An always cool Falcon 9 launch (and other Space News)

[wanderingfool2]

2 minutes ago, Kisai said:

https://software.nasa.gov/software/category/propulsion

 

Gee, seems they have software that does exactly that. 

https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/simulating-nasas-rocket-launch-artemis-moon-missions/

https://www.nas.nasa.gov/SC23/research/project12.html

 

You are acting like simulations will give you perfect results and reflect perfectly in the real world.

 

Simulation is used in aid of the design, but that doesn't mean that you can simulate everything to the point of saying "oh look we can launch this without any issues".

 

Those simulations didn't figure out the valve issues on SLS, those simulations didn't protect the launch tower, those simulations are still imperfect.  They can help guide and let you see some flaws you have in their design but having something successful in simulation does not mean it matches the reality of the world.

 

SpaceX does run simulations, which is actually how they made some of their design changes as well in terms of startup sequences etc...but especially when you are dealing with forces like Starship classical simulations can give you only part of the picture.  We do not have the compute power or even the knowledge of everything that happens to accurately depict what happens in these cases.

 

SpaceX does use simulations in their design.  The issue is again simulations can only take you so far; and you can't do a full scale simulation without getting at least some of the things slightly wrong (and they all add up)

[wanderingfool2]

7 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Also an FTS is not supposed to just shut down the engine.  It's supposed to ensure that the spacecraft is so destroyed that any pieces will not harm those on the ground.

The NASA definition doesn't state that.

 

And NO it isn't supposed to make it so that no one on the ground can be hurt from the falling debris.  By that perverse ill thought out thing that you stated never be able to create a proper FTS because you would have to effectively line the entire thing with explosives.  I quoted you exactly what NASA specified for the FTS.  There is a reason why they choose the trajectory that they do, and why they chose a flight path that minimized it's activity over land.

 

11 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Hey man I just delivered the news.  People can choose to like it or not.

Your whole, I'm just delivering the news that you have used multiple times gets old when people realize that you are presenting things in a biased manor that ignores basic level logic.

 

Even if they had announced they planned to blow it up at hotstaging, you would be here screaming that it's a human spacecraft and no man should fly on it.  The simple fact is, they knew there would be a good chance of explosion.

 

So somehow claim that the explosion somehow makes it a failed test is to put it bluntly stupid; as it was one of the scenarios that was expected.  To present the "news" in a light that doesn't account for the facts is just tabloid garbage

[Kisai]

3 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

You are acting like simulations will give you perfect results and reflect perfectly in the real world.

 

I never said that. I said they should be simulating things until the cost to simulate has no returns. Clearly NASA can and does do this and SpaceX doesn't want to.

 

Again, show me a quote from someone from NASA saying it's too expensive to simulate something. Because I'm sure it doesn't exist. The people seem to be saying it's impossible to simulate, seem be parroting the exact phrasing of something someone has said, but hasn't quoted who said it.

 

My point, over and over again in the thread is that we seem to be seeing SpaceX defenders making the "Ford Pinto is a great car" argument. Where the liability cost of more failures is cheaper than the cost of engineering a better design using resources that already exist. 

 

https://spaceflightnow.com/2023/09/08/faa-concludes-starship-mishap-investigation-63-corrective-actions-needed-before-second-flight/

 

https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/10/citing-slow-starship-reviews-spacex-urges-faa-to-double-licensing-staff/

 

So SpaceX is complaining that they can't blow up rockets fast enough because the FAA is understaffed.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/01/us/faa-spacex-explosion-lawsuit-scn-climate/index.html

And we keep seeing this stuff.

 

[Uttamattamakin]

2 hours ago, sazrocks said:

Scott was incorrect here; the AFTS terminated the second stage (starship):

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-2

Yes I corrected this when I quoted it into the original post which is all anyone who isn't very VERY interested reads on a news thread anyway.  The rest of such a thread is just chatting and talking normally so I don't edit every post I make.  That would be silly. 

 

2 hours ago, sazrocks said:

Your philosophy of "The way to build a manned system is to take a proven unmaned platform and scale it up" is at odds with the two examples you gave. Falcon 9 doesn't have any heritage in manned launch vehicles; it was designed from scratch.

 

Before It was considered for manned use it proved itself launching unmanned payloads. 

The same for the Atlas  and Redstone (I think Titan as well) which were proven as missiles and ICBM's through various test and satellite launches before being used for people.  Saturn V was then designed by the same people... you know the guy this song was about ...

... to be a completely civilian craft just for NASA. 

