[rvnx]

He already got punished by life, no need to blame him posthumous.

He is like one of the inventors of the parachute (Franz Karl Reichelt), still wanted to try because he believed in it.

Unfortunately believing is not enough when it comes to reliability.

Effort was good though, as apparently it worked at some point.

> This submersible design, later renamed Titan, eventually made it down to the Titanic in 2021. It even returned to the site for expeditions the next two years. But nearly one year ago, on June 18, 2023, Titan dove to the infamous wreck and imploded, instantly killing all five people onboard, including Rush himself

which could explain why they sell tickets.

I'm sure SpaceX already knows the rockets won't make it back intact, but they still launch anyway (despite the losses).

[gravescale]

Falcon 9s have 2 failures and one partial from 354 launches, so they're proving to be an extremely reliable vehicle on the scale of rockets. The current model is 289 of them and has a perfect record so far.

That's substantially more successful than Soyuz which crashed a lot more and killed someone by parachute failure and crew by depressurisation (and another crew escaped the exploding rocket by launch abort system and another abort subjected the crew to a 21G descent) in the early days and is still considered one of the safer rockets ever (Soyuz-U, the rocket, had 22 failures out of 786 launches, and Soyuz, the spacecraft on top, made 153 missions).

There's still a long future in front of us for SpaceX to screw it up by skimping on things or run into some very bad luck or unforseen issues, but at least as it stands now, pointing at test launches going bang, when they're weren't ever expected to not go bang, and calling the production rocket unreliable is not well supported.

[p_l]

For all that I personally like to dunk on Musk, SpaceX follows majorly classic incremental engineering pipeline, and there are people who check things thrice. Some of it because as "new" product in aerospace they can't just skirt things like Boeing did with airliners. Some of it being customer due diligence.

And even Musk personally acknowledged that he nearly tanked SpaceX early on - because they didn't have experienced engineering lead to take the project - and he ended up hiring one when they scraped enough on government money to get there.

[SketchySeaBeast]

> I'm sure SpaceX already knows the rockets won't make it back intact, but they still launch anyway (despite the losses).

I'm certain they don't have this attitude with manned trips.

[trothamel]

Their attitude for crewed flights is to put pictures of the astronauts on every work order generated for the mission.

[echelon]

Is this true? I googled and couldn't find it. I'd really like to read about this.

[edf13]

Pretty sure the inventory of the parachute didn't take paying guests on his tests...

[mellosouls]

The inventor of the parachute probably didn't take several people with him on false premises.

[anshumankmr]

Yeah that is what the bummer is. And I read somewhere that the contract for passengers explicitly stated they could die, and that it was an experimental vessel approved by nobody.

[rob74]

always read the fine print...

[rvnx]

#DearMoon (though, hopefully was cancelled instead of rushed, otherwise people would have died according to current state).

Pioneers can go to great lengths to overpromise safety, budget, and timeline to secure funding.

[DiggyJohnson]

They wouldn't launch that until the vehicle is human rated though...

[rvnx]

In practice: a hard deadline/budget + customers who already paid can lead to a disaster.

Not saying this is wise, but at least he went with the customers, so he was all-in with them.

Stockton Rush himself during his public interventions made it clear such explorations were scary and dangerous:

"it made a lot of noise, which is a very sphincter-tightening experience".

[ImPostingOnHN]

I think the value of money is well established, it doesn't justify killing several others.

With how rich this guy was, and based on the article, it was probably hubris anyways.

[725686]

What are you talking about? They tested a prototype. It failed. Anyway, they built a full size thing based on the prototype that failed. They charged a lot of money to unsuspecting rich guys. Then, eventually it failed, just as the test suggested it would.

[rob74]

Even worse: the first full size thing had a large-scale delamination that made it obvious that it would be unsafe to use it again, then they ordered a second carbon fibre hull from a different manufacturer, used a different manufacturing process (several curing phases instead of only one), and reused the end domes and connecting rings from the first thing that had been pretty inseparably glued to the failed cylinder, then tested that insufficiently, and eventually it failed.

[rvnx]

This is where it's actually interesting, it's not prototype -> live and boom.

It's the fifth mission or something, and worked for two years.

They actually went to the Titanic with that sub and previously succeeded to reach the Titanic, then it's later on, that the vehicle started to become fragile due to multiple reuses.

[dogleash]

> This is where it's actually interesting, it's not prototype -> live and boom.

> It's the fifth mission or something, and worked for two years.

Interesting how? I'm reminded of a quote from a famous failure analysis:

> We have also found that certification criteria used in [Mission] Readiness Reviews often develop a gradually decreasing strictness. The argument that the same risk was [deployed] before without failure is often accepted as an argument for the safety of accepting it again. Because of this, obvious weaknesses are accepted again and again, sometimes without a sufficiently serious attempt to remedy them, or to delay a [mission] because of their continued presence.

[sjsdaiuasgdia]

>Rather than warning of failure, Green explained that the sounds indicated “irreversible” damage. “It is my belief, substantiated by many years of experience, that composite structures all have a finite lifetime,” wrote Green, who died in 2021. “While I do not intend to be an alarmist, I did not sleep well and arose early to send this message.”

There sure does seem to be a lot of strong expert advice that was willfully ignored, per the article, that their materials choices, testing methodology, and damage monitoring system were setting them up for exactly the disaster that occurred.

[Sharlin]

And this exact failure mode of carbon fiber was well known and understood by engineers – and ignored by Rush.

[et-al]

The only comparison we should make of Stockton Rush is Icarus.

[vundercind]

Notably, he was also warned not to fly too low over the ocean.

“Beneath the waves” was right out.

[zer00eyz]

> He already got punished by life, no need to blame him posthumous.

There absolutely is.

Hubris, stupidity, learning from the mistakes of others.

Blaming him is a giant, flashing sign.

DON'T BE THAT GUY

[ToucanLoucan]

> Effort was good though.

... was it? They didn't test enough and the tests they could be bothered to do, failed. Then they shipped anyway and he got himself and several other people killed.

A non-charitable interpretation of these events could be made that it was an elaborate and long-term murder/suicide.