totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[Hannu2]

On 2/5/2025 at 6:20 PM, Exoscientist said:

5.)For these reasons, the FAA should require SpaceX to release any and all videos of the engine bays of both stages while the engines are firing, most specifically during restarts:

I still do not understand this demand. Do you think that publication is some kind of legal punishment for breaking the rules? Is there really such an option in US laws? I do not believe that.

If FAA finds something potentially dangerous it can demand fixing probelms or more investigations but it can not order any technical details to be public.  It is SpaceX's desicion if it publish something.

Quote

All this could have been avoided by following standard industry practice of doing full up(all engines), full mission length, and full power static testing of stages. They would already be flying expendable version now at the highest payload capacity of any rocket ever made at ca. 250 tons and with paying customers.

If that is the situation do not worry. I am sure that those better companies who obey industrial standards and practices will develop their own 250 t rockets very rapidly and sell them to customers already waiting eagerly with their fancy 250t satellites. Why do you care about one rogue company who do not understand their benefits? Did you invest your own money to SpaceX?

[Elthy]

4 hours ago, darthgently said:

Very nice.  Check out that crew transfer ladder setup at the bow of the smaller vessel.  Also, that landing barge moves quicker than I imagined

 

That video gives a good sense of scale, it always seems smaller in those landing videos.

[CatastrophicFailure]

3 minutes ago, Hannu2 said:

Is there really such an option in US laws?

There is not. 
 

The thing about all this is, the FAA has seen the footage. And likely from every prior flight too. They have digital reams and reams of data us spectators never ever will, and yet, somehow, they continue to (ahem) “allow” SpaceX to  continue as they’ve been doing, as if the FAA itself was somehow (mostly) satisfied SpaceX was actually acting in good faith towards the public interest. When they have been less than satisfied, they’ve been fairly clear on that, and have advised SpaceX on prudent measures to correct such, if such were even necessary. 

And the vast majority of this has been under a “hostile” regime, too. So I’m going to trust the people who actually have the data. 

[tater]

11 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

the FAA itself was somehow (mostly) satisfied SpaceX was actually acting in good faith towards the public interest

C'mon, man! They need to blow up expensive rockets to endanger people for the LULZ, since that's where all the sweet cash comes from.

[snip]

[tater]

So tanker available for other vehicles that use methalox.

[Vanamonde]

Avoid politics on this forum. Some comments removed. 

[FleshJeb]

3 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

They said not to talk about politics and fair enough. Some things are more important than shiny rockets and decorum, but this isn’t the place and thats fine. Im sure I went too far in my previous post out of exasperation. We should still be able to call for boycotts.

It's not politics, it's water resource engineering. Anyway, I'm given to understand that the thinnest amount of plausible deniability is now sufficient to justify doing exactly what one wants to do, so I'm just going along with the zeitgeist. Perhaps some people will reflect on the fact that it's a rotten way to go about doing things and re-evaluate some of their behaviors and opinions.

Anyway, onto technical matters and an actual good-faith question I had:

Starship is being considered for a lot of roles. At what points does it make sense to specialize a sub-variant to the degree that it doesn't share much commonality with the base design? A parallel might be the F-35B vs the A and C variants. There's been a lot of critique that trying to overgeneralize the design to accommodate the VTOL really harmed the other two variants.

For instance, is there merit to going with a nearly clean-sheet design for a tanker variant, that's never going to leave space again, versus something that's re-entry capable? I thought ULA's ACES system made a lot of sense, and I'd expect "Tanker Starship" to have many of the same features or solutions.

I'm sure folks are well along to figuring this out, I'm just unaware.

[DAL59]

Has any Tanker hardware been spotted yet? If they're doing any R&D testing they are being very tight lipped about it. 

[tater]

6 hours ago, FleshJeb said:

For instance, is there merit to going with a nearly clean-sheet design for a tanker variant, that's never going to leave space again, versus something that's re-entry capable? I thought ULA's ACES system made a lot of sense, and I'd expect "Tanker Starship" to have many of the same features or solutions.