 

2 hours ago, sazrocks said:

SLS on the other hand does have some nominal flight heritage (SRBs, SSMEs), but considering that the SRBs have been modified and other than those components the vehicle is brand new, I'd say it's not exactly a good example of simply scaling up an existing system.

I'm not sure who is arguing against that. It's clear that starship is not human rated and will not be* for a looong time. F9 had 84 launches before it first carried crew; I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar quantity of starship launches before it carries crew either.

That's whats going to be needed.  Starship is going to need to prove that the bugs are really worked out and these detonations are not confidence building at all.   Consider that for Star Ship to go to the moon to fill the orbital propellant depot for the Star ship there will need to be 20 tanker starship launches.  Every single one of those will have to be flawless before a manned one is even launched.    Just to do the unmanned Demo.  Then 20 more for Dear moon.    Problem being they can't launch that much from Boca Chica.   

2 hours ago, sazrocks said:

 

* HLS Starship is in a bit of a unique position because it doesn't actually need to be human-rated for ascent or re-entry, only for lunar orbit and the lunar surface. Therefore a lot of the risk associated with manned launch and landing aren't on the critical path for HLS. Even then we will definitely see a bunch of successful starship flights before HLS is manned.

That tells me there is going to be strong pressure to put people on Starship before it is fully cooked.  That would mean the people put on it will be well done indeed. 

[Uttamattamakin]

8 minutes ago, Kisai said:

I never said that. I said they should be simulating things until the cost to simulate has no returns. Clearly NASA can and does do this and SpaceX doesn't want to.

 

Again, show me a quote from someone from NASA saying it's too expensive to simulate something. Because I'm sure it doesn't exist. The people seem to be saying it's impossible to simulate, seem be parroting the exact phrasing of something someone has said, but hasn't quoted who said it.

Here is a story that explains what you are talking about.  

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2021/02/sls-computer-development-first-flight-future/

 

Of course NASA simulates and simulates everything to the point of diminished returns.  Then and only then do they even make hardware.    Which they test and retest in pieces and system by system.  NASA cannot afford to blow up a 1 billion dollar craft when their whole budget is only 25 billion dollars. 

 

8 minutes ago, Kisai said:

My point, over and over again in the thread is that we seem to be seeing SpaceX defenders making the "Ford Pinto is a great car" argument. Where the liability cost of more failures is cheaper than the cost of engineering a better design using resources that already exist. 

 

https://spaceflightnow.com/2023/09/08/faa-concludes-starship-mishap-investigation-63-corrective-actions-needed-before-second-flight/

 

https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/10/citing-slow-starship-reviews-spacex-urges-faa-to-double-licensing-staff/

 

So SpaceX is complaining that they can't blow up rockets fast enough because the FAA is understaffed.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/01/us/faa-spacex-explosion-lawsuit-scn-climate/index.html

And we keep seeing this stuff.

 

Ah yes Ford Pinto a meme from the time before time... the 1970's   In case any of the kids don't know. 

 

asdfads

 

18 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

The NASA definition doesn't state that.

 

And NO it isn't supposed to make it so that no one on the ground can be hurt from the falling debris.  By that perverse ill thought out thing that you stated never be able to create a proper FTS because you would have to effectively line the entire thing with explosives.  I quoted you exactly what NASA specified for the FTS.  There is a reason why they choose the trajectory that they do, and why they chose a flight path that minimized it's activity over land.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/appendix-D_to_part_417  FAA regs

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/flight-termination-system  A more plain and direct english translation of the actual law which says all of these things but in very technical ways.
 

2. Produce a small number of pieces.  By which they mean  pieces large enough to cause real damage.  

 

18 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Your whole, I'm just delivering the news that you have used multiple times gets old when people realize that you are presenting things in a biased manor that ignores basic level logic.

 

Even if they had announced they planned to blow it up at hotstaging, you would be here screaming that it's a human spacecraft and no man should fly on it.  The simple fact is, they knew there would be a good chance of explosion.

No they had stated plans for it to fly suborbital.    Also one thing  to understand about rockets like this is there is ALWAYS a "good" chance of explosion.  They are basically a controlled huge explosion directed through a nozzle.  What we do is manage the risk of an uncontrolled explosion, and of human casualties during such an event.   There is always an inherent risk in the release of that much energy.  Everyone who works on anything related to space flight knows this. 

 

That said ... Space X needs to minimize that risk by a lot before we put people on it.  

 

18 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

So somehow claim that the explosion somehow makes it a failed test is to put it bluntly stupid; as it was one of the scenarios that was expected.  To present the "news" in a light that doesn't account for the facts is just tabloid garbage

Biased... my friend I have no emotional need to down Space X in general.  I have praised their Falcon 9 and even Falcon Heavy.  Starship just isn't great.  It may be someday.  Space X may solve the problems of a type of craft that no one else has  ... but they haven't yet.  The clock is ticking. 

