[8bitben]

Whatever you think about Elon, the push for innovation with Spacex has been admirable.

I've been more than a little disappointed with all the "they tried but it blew up" headlines that came in the days following the test flight.

The whole point is that this is bigger and more ambitious than any prior attempt - the failure is the most important part, it means you learn something.

Anything more than a failure to ignite should be considered a success in my book.

[kickopotomus]

I agree with this sentiment. I have also been somewhat unsettled by the detractors here. I am not sure if this is purely an American sentiment, but it seems like more of the general population has started to view advancement in binary terms. In both science and public policy, it seems that an increasing proportion of the population view anything less than 100% success/improvement as an abject failure.

[jiggawatts]

“ChatGPT couldn’t solve world hunger, nor could it come up with a peaceful solution to Israel and Palestine when I asked it! See, I told you it’s useless and not really intelligent.” — hyperbole but not even that far from some comments I’ve seen.

[gumballindie]

Au contraire. It succeeded the opposite.

[IshKebab]

Yeah there's a lot of "well fine, you invented a teleporter but it doesn't work with dogs so who cares?".

[jiggawatts]

I don't know why you're getting downvoted, because this is precisely what I'm seeing from both the IT crowd and the general public.

"Computers understand English now, but they occasionally make mistakes, so who cares?"

Something I've noticed is that GPT 4 seems to make mistakes less often than humans. That is, if you asked a random person to stand up in a lecture hall and answer questions thrown at them like the type people have been trying on ChatGPT, they would fail at least 50% of the time, like more.

For example, from what I can tell, GPT 4 has nearly perfect spelling and grammar. Better than mine, certainly, and up there with professional copy editors.

[WWLink]

> I have also been somewhat unsettled by the detractors here.

I wouldn't worry about it. The news papers always view it in a sorta pessimistic way. I used to joke about this with spacex's booster landings. When they couldn't stick a landing even though the mission itself was successful, the news sites always made headlines that sounded like "welp, spacex screwed up again" lol :D

The news sites will always pick the headline that raises the most eyebrows.

As for my liking of spacex but my great distaste for the jackass known as Elon, well, that's nothing new. I was saying that 10 years ago lol. You can still cheer on the accomplishments all of the engineers are spacex are making. That's fine.

[AstralStorm]

The problem with it is this is actually burning many millions of US taxpayer dollars. You think Musk is paying for it? Check SpaceX grants.

As for the failure, the Raptor 2 failures have caused a RUD on multiple Starship launches so far. They should be back to static firing the Super Heavy or something, but this is not sexy enough for the billionaire.

Until the engine and launchpad works reliably, there is literally no point in launching the boosters when you have high probability of mission failure right at the launch. (Even if it clears the tower.)

Musk/SpaceX redefining failure as success is terribly annoying too. If done repeatedly enough it has the potential to tank the whole space program. They obviously wanted to test separation the most (since it was issued despite the control failure) and that failed too.

[goalieca]

The director of nasa calls this a great success. So does a former astronaut.

> Thursday's launch was hailed as "a real accomplishment" and "so successful" by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and retired International Space Station Commander Chris Hadfield, respectively. SpaceX agreed.

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/21/1171202753/spacex-starship-la...

[tetris11]

I read it more as jeering at private companies who promise the world and deliver a fraction of the product with price-gouging tactics.

Somewhere in there is an innovation that might do a public good, but most people are realising that corporations don't do public good. They do what they want.

If it was a government entity that tried and failed to reach for the stars, I think there'd be jeering too ("there go my tax dollars") but a large portion of the scientific community would be happy with the result.

[ksec]

>I am not sure if this is purely an American sentiment

My observation is that it is an online sentiment. But due to the way Technology news cycle works most of these online sentiment do have their source from America. So I think it is an American Sentiment being exported. But most places outside America, especially those without the usage of English being main language tends to be less affected.

