Starship Launch Absolutely Wrecked SpaceX's Facilities
futurism.com
futurism.com
SpaceX operates four launch sites, so only 25% of their facilities are out of commission.
All of the no-fly-restrictions being talked about are completely standard procedure after a rocket explodes; every other major corporate player in rocketry has had their rocket classes grounded at one point or another. I would bet the FAA has even grounded NASA before, although it doesn’t seem like this has been publicly reported.
Damage to the launch site is not unusual for rocket launches, even when they’re completely successful. NASA has damaged and repaired many launch sites, most recently with the successful SLS launch of Artemis I.
We don’t know how much damage, since NASA prohibited media from photographing the site and discouraged reporting on the scale of damage, meaning most news sites simply ran NASA’s press package of “blew off the elevator doors” - but it’s telling that there hasn’t been a launch at that pad since that SLS launch in November 2022… …is what I would say if I was also trying to use selective reporting to make you think NASA destroyed their pads too. In reality, this doesn’t tell us anything about potential damage - the last launch before that one was the successful Ares 1 launch in 2009 (which also damaged the pad).
So it’s all business as usual, damage within tolerance of expectations, etc. And yet there’s a subset of news media giving themselves what I can only describe as an unsightly collective intellectual hernia, as they strain so intensely to describe launch pad damage as an unmitigated disaster.
I mean, for God’s sake, stop and think for a second. Why didn’t SpaceX rip up their launchpad and do a multi-million-dollar full rebuild with diverters, trenches, water deluge apparatus, and noise/debris suppression systems? Because they were testing a superseded Starship model and they were legitimately worried it would blow up on the ground and completely obliterate the whole pad, of course! (Another moment’s thought should make it clear that the concrete that Starship vaporized is, in fact, exactly the concrete that would have to be dug up to install diverters and a flame trench. Come on!)
Bad news: the launchpads are disposable.
That said, everything SpaceX does going forward is going to be scrutinized because there's billions of dollars at stake for the other vendors...and they really want SpaceX to fail.
Dust? Problems with the launch pad? Someone will try to escalate that into some kind of apocalyptic scenario. At one point someone will say something about their affect on sea life and migratory bird patterns.
I don't like Musk - in fact, I largely loathe him - but that doesn't mean I have to loathe literally everyone else at SpaceX, too.
The starship and the starship heavy held together (no pun intended) really well despite all the incidents on the launchpad.
I think the starship vehicles are almost there. I would not be surprised if the next launch with a proper launchpad will be a success.
And, so far, they didn't learn from the previous time they heavily damaged the launch mount (and created a safety issue with flying debris). The fix they didn't use, a steel flame diverter, might be adequate, but the extent of damage indicates that is far from a sure thing. Why such a minimal fix? It has to fit under the current launch mount.
It is a collision of iterations getting slower and vastly more expensive and a limited set of solutions SpaceX management is willing or able to accept. That's how projects die.
Look, there's plenty to critique of Musk, from tweets, to behavior, and employee working conditions. I agree with all that. My beef is the fact that I'm so fatigued by the incessant cacophony of social and news media about it. The shift in the wind they blow is obvious, as are the reasons why. The fervor of hate is over hyped given any real world context. Maybe Musk has transitioned into "rich people land" and completely lost touch, but he has also single handedly pushed electric power across the entire energy industry and has a compelling space program. I'm not saying this so you'll agree with me, or even change your mind. I want you to have your own opinion. Just make sure it is yours and not a regurgitation of the influence social and news media is peddling. I hear left wing sources cry about how the right radicalizes their viewers. But they're blind to how they are doing the same. It's why the NPC meme exists.
The goal of news and social media may be to make money and nothing more, but it's coming at the cost of losing a grounded view on how to solve problems with people that think differently. It's like we're losing the quality of socialization skills. See the last episode of last season of "The Problem With John Stewart" where they attempted a round table about issues affecting black people in the US. The whole thing crashed and burned. John flipped his lid. Very disappointing considering how composed and eloquent he has been in the past. He could have brought some levity by helping his guests move past the language problems about those topics. The blocker is social justice brings its own domain specific language and the uninitiated struggle with the depth of meaning in its words and phrases. To an outside observer, they sound offensive. Having read the sources I have, they appear to have been designed that way to get people's attention. Hopefully once the conversation is started the topic moves on, but too often the practitioners keep referring back to the monikers and covert insults. A good educator meets their students where they are, not the level at which the educator operates. John could have excised the lingo and focused on defining the problems; eliminating the moral platitudes and specifying the real world failures and consequences. There were a few minutes when it seemed like he tried. But the guests just got caught up in the word play again. It was the social justice guests who couldn't let it go. They wanted the other guy to say what they were saying in the exact way they were saying it. In good conversations, if people can agree a problem exists, agree on the nature of the problem, then they can figure out a fair and equitable solution. That's progress, and it's a mature way of handling difficult problems with varied opinions. That would've been more productive than listening to people pop off about their supposed moral superiority. I don't know what's going on with Mr Stewart but his behavior is a reflection of the radicalization of the left. They seem to be training citizens to be activist soldiers for political and NGO organizations. If that weren't true, then why would left leaning citizens tweet and respond in surveys that anyone not taking the profitable corporate Pfizer and Moderna vaccines should lose their jobs, some even suggesting they should die, or that they will be happy if those people die? How is it possible the political party of hippies and free thinkers has snuggled up to corporate and political interests so quickly? Do they realize they're even doing it? The hosts on the podcasts I listen to are getting more angry too, both right and left.
So when it comes to Musk, think what you want. But man, I gotta say, I'm really sick of the childishness and hate filled rhetoric that is throw around in the news and online about him. Explicitly, it is not the critiques, but the pile on that is distasteful. And phrases like:
> Oooh, thatd be great
...are just not productive in any context.
[0] "https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1313952039869788173
He really wrecked goodwill, people's lungs, parked cars, local windows, and his launchpad. Super smart!
"Still, despite Starship exploding, the launch has been mostly hailed by experts and fans as a success. Above all, it's been framed as a necessary "learning experience," in the words of former NASA official Daniel Dumbacher, speaking to The New York Times."
Separately
Environmental engineers and advocates are concerned the ash- and sand-like particulate matter could hurt people’s respiratory health, and could irreparably harm endangered species in the area.
Separately
Because they are still gathering information, the FAA and the Texas regional office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were not able to answer questions yet about any environmental impacts of the Thursday launch. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.
However, the FAA told CNBC via e-mail that the explosion activated something called an “anomaly response plan,” which is part of a 2022 Programmatic Environmental Assessment completed by the company along with state and federal agencies, and that SpaceX has additional “environmental mitigations” they must complete before launching again. The plan “was triggered by debris entering adjacent properties,” the FAA noted.
The Center for Biological Diversity attorney, Jared Margolis, believes the FAA requirements will be minimal and easy for the company to fulfill, but not ultimately effective in safeguarding local residents’ wellbeing and endangered species.
[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/24/spacex-starship-explosion-sp...
(No disagreement on SpaceX having "really wrecked" their launchpad, though. They also "really wrecked" their giant rocket. It's almost as if they expected failure and wanted to collect data on the failure modes.)
Was there some specific reason for the rush beyond "ha ha funny date"? _If_ they did have some sort of solution almost ready to go, seems perplexing not to wait for it.