 

I think I said it successfully blew itself to kingdom come a few times in this thread. 

 

 

[CarlBar]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

gain, show me a quote from someone from NASA saying it's too expensive to simulate something.

 

Going to quote another response to you and add my own points on the end:

 

40 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Of course NASA simulates and simulates everything to the point of diminished returns.  Then and only then do they even make hardware.    Which they test and retest in pieces and system by system.  NASA cannot afford to blow up a 1 billion dollar craft when their whole budget is only 25 billion dollars. 

 

 

And this is why Space X does things the way they do. A huge part of their whole business model is making space launch affordable to a larger number of potentiol customers. For starship to be worth developing it has to be no more expensive than falcon 9 on a $ per pound of mass to orbit basis, and ideally it needs to be much better. NASA's approach of simulating to as high a degree as they do is one of several factors contributing to why SLS is so expensive. I'd also note that NASA has access to supercomputers that make anything SpaceX or most private entities have look downright laughable. No one else in the private sector could simulate as much as NASA even if they wanted to because they don;t have the computers.

 

And in spite of those simulations NASA still has things go wrong, or somtimes go better than expected. Look at the Mars Helicopter, it's lasted longer and performed better than the simulations said it would. And the differences between Earth and Mars in terms of simulating somthing is minimal A lot of the parameters are very different, but the math behind how to account for those differences is well understood.

 

As i noted previously there have also been incidents in commercial aviation of actual real world circumstances resulting in a problem the simulations didn't account for or catch. And thats a much more well understood area.

 

@Uttamattamakin As far as when Starship will fly people. The answer to that is a big unknown but it's definitely going to be much later than anyone first planned, NASA themselves aren't going to be ready by 2025 and everyone watching SLS has known this for some time. NASA has had their own delays.

 

Starship based on things said surrounding some licencing stuff back before the first flight test was probably expecting 3 or even 4 launches this year. Obviously after the pad failure and the FAA slow working speed thats gotten completely derailed. They're 1-2 launches behind in the development cycle compared to where they should be. You can see it reflected in the goings on at starbase. They've got a lot of technically complete boosters and starships floating around now, to the point they've been storing them in places they didn't; previously. I'd hesitate to say they're running out of space, but they're clearly more pressed for it that they where before the first flight test, and thats almost certainly down to the big delay after flight 1.

 

So Starship is also lagging in development. A lot is going to depend on the FAA speed and what measures need to be taken to handle the failures that occurred on this launch, if it's a fuel slosh problem and whatever happened to starship is also mitigatable via software changes they could be ready to try again before the new year, (off the top of my head i think they've probably got enough engines on site on various vehicles to do at least 2 more launches without building any new hardware, and several more beyond that with just additional engines).

 

They're very much rate limited atm by the bug fixing and FAA approvals process than they are by hardware availability. So the development on getting it human rated will likely proceed very rapidly once they get a full splashdown success. Bear in mind NASA has a certification process, no human is going on starship until NASA has gone through that. So any concern they're going to get people hurt by rushing is a complete non-starter.

[HenrySalayne]

5 hours ago, Kisai said:

5 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

 

I never said that. I said they should be simulating things until the cost to simulate has no returns. Clearly NASA can and does do this and SpaceX doesn't want to.

 

Again, show me a quote from someone from NASA saying it's too expensive to simulate something. Because I'm sure it doesn't exist. The people seem to be saying it's impossible to simulate, seem be parroting the exact phrasing of something someone has said, but hasn't quoted who said it.

You can quote me on that:

There is no computer on earth that would be able to replace proper (destructive) flight testing with simulations.

Where do you get the idea something this complex could be fully simulated? For stress FEM a simulation is done either on an individual part or a sub-assembly. You cannot do a FEM on an entire engine, you would do it individually for each part like the crankshaft, the pistons and the connecting rods.

 

 

[wanderingfool2]

5 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/appendix-D_to_part_417  FAA regs

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/flight-termination-system  A more plain and direct english translation of the actual law which says all of these things but in very technical ways.
 

 

2. Produce a small number of pieces.  By which they mean  pieces large enough to cause real damage.  

Congratulations on proving my point that you don't understand the basics of language needed to be making comments like you do in regards to things.

 

Produce a small number of pieces does not mean the pieces are small, it means the number is small.  This is why I say you don't understand the basics of what you quote and interpret things wrong...because you pull things like this which shows your lack of understanding of the topics you are an "expert" of.