 

5 hours ago, DAL59 said:

Has any Tanker hardware been spotted yet? If they're doing any R&D testing they are being very tight lipped about it. 

Ages ago Musk said that that tanker would look strange, so clearly they had some offbeat ideas on table a few years ago.

[tater]

 

[AckSed]

At what Ship number will we see a catch? 34 is slated for launch next, so my FITW estimate is 38. Taking all bets.

[Superpluto126]

30 minutes ago, tater said:

 

rest in peace the last block one

[darthgently]

18 minutes ago, AckSed said:

At what Ship number will we see a catch? 34 is slated for launch next, so my FITW estimate is 38. Taking all bets.

I’ll go with 37.

[Exoscientist]

21 hours ago, Hannu2 said:

I still do not understand this demand. Do you think that publication is some kind of legal punishment for breaking the rules? Is there really such an option in US laws? I do not believe that.

If FAA finds something potentially dangerous it can demand fixing probelms or more investigations but it can not order any technical details to be public.  It is SpaceX's desicion if it publish something.

If that is the situation do not worry. I am sure that those better companies who obey industrial standards and practices will develop their own 250 t rockets very rapidly and sell them to customers already waiting eagerly with their fancy 250t satellites. Why do you care about one rogue company who do not understand their benefits? Did you invest your own money to SpaceX?

 

 

 One problem is the FAA won’t require a mishap investigation when it should. From the FAA:

"The three approved exceptions include: failure of the thermal shield during high-heating; the flap system is unable to provide sufficient control under high dynamic pressure; and the failure of the Raptor engine system during the landing burn. If one of these scenarios occurs, an investigation will not be required provided there was no serious injury or fatality, no damage to unrelated property and no debris outside designated hazard areas."

 An engine exploding in flight is a very serious failure mode. But SpaceX managed to convince the FAA as long as the public wasn’t endangered a mishap investigation wasn’t necessary. This was a mistake because it allows the engine explosions not to be discussed by SpaceX like they never happened. For example, on IFT-4 an engine exploded during the booster landing burn. Why? SpaceX doesn’t have to say. SpaceX doesn’t even have to admit it happened.

 But if the FAA has no idea why it happened, as it required no explanation from SpaceX, how does it or the public know it won’t happen during the tower catch?

  Bob Clark

Edited Friday at 05:38 PM by Exoscientist

[Hannu2]

4 hours ago, Exoscientist said:

 

 

 One problem is the FAA won’t require a mishap investigation when it should. From the FAA:

"The three approved exceptions include: failure of the thermal shield during high-heating; the flap system is unable to provide sufficient control under high dynamic pressure; and the failure of the Raptor engine system during the landing burn. If one of these scenarios occurs, an investigation will not be required provided there was no serious injury or fatality, no damage to unrelated property and no debris outside designated hazard areas."

 An engine exploding in flight is a very serious failure mode. But SpaceX managed to convince the FAA as long as the public wasn’t endangered a mishap investigation wasn’t necessary. This was a mistake because it allows the engine explosions not to be discussed by SpaceX like they never happened. For example, on IFT-4 an engine exploded during the booster landing burn. Why? SpaceX doesn’t have to say. SpaceX doesn’t even have to admit it happened.

 But if the FAA has no idea why it happened, as it required no explanation from SpaceX, how does it or the public know it won’t happen during the tower catch?

  Bob Clark

What is problem here? Trajectory and safety zones have been set large enouhg  that if some of those mentioned anomalies happen, it do not cause danger. They test those things and it is quite probable that something fails. It is enough that SpaceX knows what happened and try to fix problems. If every problem stays in  designated safety areas and no one is hurt there is not any need for authorities to control the situation. They can be happy that they made a good job to demand enough safety measures and technical problems are SpaceX's problems, not anyone else's.

Tower catch is not different thing. Public is far away and if catch fails only SpaceX's property is damaged. FAA's task is not to prevent engine anomalies, because it is impossible, but make sure that if anomaly happens, there is no severe danger. If something unexpected happens or debris drift out from safety zones then they begin investigation. It is exactly what happened after last flight because some debris falled to inhabited island out of safety zone. The want to make sure that even next ship explodes, debris falls to safe places.

