn't a wildlife refuge.  There are better ways of determining just how strong your launchpad needs to be, especially after building in a wildlife refuge.  Did they hire Calvin's dad* as the engineer?

I still think that the booster still intact until 40 seconds after the automated "Big Red Button" was pushed is going to make the FAA even more cranky than the former.  Granted, I'm not in the industry at all, but 40 seconds of uncontrolled travel of a huge tube of liquid oxygen + fuel sounds bad.

* Calvin's dad is famous for bad answers to science questions.  For this example he suggested that to find the maximum load of a bridge you should build it first, test it to destruction, then rebuild it with the known "max load" clearly labeled.

[mikegarrison]

3 hours ago, tater said:

Re: fish and wildlife service, the supposed concern is runoff. Of water, and rocket exhaust that is... water and CO2.

I guarantee you there is more than water and CO2 involved. It's an industrial site.

[tater]

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

I guarantee you there is more than water and CO2 involved. It's an industrial site.

The launch site is relatively clean compared to the actual mfg site I would think, but yes, of course there are certainly loads of lubricants, etc, in that OLM/tower complex (they using electric or hydraulic? Think the former). Course those will get washed off by rain in addition to deluge—a run of the mill squall there would dump more rain than the OLM deluge will put out over years. If deluge water is a concern, then any amount of water ≥ that is as much or more of a concern.

(not just at the site, but road runoff, etc—the beach there allows cars on it, after all)

Edited September 27, 2023 by tater

[Nuke]

i remeber one time somone parked a bit of old construction machenery in our lot, and one of our cats came in covered in hydraulic fluid. he was not to fond of the remedial steps. after his bath he never crawled under another vehicle again. 

[RCgothic]

As others have said, it's not the regulation it's the opaqueness of the process that's frustrating.

Edited September 27, 2023 by RCgothic

[Nuke]

reality is usually a foreign concept to most bureaucrats, of any kind. they are generally insulated from the consequences of their actions. mucking up progress since the sumerian civilization. its interesting that writing systems in general were invented as a means for book keeping. 

Edited September 28, 2023 by Nuke

[Meecrob]

Haha, I don't blame MikeG for leaving the conversation. The delay is annoying, yes, and bureaucracy!! But its not like its SLS timeframes, lol. Keep your pants on people, hahaha!

 

Edit: This is test flight. I think people are forgetting that. I think people just wanna "light this candle!"

Edited September 28, 2023 by Meecrob

[CatastrophicFailure]

13 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

SpaceX chose to locate in the middle of a wildlife sanctuary.

Chose. To.

No. Incorrect. Wrong. 

Unless you think building a launch site in, say, the middle of downtown Corpus Christi is somehow a valid choice. As others have pointed out, there is literally nowhere else in the US they could have placed a launch site without ruffling SOMEone’s feathers. The lesser of evils really isn’t much of a choice.

13 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

I'm just awfully tired of people complaining that regulators are doing their jobs.

No. The thing people are complaining about is, very specifically, regulators NOT doing their jobs. As in, for reasons yet unknown, they haven’t even started.  That is an entirely valid thing to complain about, especially if the FDW is intentionally using the situation as some sort of pocket veto. 

14 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

"Manufacturer extraordinaire"? I mean, Boeing builds 737s at a rate of more than one per day. And don't try to tell me a Falcon second stage is harder to build than a commercial airliner.

I’m sorry bud, I really am, but you just show your true colors here. Your comments are usually lucid and insightful but this just stinks of sour grapes. Bad form. 

[SunlitZelkova]

14 hours ago, darthgently said:

Since KSC was developed the EPA has effectively declared nearly *all* coastal areas as protected coastal wetlands to a large degree.  The same areas that the same EPA appears to think will be under salty ocean water in a handful of decades anyway.  Wetlands are also the biggest source of natural methane, major greenhouse gas, which is reduced with draining and development.  Cognitive dissonance

If three doctors told you you had a risk of dying from liver cancer in your 50s, would you start drinking a wine bottle everyday, or try to live a healthier lifestyle to prevent yourself from getting cancer.

You people are trying to stop the sea levels from rising, right? Not just throw their hands up in the air and say we’re doomed.

That’s like… the whole point of climate action.

3 hours ago, Nuke said:

reality is usually a foreign concept to most bureaucrats, of any kind. they are generally insulated from the consequences of their actions. mucking up progress since the sumerian civilization. its interesting that writing systems in general were invented as a means for book keeping. 

If it wasn’t for nuclear weapons being controlled by bureaucracy they probably would have been used in every major Cold War proxy war.

58 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

No. Incorrect. Wrong. 

Unless you think building a launch site in, say, the middle of downtown Corpus Christi is somehow a valid choice. As others have pointed out, there is literally nowhere else in the US they could have placed a launch site without ruffling SOMEone’s feathers. The lesser of evils really isn’t much of a choice.

How about KSC? Don’t they literally have a second launch site there, currently being converted for Starship ops?