 

The way one would phrase it to have the meaning you state would be "Produce a number of small pieces".

 

Your whole appendix-D part 417 as well, I read it; unless I missed it it doesn't even talk about it breaking up the vehicle into any sized pieces.  It actually follows what I said was what NASA said...that it disables the propulsion system and safely gets rid of the explosive materials onboard.

 

6 hours ago, Kisai said:

I never said that. I said they should be simulating things until the cost to simulate has no returns. Clearly NASA can and does do this and SpaceX doesn't want to.

You literally said "Computers are at a scale now that you should not need to "blow things up on the pad", if you're blowing stuff up on the pad, you've cut too many corners."

 

To state that means you assume simulations can be good enough to check that stuff. You were the one going on about how they could just test out all the parameters.

 

Like seriously, are you naive enough to think that SpaceX isn't running the same types of simulations that NASA is running.  Did you even look at what they discussed in the video...they literally had to create their own simulation software for some of the stuff in order to properly simulate the engines.

 

The thing is NASA isn't trying to make a vehicle that is doing what Starship is going.  They are using an old school rocket design, with old school fuel essentially, and little in the way of new stuff (and at the heavy cost of billions per rocket). 

6 hours ago, Kisai said:

My point, over and over again in the thread is that we seem to be seeing SpaceX defenders making the "Ford Pinto is a great car" argument. Where the liability cost of more failures is cheaper than the cost of engineering a better design using resources that already exist. 

That's an insult to all the engineers at SpaceX and quiet frankly an ignorant stance.  You can't always know what needs redesigning until you actually put it through it's paces.

 

It's like me saying all the rockets that perform roll maneuvers must have lazy engineers because they didn't bother working out the 3 dimensional math needed to prevent the roll maneuver.

[manikyath]

6 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

NASA cannot afford to blow up a 1 billion dollar craft when their whole budget is only 25 billion dollars

well.. spacex's budget is much smaller, and their rocket is A LOT cheaper.. on top of that it can be presumed that NASA - as stated - has huge supercomputing resources in house, which spacex presumably has to rent from third parties. these 3 points hugely sway the cost-benefit of deciding when to simulate and when to use a prototype.

 

somehow the most logical answer keeps getting ignored...

 

for spacex real world testing has much more value much more regularly than NASA due to a large number of factors.. and if simulating all the way to production would make sense to them, they'd do it. which, clearly, they dont.

[Kisai]

6 hours ago, CarlBar said:

 

 

As i noted previously there have also been incidents in commercial aviation of actual real world circumstances resulting in a problem the simulations didn't account for or catch. And thats a much more well understood area.

 

All civil aviation is built upon the blood of others, but that's a far different conversation because we've had commercial air travel since 1927. Boeing has made the ford pinto argument itself on several of those investigations. We have no commercial passenger spaceflight. Space tourism promotors thought we would have bases on the moon by now.

 

There have been cases where design oversights caused a plane to run out of fuel, and the plane either glided to safety, or had to ditch in the water and had few survivors. There are cases where multiple engines have failed, and the captain was still able to save the plane out of sheer determination (eg like Apollo 13,) while there are identical situations where the plane still crashed because nobody flying the plane could do so. 

 

To date most of the deaths in space flight have been Americans (Challenger and Columbia) as well as during testing and training. You would think safety would be put before "cost" and not leaving it up to "oh well we can afford to pay out the astronauts families if they die". Hell there has been even more ground-crew fatalities than there has been astronauts flying. There may even be far more from the Soviet period and we just will never know.

 

When a Boeing or an Airbus crashes, there is immediate international attention, all identical aircraft are grounded until there is a reasonable understanding of the failure. Metal fatigue and "doors opening outward" are some of the mistakes that had to be learned outside of simulations because it's not possible to simulate "aging" in an acceptable way that translates to real world conditions. Aircraft that service airports at sea level age faster. MH370, CNN was so desperate to break news when that plane was found that it was pretty much headlining every grasp at straws. Contrast that with MH17 which was shot down. You can't simulate the possibility that someone will fire at it. Likewise laser strikes on aircraft from idiots with lasers. Those you can't simulate for, because that's not practical. 

 

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, manikyath said:

well.. spacex's budget is much smaller, and their rocket is A LOT cheaper.. on top of that it can be presumed that NASA - as stated - has huge supercomputing resources in house, which spacex presumably has to rent from third parties. these 3 points hugely sway the cost-benefit of deciding when to simulate and when to use a prototype.

It's not even about the computer resources.  It's just about the practicality of it all and how things are tested.