[zolotiyeruki]

6 hours ago, Exoscientist said:

An engine exploding in flight is a very serious failure mode. But SpaceX managed to convince the FAA as long as the public wasn’t endangered a mishap investigation wasn’t necessary. This was a mistake because it allows the engine explosions not to be discussed by SpaceX like they never happened. For example, on IFT-4 an engine exploded during the booster landing burn. Why? SpaceX doesn’t have to say. SpaceX doesn’t even have to admit it happened.

It feels like there's an implication here that SpaceX's lack of communication means they aren't motivated to fix deficiencies.  Seriously?  In what world would SpaceX NOT want to fix design issues with Raptor?

[darthgently]

12 minutes ago, zolotiyeruki said:

It feels like there's an implication here that SpaceX's lack of communication means they aren't motivated to fix deficiencies.  Seriously?  In what world would SpaceX NOT want to fix design issues with Raptor?

In a world reduced to a simple single player game called “squeaky toy”

https://ibb.co/DYR1M46

Edited Friday at 11:02 PM by darthgently

[RCgothic]

For any of those three contingencies, Starship would be deep in an exclusion zone and nobody would be harmed. They're not a conspiracy to avoid investigating an "unreliable" engine.

[GuessingEveryDay]

Also, this one was still using Raptor 2s, not the Raptor 3s if I remember correctly too.

[AckSed]

It used to be an old joke in the UK, that any aberrant or discomfiting thing would see a very stern letter to the editor of The Times. The Goon Show famously riffed upon it.

His posts here and elsewhere are those letters. A shout into the void to anyone that might be listening that SpaceX is dodgy, and must answer to the authorities for it. Somehow. Or that they are doing spaceflight wrong.

I don't mock that feeling. Scientists and mathematicians are as human as the rest of us.

I have issue with digging their heels in when presented with statistics that weaken their position.

Edited Saturday at 02:28 PM by AckSed

[darthgently]

Dream Bigger

 

[tater]

 

[Nuke]

3 hours ago, darthgently said:

Dream Bigger

 

you know in the early days of ksp i made the undiviginti (19 in latin) coupler meme part. i wonder if i inadvertently inspired elon's shenanigans. really the n1 beat me to it.

Edited Saturday at 07:40 PM by Nuke

[magnemoe]

22 hours ago, Hannu2 said:

What is problem here? Trajectory and safety zones have been set large enouhg  that if some of those mentioned anomalies happen, it do not cause danger. They test those things and it is quite probable that something fails. It is enough that SpaceX knows what happened and try to fix problems. If every problem stays in  designated safety areas and no one is hurt there is not any need for authorities to control the situation. They can be happy that they made a good job to demand enough safety measures and technical problems are SpaceX's problems, not anyone else's.

Tower catch is not different thing. Public is far away and if catch fails only SpaceX's property is damaged. FAA's task is not to prevent engine anomalies, because it is impossible, but make sure that if anomaly happens, there is no severe danger. If something unexpected happens or debris drift out from safety zones then they begin investigation. It is exactly what happened after last flight because some debris falled to inhabited island out of safety zone. The want to make sure that even next ship explodes, debris falls to safe places.

This, its the same for experimental flights, if it fails inside the test area and none get hurt its no reason for an FAA investigation. FAA main mission is commercial aviation. 
Now it might be an idea for something like FFA for space not only involving launches and recovery but also space station and bases, perhaps also orbital security. 

All point to the next US space station will be an commercial station, NASA will go inn with an long term rent deal with them adding multiple modules to the station, other countries like Japan and EU (not an country) can add modules so can private companies and station will be open for tourists. Station owner will provide ship and hotel services at least for NASA. 
It makes sense, NASA is expensive Most time on the IIS is to keep it running, and its an waste of time and money having scientists being handymen and cleaners most of the time. 
On the other hand an cleaner with offshore certification is an $100.000 job at least with all the shore time. 

[tater]