59 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

No. The thing people are complaining about is, very specifically, regulators NOT doing their jobs. As in, for reasons yet unknown, they haven’t even started.

The processes take time. Unless you can prove that they are being done for superfluous reasons, criticism of their pace of work as being a sign of incompetence is conspiratorial.

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

That is an entirely valid thing to complain about, especially if the FDW is intentionally using the situation as some sort of pocket veto. 

This is also conspiratorial. Unless you have evidence of some kind to support this accusation.

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

I’m sorry bud, I really am, but you just show your true colors here. Your comments are usually lucid and insightful but this just stinks of sour grapes. Bad form.

It’s his opinion. There is no “bad form”. Correct him and move on, never discourage someone from sharing their views just because they might make a mistake.

[Exploro]

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

No. Incorrect. Wrong. 

Unless you think building a launch site in, say, the middle of downtown Corpus Christi is somehow a valid choice. As others have pointed out, there is literally nowhere else in the US they could have placed a launch site without ruffling SOMEone’s feathers. The lesser of evils really isn’t much of a choice.

I concur with Sunlit, the existence and continued development of Starship facilities at LC-39A demonstrates an alternative option.

[CatastrophicFailure]

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

How about KSC? Don’t they literally have a second launch site there, currently being converted for Starship ops?

In short, no. That site is for operational flights, not test flights. As in, once the bugs have been largely worked out. And even then NASA is concerned enough that SpaceX needs to build an entirely new crew access arm at Pad 40 specifically because of the risk to 39A from having Starship right there. 

58 minutes ago, Exploro said:

I concur with Sunlit, the existence and continued development of Starship facilities at LC-39A demonstrates an alternative option.

Back in the Falcon 1 days, SpaceX had to launch all the way out at Kwajalein because the Air Force wouldn’t let them near the existing facilities at Vandenburg, too many unknowns at the time. So no, it can’t just move to an existing facility, and in all likelihood they’d still be facing the same bureaucratic issues there. 

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

The processes take time. Unless you can prove that they are being done for superfluous reasons, criticism of their pace of work as being a sign of incompetence is conspiratorial.

The process. Hasn’t. Even. Started. 

The FAA has done their thing already, so why hasn’t the DFW even started? And if they have, why so opaque about it? That’s not conspiracy, that’s accountability. 

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

This is also conspiratorial. Unless you have evidence of some kind to support this accusation.

It’s not an accusation, it’s an IF/THEN. Since the DFW has been against this project from the get go, yes, I question the motives of those pulling the strings, again because of the complete lack of transparency and accountability. 
 

No one is saying, “don’t regulate.” No one is saying, “just light that candle!” We’re saying do so in a timely and open manner, specifically to avoid this very nonsense! 

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

It’s his opinion. There is no “bad form”. Correct him and move on, never discourage someone from sharing their views just because they might make a mistake.

It’s not a “mistake,” it’s a cheap shot. He’s better than that. 

[Meecrob]

*cough* I was the one who said "light that candle"

I did mean it as in I thought some people were eager to see the launch and were not considering it is a test.

[SunlitZelkova]

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

In short, no. That site is for operational flights, not test flights. As in, once the bugs have been largely worked out. And even then NASA is concerned enough that SpaceX needs to build an entirely new crew access arm at Pad 40 specifically because of the risk to 39A from having Starship right there.

The point isn’t to say they should move there now, it’s that they could have chosen an existing rocket launch site where regulations might be easier to overcome.

It is a fallacy to think that building an entirely new launch site should be as easy now as it was in the 1960s. They were always going to have a big regulatory slog, whether they built it in Boca Chica or the Bronx.

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

The process. Hasn’t. Even. Started. 

The FAA has done their thing already, so why hasn’t the DFW even started? And if they have, why so opaque about it? That’s not conspiracy, that’s accountability. 

It’s not an accusation, it’s an IF/THEN. Since the DFW has been against this project from the get go, yes, I question the motives of those pulling the strings, again because of the complete lack of transparency and accountability. 
 

No one is saying, “don’t regulate.” No one is saying, “just light that candle!” We’re saying do so in a timely and open manner, specifically to avoid this very nonsense! 

As I said, these things take time.

If you don’t let the regulators do their job, and push for “do it according to my needs and my timeline”, instead of what the regulators need to do to get the job done, you will end up with another Challenger disaster.

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

It’s not a “mistake,” it’s a cheap shot. He’s better than that. 

Just because you disagree or it seems outrageous does not make it cheap.

People make emotional statements sometimes, and sometimes that emotion comes in the form of a strong exclamatory or seemingly hyperbolic nature. I have done this myself in the past and ended up walking it back when people corrected me.

Perhaps that was your intention too (to correct/advise and not shun), but it just came off to me as a put down. Apologies if there was a misunderstanding.

[darthgently]

4 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

You people

Nice.

4 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

are trying to stop the sea levels from rising, right? Not just throw their hands up in the air and say we’re doomed.