 

Starship as a whole has a lot more variables so to speak and the types of problems needed to solve are a lot more complex than are present on the SLS...but the SLS is designed as a single use rocket (which simplifies it's design but overall means a much greater cost).

 

Even with all that said, what people seem to be missing is that NASA is still testing things...it's just that SpaceX doesn't get the luxury of being able to test in the same manor because it is cost and time prohibitive to do so.

 

The SLS side boosters were fully tested (they were essentially put horizontally and made to fire).  The SLS main booster was tested in 2 green runes, where they were fired as though they were flying...but that kind of building would cost SpaceX a lot of money for a one off almost and require years of regulatory red tape to build.  Since the cost of the SLS vehicle is so much; they pretty much can justify building out buildings like that.

 

When each rocket will cost over a billion dollars, it's easy to justify a 100 mill structure to verify and test the rocket

[CarlBar]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

All civil aviation is built upon the blood of others, but that's a far different conversation because we've had commercial air travel since 1927. Boeing has made the ford pinto argument itself on several of those investigations. We have no commercial passenger spaceflight. Space tourism promotors thought we would have bases on the moon by now.

 

There have been cases where design oversights caused a plane to run out of fuel, and the plane either glided to safety, or had to ditch in the water and had few survivors. There are cases where multiple engines have failed, and the captain was still able to save the plane out of sheer determination (eg like Apollo 13,) while there are identical situations where the plane still crashed because nobody flying the plane could do so. 

 

To date most of the deaths in space flight have been Americans (Challenger and Columbia) as well as during testing and training. You would think safety would be put before "cost" and not leaving it up to "oh well we can afford to pay out the astronauts families if they die". Hell there has been even more ground-crew fatalities than there has been astronauts flying. There may even be far more from the Soviet period and we just will never know.

 

When a Boeing or an Airbus crashes, there is immediate international attention, all identical aircraft are grounded until there is a reasonable understanding of the failure. Metal fatigue and "doors opening outward" are some of the mistakes that had to be learned outside of simulations because it's not possible to simulate "aging" in an acceptable way that translates to real world conditions. Aircraft that service airports at sea level age faster. MH370, CNN was so desperate to break news when that plane was found that it was pretty much headlining every grasp at straws. Contrast that with MH17 which was shot down. You can't simulate the possibility that someone will fire at it. Likewise laser strikes on aircraft from idiots with lasers. Those you can't simulate for, because that's not practical. 

 

 

NASA has to certify anything that will be human rated. No one's going to fly on starship until it's done that. Developing it in the current manner lets them get the basic challanges of getting it to high altitude, the  sub-orbital, then controlled splashdown and then catch attempts. They can get the basics of the rocket design functional before they go to getting the fine details sorted for human fight.

[tikker]

20 hours ago, Kisai said:

 

https://software.nasa.gov/software/category/propulsion

 

Gee, seems they have software that does exactly that. 

https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/simulating-nasas-rocket-launch-artemis-moon-missions/

https://www.nas.nasa.gov/SC23/research/project12.html

 

 

 When talking about simulations I always advocate to be very careful about the context "quickly" is used in. For my day job "quick" processing of a dataset means a few weeks of number crunching. That is not something people would generally expect from "quick" processing.

19 hours ago, Kisai said:

Again, show me a quote from someone from NASA saying it's too expensive to simulate something. Because I'm sure it doesn't exist. The people seem to be saying it's impossible to simulate, seem be parroting the exact phrasing of something someone has said, but hasn't quoted who said it.

https://www.nas.nasa.gov/pubs/stories/2021/feature_LAVA_contributes_to_astronaut_safety.html

Quote

“With LAVA’s predictive capability, the team gets answers to launch environment or hardware configuration questions for KSC project engineers more quickly and cheaply than with wind tunnel, ground, or flight tests,” said Kiris. “These tests are very expensive, so we’re pushing the envelope to incorporate relevant physics into the simulations and to validate the simulation results with real-life test data. The goal is to improve the agency’s confidence in the safety of its infrastructure, space vehicles, and overall mission success.”

[Edit]Ah I see I misread this article and the expensive test in that quote refers to real-life test, that's my bad.[/Edit]

 

The simulations are still expensive though, as can be seen from the article you link. The expensive part just shifts more to time instad of money. The line between acceptable and too expensive depends on the case. Simulations are a legimitate way to speed things up, but one still has to think very carefully about what to simulate when it comes to large scale things like this. Running one or a few may be quicker than one or a few real life launches, or even your only option if you'll only ever build one, but it can quickly get out of hand. The Artemis page that you link also presents some numbers, giving an indication of how expensive these simulations are:

Quote

Each high-order accurate LAVA Cartesian plume simulation typically uses 150 AMD Rome nodes for one to three days on NASA’s Aiken supercomputer—accumulating roughly 100 terabytes of volume and surface data—to simulate four seconds where the vehicle is held fixed at certain trajectory points between three and fifteen seconds after ignition.