[adastra22]

I'm neither a fan nor a detractor of Elon Musk. The man has his faults. I am a huge fan of space exploration and the settlement of Mars, and therefore I really, really want SpaceX to succeed. For that reason I've been very critical of this test.

Professionals in the industry whose life work is the study of rocket plumes (e.g. @ DrPhiltill on Twitter) warned about what would happen if they proceeded with this plan. They were right. The FAA license application, as it turns out, was wildly off base and the projected environmental impact was off by as much as an order of magnitude, being based on an earlier design with much, much lower thrust.

This does not help the cause. It makes SpaceX come off as reckless, irresponsible, and untrustworthy. It makes it less likely that the FAA is going to sign off on a launch from Boca Chica again, and certainly not in the next year or so.

[scaramanga]

There needs to be some new word for, like, the "humblebrag" on behalf of a personality-cult.

Like, that low-key way where when you pretend to be in complete denial about all the reasons why people might delight in the failures (perceived or otherwise) of a Nazi billionaire's ridiculous vanity projects and then come to the highly self-serving (well, cult-leader serving) conclusion that "they must just be impatient with the saviour of mankind for not being the saviour of mankind enough"

[kickopotomus]

On the contrary, I find it more concerning that people are willing to discount the efforts of hundreds of people to progress human spaceflight just because the CEO is an asshole.

It is interesting that you would immediately default to a cult-of-personality retort when I never mentioned Elon in my original post. SpaceX is not just one man.

[armada651]

The thing is the launch likely failed for reasons that were known beforehand and were noticable even to a layman.

They purposefully chose not to have a flame diverter, instead they were hoping to get away with simply blowing up the launchpad beneath them. I respect that they're trying to push boundaries, but this just seems foolish.

For a company so focused on reducing cost through reusability, why did they choose to blow up the launch pad upon launch? I understand building a flame diverter for a rocket this massive is an incredible amount of work, but if it makes subsequent launches cheaper then wouldn't that amortize the costs?

[drfrank]

Elon wrote: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1649523985837686784

> 3 months ago, we started building a massive water-cooled, steel plate to go under the launch mount.

> Wasn’t ready in time & we wrongly thought, based on static fire data, that Fondag would make it through 1 launch.

To me, it sounds like people that would have been considered experts (and probably still are) made assessments than turned out to be incorrect.

[sundvor]

Some times you just have to try. This was way bigger than anything that's gone before. I'm sure they'll have plenty of data now to make the launch pad even better than it would otherwise have been.

Videos of the debris storm were pretty mind boggling to watch - it's difficult to comprehend the sheer amount of energy expended.

I am truly looking forward to the learnings published from this.

[postmeta]

Where is your evidence for "they were hoping to get away with simply blowing up the launchpad"?

"Aspiring to have no flame diverter in Boca, but this could turn out to be a mistake" -Musk https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1313952039869788173

[armada651]

Because they chose to go ahead with the launch with no flame diverter or anything else that would've protected the launch pad?

[8bitben]

I think that's a reasonable response.

At the same time, if it would have taken several more months to install a flame diverter / metal plating below the launch pad, would that be worth it, or negate the progress made by gathering flight data? I'm not sure we can know that for sure.

I would hazard a guess that in the long term, it will have been the right decision.

[Szpadel]

keep in mind this is still a prototype rocket, they have no guarantee that they won't learn anything important about how this should look like or what issues it could introduce

they used something they knew to work so there is one less variable that should prevent liftoff

at this point there is no reducing the cost phase yet, they try to test assumptions and learn what and how things can go wrong. It's much better that things go wrong at test flight than at mission flight.

if they would get lucky and none of the issues would manifest, they could assume that design is perfect and do not try to improve it. so it's good if whatever can go wrong goes wrong at test flight

[armada651]

> if they would get lucky and none of the issues would manifest, they could assume that design is perfect and do not try to improve it. so it's good if whatever can go wrong goes wrong at test flight

I agree that the success should be measured in lessons learned from the launch. However we learned next to nothing about the second stage because the first stage failed for reasons that weren't unexpected.