That’s like… the whole point of climate action.

How long have the sea levels been rising?  Honest question.   Many don't realize they've been rising since the end of the last glacial, as makes sense.  All models that have predicted a rise faster than that trend have failed to predict accurately.  Humans have a part and we should be mindful, but religious belief in climate dogma and ritual isn't helping

Edited September 28, 2023 by darthgently

[Deddly]

This is not the place to debate climate change, or other science for that matter. This is about SpaceX, so let's please try to keep to that. 

[Nuke]

unfortunately we cant test any rockets due to red tape. but when you are as rich as musk you can buy a really big pair of scissors. i just wish he didn't order them from amazon.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Nuke

[Terwin]

8 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

How about KSC? Don’t they literally have a second launch site there, currently being converted for Starship ops?

 

5 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

The point isn’t to say they should move there now, it’s that they could have chosen an existing rocket launch site where regulations might be easier to overcome.

NASA was not keen on falcon 9 testing at KSC, which is why they built boca chica in the first place.

 

I would be surprised if spaceX did not ask about testing at KSC just for the sake of less red tape,  but I doubt they were keen on risking their historic launch pads for that purpose.

5 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

As I said, these things take time.

If you don’t let the regulators do their job, and push for “do it according to my needs and my timeline”, instead of what the regulators need to do to get the job done, you will end up with another Challenger disaster.

No one is saying they need to rush the job, they are saying 'why has this not even started yet?!?'

[tater]

[snip]

13 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

How about KSC? Don’t they literally have a second launch site there, currently being converted for Starship ops?

One, as far as "the environment" cares, what difference would it make? Upsetting wildlife in FL is OK, but doing so in TX is bad? Should make zero difference. The practical difference is that test efforts in FL are far, far harder. Why? Because SS/SH tests would shut down all the other work nearby every test. A static fire would likely close down SLS work, or BO pad work, or ULA. The number of commercial flights offshore in FL (Lauderdale, Miami being S of there and very busy with flights frm N) makes FAA stuff even more difficult.

13 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

The processes take time. Unless you can prove that they are being done for superfluous reasons, criticism of their pace of work as being a sign of incompetence is conspiratorial.

They should have been working starting April 21 IMO. FAA has experience with this stuff, Fish and Wildlife doesn't. They are government employees, so it's safe to assume they are the B team anyway (A team quality people would be doing literally any other work). (NASA is about the only exception to this paradigm I can think of)

4 hours ago, Terwin said:

No one is saying they need to rush the job, they are saying 'why has this not even started yet?!?'

This.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Vanamonde

[Royalswissarmyknife]

Looking at this page I almost thought I clicked on a Ksp-2 discussion page!

Edited September 28, 2023 by Royalswissarmyknife

[Vanamonde]

Like Deddly says, please stick to SpaceX. Some other comments removed. 

[Exploro]

4 hours ago, tater said:

They should have been working starting April 21 IMO. FAA has experience with this stuff, Fish and Wildlife doesn't. They are government employees, so it's safe to assume they are the B team anyway (A team quality people would be doing literally any other work). (NASA is about the only exception to this paradigm I can think of)

You would have wanted them to commence work on assessing the impact of flame mitigation system that had not even been implemented at the time and of which a final configuration was not really fleshed out till around the May or June time-frame?

Edited September 28, 2023 by Exploro

[tater]

52 minutes ago, Exploro said:

You would have wanted them to commence work on assessing the impact of flame mitigation system that had not even been implemented at the time and of which a final configuration was not really fleshed out till around the May or June time-frame?

Fair point. But they would have been provided the plans. What exactly are they doing for X months?  What data needs months to collect, then reduce?

[mikegarrison]

16 hours ago, Meecrob said:

Haha, I don't blame MikeG for leaving the conversation.

I have other things to do. Like play Baldur's Gate 3.

Anyway, I said what I said, and don't see any point to coming back and saying it again just because some people disagreed with me.

[tater]

Deluge was tested July 28, BTW. So 2 months ago was the soonest they had some empirical data on top of the known flow rates (sure SpaceX knew this pretty accurately from the start based on their own plumbing sims). The over/under on what makes it to the retention pond must be at least somewhat well established. Assume a decent % escapes due to blast/steam/etc. The math is then how does that compare to rainfall.

The deluge system assuming estimates I have seen is 350,000 gallons. That's about the same as 0.7 inches of rain falling on the launch site (assuming the deluge water is spread over those 18 acres).

Some of the water is obviously collected, no idea what %.

Starbase gets something like 30" of rain per year (Brownsville is 27, SPI is >30). So a deluge washing all the crud off the industrial zone that is the launch area that is equal to the deluge system happens about once a week on average due to rain.

 

Edited September 28, 2023 by tater

[Brotoro]

FWS needs more data (assuming they are making decisions based on science). So they should allow test flights and gather data until they find something that could pose a long term problem.