It takes 1-3 days to simulate a whole 4 seconds at select points in time. I am not sure if they mean 4 seconds at each point or 4 seconds total from their wording. Take the JWST launch. It takes about 3 minutes to reach 100 km altitude. Even if those 1-3 days are sufficient to characterise the first 15 seconds well enough, you still have 165 more seconds to simulate if you want the entire launch. Every iteration that you want to test will set you back multiple weeks.

 

The cost of simulation is even higher based on one of their conference pages: https://www.nas.nasa.gov/SC20/demos/demo11.html

Quote

The high-resolution simulations of the launch environment required approximately five weeks of simulation time on the Electra supercomputer, using up to 4,000 Intel Skylake cores. With the added complexity of modeling the IOP/SS system, the need for powerful computational resources also grows. Because these simulations are time-dependent, they generate hundreds of terabytes of data for each calculation, which are stored on the mass storage system at the NAS facility.

 

I come at this from an astrophysical perspective, but I think simulations there face similar challenges (they are also hydrodynamical simulations after all): you can simulate one aspect/a small volume in high detail; the grand picture/ a large(r) volume in coarse(r) detail while modeling the details in a quicker way, for example analytically, based on the information of e.g. those high-detail simulations; or be prepared to wait a long time if your cause demands you do both.

 

Stuff has definitely come a long way, but with each iteration taking multiple days to weeks to simulate we are not even close to the "test a billion permutations of variables that nothing should be exploding while it still remains within earth's gravity well" that we would like. Environmental concerns and the like aside, if you have the money to, bluntly said, blow up a few prototypes that can be a legitimate way to faster data collection as it can show you what you don't know or didn't think of to put in the simulations (whether that is because you thought you understood it or thought it wouldn't be necessary and would thus save time).

 

 

[Uttamattamakin]

 

15 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

 

Produce a small number of pieces does not mean the pieces are small, it means the number is small.  This is why I say you don't understand the basics of what you quote and interpret things wrong...because you pull things like this which shows your lack of understanding of the topics you are an "expert" of.

The way they worded that confused me too.    They mean produce a small number of pieces large enough to cause real damage.  

 

Your homecomings remind me of students who failed the computer graded final, who also failed the placement test to be in a remedial math class ... who try to say they failed because I don't know math.  (Which I do... the problem is them but they'll never admit that). 

 

15 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

To state that means you assume simulations can be good enough to check that stuff. You were the one going on about how they could just test out all the parameters.

They don't simulate the whole system at high resolution.  They simulate each part at high resolution.  Then the whole system, but not with high resolution for every subsystem.  

Then they build it. 

 

Then they test the real parts in various labs.  i.e. They have HUGE vaccum chambers.  HUGE shaking tables etc that can simulate aspects of being in space and launch. 

Then, only when they are sure each part will behave as expected do they assemble them into larger parts.  Which are then tested again.  

Then after all of that testing do they put it together and launch it.  

Space X appears to skip all of that testing. 

 

15 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Like seriously, are you naive enough to think that SpaceX isn't running the same types of simulations that NASA is running.  Did you even look at what they discussed in the video...they literally had to create their own simulation software for some of the stuff in order to properly simulate the engines.

I know they aren't.  You think that NASA taking so long to launch one SLS was because they are doing the same thing as Space X.  You know though since NASA are all donut munching government workers and contractors, they just take longer to do it.  LOL.  No!  

 

15 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

The thing is NASA isn't trying to make a vehicle that is doing what Starship is going.  They are using an old school rocket design, with old school fuel essentially, and little in the way of new stuff (and at the heavy cost of billions per rocket). 

That's an insult to all the engineers at SpaceX and quiet frankly an ignorant stance.  You can't always know what needs redesigning until you actually put it through it's paces.

 

It's like me saying all the rockets that perform roll maneuvers must have lazy engineers because they didn't bother working out the 3 dimensional math needed to prevent the roll maneuver.

Yeah Space X is being so revolutionary that BLUE ORIGIN's New Glenn looks, to NASA,  like it will be operational before Space X's Starship. 
 

 

[wanderingfool2]

13 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

The way they worded that confused me too.    They mean produce a small number of pieces large enough to cause real damage.  