So from that perspective the launch could be considered a failure, because they traded getting data on the second stage for learning a lesson that was already known.

[Szpadel]

assuming that this failure was caused by failed engines, I think this is a very important lesson, engines can fail during real missing and if their algorithms couldn't account correctly that, this is a very important thing to improve.

and remember, as you already mentioned, that stage 2 won't even start until stage 1 succeeds, so they need to perfect that first.

but I see your point, if they would manage to separate before stage 1 failure they could gather more data

[AstralStorm]

Engines are not supposed to fail ever. Super Heavy does not have sufficient margin to handle multiple failures (maybe one, maybe), and Starship has the same engines, where one failing means it is liable to just fall from the sky.

Unless on the Moon, but then it would have to LEO or lunar orbit abort if it does not burn up on the spot and require a recovery mission.

[kevin_thibedeau]

It is also indicative of how their lunar starship will damage itself on descent. At least NASA came to it's senses and funded a backup plan.

[ceejayoz]

It is not indicative of that.

Lunar Starship is the second stage, this was the first that did the damage. Even that is different from the one launched in the recent test; it’s a variant that will do the final landing on different engines high up on the rocket. Per Wikipedia:

> Within 100 meters of the lunar surface, the variant will utilize high‑thrust RCS thrusters located mid‑body to avoid plume impingement problems with the lunar regolith.

Landing is also very different than takeoff; the F9 takes off with nine, lands with one. Likewise, Super Heavy launches with 33, but Starship lands with 3-6, and three of those are the vacuum variant, with much less focused plumes.

[kevin_thibedeau]

> Landing is also very different than takeoff;

Lunar Starship is going to use the same engines for takeoff, assuming they don't get smashed by flying debris.

[ceejayoz]

Much fewer, half of them are vacuum variants (much less focused plume), and lunar gravity is much lower, meaning dramatically lower thrust required to get off the ground.

[soperj]

> but lands with 3-6, and three of those are the vacuum variant

First stage will likely use more than 3-6, none will be the vacuum variant.

[ceejayoz]

The first stage isn’t going anywhere near lunar regolith. Ever.

[soperj]

You were talking about F9 landing, and taking off with 33 engines. Only the first stage lands on the F9. Only the first stage has 33 engines. I guess it's more confusing when Starship is what the whole ship is called, and possibly the second stage.

[AstralStorm]

And second stage has different engines since when? Starship proper is not that different, it has fewer engines, its landing gear provides worse conditions than the launchpad.

[drewcoo]

The media (and pop culture in general) has a different understanding of failure. I think they're wrong.

I'm not sure I agree with you either, though. I'm a big believer in failing as often as possible and recovering in such a way that no customer or outside observer notices.

And the fact that rockets have a history of audacious risks and fantastic explosions is no excuse for that ongoing pattern. It's not just about fatalities or the raw cost of equipment lost. It's also about confidence and, where applicable, stock prices.

Any decent manager should understand that, so maybe it's another example of Musk's companies being mismanaged.

[ksec]

>Whatever you think about Elon

The problem is in modern mainstream media anything Elon does should be painted with a heavy dose of negative brush. All while adding more Social Media hatred to fuel the cycle.

You then see a lot of people are actually very supportive of SpaceX and Starship. They dont get the MSM media or Social media boost of their voice.

So now MSM and Social Media are changing their tone to question their previous reporting of "they tried but it blew up" and offer some insight to label it more like success.

[rich_sasha]

I mostly agree, I think what irks is the combination of this approach and hubris at galactic scale (mostly just Musk I think, and some disciples thereof).

But hey, a well built rocket with a ton of hubris will still fly.

[anovikov]

Success of failure will be defined by the FAA, let's see how will they approach issuing a launch license for the next test. Somehow i'm not too optimistic.