 

Your homecomings remind me of students who failed the computer graded final, who also failed the placement test to be in a remedial math class ... who try to say they failed because I don't know math.  (Which I do... the problem is them but they'll never admit that). 

Semantically it doesn't mean it.  You don't get to reinvent english to read it the way you choose to.

 

let me guess, you are the type of teacher who says 1 + 1 = 10 and marks everyone as a zero who writes 2 because no one asked what base you wrote the test in.

 

I showed you the NASA site that shows you wrong, the link you posted says you are wrong, and the quote from the other site says you are wrong...instead you act like unicorns exist by trying to say that they mean something else.

 

You lack, and shown multiple times that you lack the basic logic skills, and basic reading comprehension.

 

19 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Space X appears to skip all of that testing. 

The launch WAS a test of the system. Honestly quit your job if you are a so called expert in the field because your lack of basic level understanding here is mind boggling.

 

21 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

I know they aren't.  You think that NASA taking so long to launch one SLS was because they are doing the same thing as Space X.  You know though since NASA are all donut munching government workers and contractors, they just take longer to do it.  LOL.  No!  

Then stop with the asinine notion that NASA's way is the best.  I have said time and again that SpaceX is doing things because aren't going to burn time and money doing it certain ways, when they can just run a larger test and learn from it.

 

The launch wasn't a failure, the explosion doesn't mean it's a failure, and an explosion doesn't have any relation to the fact that it will one day be a human rated vehicle.

 

23 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Yeah Space X is being so revolutionary that BLUE ORIGIN's New Glenn looks, to NASA,  like it will be operational before Space X's Starship. 

New Glen still hasn't flow, Blue Orgin despite being first in term of starting development still haven't reached orbital velocity.  But sure, keep with your asinine notion that the old way of running things of making sure you have like zero failure flights during development works.  You are the type  of people who need to retire from the industry with the whole old school mentality where no changes should be done to the process even if there are new processes that beat out the old ones.

[manikyath]

2 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Space X appears to skip all of that testing. 

i mean.. i'd hazard a guess that SpaceX doesnt have a huge vaccuum chamber, but they do a butt ton of testing even just on the actual prototype before it goes on the launch stand, and plenty more beyond that.

 

i'm gonna guess you just have your blinders on, and presume that because it wasnt done right in your face, it wasnt done at all..

 

also - have we now gone from you complaining that they shouldnt do real world testing until they got it right, to you complaining that they dont do enough real world tests?

 

what exactly *is* your viewpoint on this? do you have anything more to say than "SpaceX bad NASA good"? because that's honestly the vibe we've been having for 5 pages.

now.. if that is your viewpoint.. you do you, but if you expect to voice that opinion as fact, expect the backlash you're getting.

 

or maybe we should talk about what exactly you had to contribute to the LISA satalite, so we can have an idea what makes you such an authority to talk about this..

[CarlBar]

38 minutes ago, manikyath said:

i mean.. i'd hazard a guess that SpaceX doesnt have a huge vaccuum chamber, but they do a butt ton of testing even just on the actual prototype before it goes on the launch stand, and plenty more beyond that.

 

This. The biggest vacuum chamber in the world is NASA's and it's only 122ft tall, The Starship vehicle itself is a 165ft and the booster is 233ft. it's the largest rocket ever to fly. The Booster is in fact larger than SLS's core stage and a test firing at 50% throttle produces slightly more thrust than SLS with the solid boosters attached and firing.

 

There isn't an existing setup in the world that would allow a NASA style test.

[manikyath]

6 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

 

This. The biggest vacuum chamber in the world is NASA's and it's only 122ft tall, The Starship vehicle itself is a 165ft and the booster is 233ft. it's the largest rocket ever to fly. The Booster is in fact larger than SLS's core stage and a test firing at 50% throttle produces slightly more thrust than SLS with the solid boosters attached and firing.

 

There isn't an existing setup in the world that would allow a NASA style test.

i mean, i presume they would be testing individual components in a vaccuum (i.e. the tanks and some of the plumbing) 

and apparently.. they have used NASA's vaccuum chamber for "some tests" according to some redditor, but i cant dirrectly find a sauce for it. it appears to be related to crew dragon.

 

i did find something i have to correct myself on - SpaceX does have 'their own' vaccuum chamber, it was built for something regarding hyperloop. once again the details on the surface are sparse, and i cant really be arsed to go delve up the details, because it does not change the point i've been making since page 1...

 

at this point in the development process the most cost-effective way of getting more data to build off of was a test flight, so they did a test flight. the premise that a private corporation essentially designing this thing on their own dime would do it any other way goes directly against any form of logic, and i decide to follow logic in this regard.

 

this also brings up another consideration in the "cost-benefit" argument i've brought up a few times.. the idea is they can eventually "mass produce" starships (read: douzens as opposed to singular rockets, not hundreds of them.), and in the process of figuring out and refining "how to build the world's biggest rocket" they're building a bunch of rockets anyways... so it's literally a matter of FAA approval and two douzen truckhauls of fuel to do a test flight. with some irony - the process behind making this a platform capable of rapid reuse, is making these prototypes *very* expendable. they have them, they may as well use them for further testing.

 

PS; NSF made a new "state of things" video regarding some of the damage around the pad. 

 

[CarlBar]

The HYperloop chamber is a vacu, chamber in practise, but it's just a run of large pipes that have air pumped out. it's not a space test vacuum level and it's certainly not big enough to fit any rocket.

[manikyath]

4 hours ago, CarlBar said:

The HYperloop chamber is a vacu, chamber in practise, but it's just a run of large pipes that have air pumped out. it's not a space test vacuum level and it's certainly not big enough to fit any rocket.

i assumed it would be something of that nature, but but because of the stupid amount of nitpicking this thread has gone trough i felt i may as well correct myself before someone tries to undermine my entire point on a technicallity that doesnt matter - given that they apparently have used NASA's vaccuum chamber in the past for some tests.

 

this kind of detail about SpaceX is also very hard to find, because they're a private business, so they dont have to disclose pretty much anything themselves. (the flight plan does partially get disclosed due to NOTAM and NOTMAR requirements for anything that uses the airspace and waters.

 

SpaceX plays the public game, because the nutcase at the top is an attention seeker, which also means that they *appear* very public, but there's A LOT behind the scenes that you dont get to see because it wasnt flashy to talk about.

[CarlBar]

1 hour ago, manikyath said:

SpaceX plays the public game, because the nutcase at the top is an attention seeker, which also means that they *appear* very public, but there's A LOT behind the scenes that you dont get to see because it wasnt flashy to talk about.

 

Also due to how starbase is setup a lot of what's going on there can been seen by enthusiasts with camera's. So a lot of stuff there gets public exposure that wouldn't for NASA as people with camera's don't have the same kind of access at cape canaveral.

[manikyath]

Just now, CarlBar said:

 

Also due to how starbase is setup a lot of what's going on there can been seen by enthusiasts with camera's. So a lot of stuff there gets public exposure that wouldn't for NASA as people with camera's don't have the same kind of access at cape canaveral.

and they have Mary, who is the journalistic equivalent of a neighbor peeking over the fence.

[wanderingfool2]

2 hours ago, manikyath said:

SpaceX plays the public game, because the nutcase at the top is an attention seeker, which also means that they *appear* very public, but there's A LOT behind the scenes that you dont get to see because it wasnt flashy to talk about.

While I do think he is narcissistic, the benefit of also being a whole lot more public than the other competitors is that SpaceX is able to attract talent.

 

Getting more people talking about it, and bringing focus to the company is what has driven SpaceX to be one of the top engineering jobs to seek after graduation.  It's actually a pretty good business strategy, make yourself a company that gets into the news and has a really large following within a certain community (in this case engineers) and you will be successful in recruiting.

 

Honestly, having known a few engineers who were top of their class/won engineering contests that now work for Tesla; Tesla gets to pick essentially the employees they want (and even manages to pass by the 2nd/3rd place winners  of some of those competitions because they have the 1st place winners applying)

[Uttamattamakin]

20 hours ago, manikyath said:

 

what exactly *is* your viewpoint on this? do you have anything more to say than "SpaceX bad NASA good"? because that's honestly the vibe we've been having for 5 pages.

 

I've said Falcon good. I've said Falcon Heavy good.  I just think Starship is a fundamentally flawed design. I then gave logical reasons for that.  TO which I got various personal attacks and lite censorship.   

[manikyath]

6 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

I've said Falcon good. I've said Falcon Heavy good.  I just think Starship is a fundamentally flawed design. I then gave logical reasons for that.  TO which I got various personal attacks and lite censorship.   

because your reasoning for why it's supposedly flawed is far from logical to most of us here. you keep going back to how N1 failed, and called people elon simps.. 

 

and because i'm still here to base my opinion in facts.. you've complained twice about two starship prototypes "being terminated"..

here's a lighthearted compilation of vareous falcons "terminating themselves" in hilareous ways, in before mentioned process of "proving itself".

let's just say we're at 30 seconds now, and in 2-3 years we're at the 2 minute mark. back in 2014 no one believed they were gonna stick the landings consistently, let alone do RTLS.. and 5 years later, they did it.