SpaceX launches

alfadriver said:

Keith Tanner said:

I'll bet a lot of people watching this Starship pop weren't aware that there was an F9 launch yesterday and there are going to be 4 more before the end of the month. They just work, they're not newsworthy anymore.

To me, that's exactly why it is a big deal, more so that they try to pass it off as a total success. 

Except they're not.  They're passing it off as a success in the primary goal - getting the thing off the launchpad in this configuration.  Which it was.

In reply to Duke :

Yeah.. I tried to explain this to SWMBO, she didn't get it..  Her take is blown up is only successful if your objective was to make a bomb.  She saw the clip of the employees cheering and was wondering what they were so happy about.   Just sayin, non-nerd, non-rocket science types are wondering why Elon is so happy about blowing up a bunch of cash. 

The reaction to this launch makes it pretty clear that even if NASA could follow the same process as Space X they could never get away with it. The reaction of the public and sometimes less than aware politicians would make it impossible!

Sadly, many things are all about the appearance / marketing.

In reply to 06HHR (Forum Supporter) :

It didn't look like the guys in the launch control room were cheering. 

Apparently there are plans for a flame diverter, but they decided they could still launch without one at least the first time.

We already know there's a water deluge system being assembled for later launches, that will likely cut down the noise a bit.

I don't get this.

Wait maybe I do.

Mankind is over-running this rock like a plague.

And big business wants space because its an unregulated wild wild west.

However I do not want my tax dollars benefiting big business, let them pay for their own ride.

Big business is just waiting for this area to open up as there will be land grabs and lots of other areas for financial gain that the first wave will secure.

This is nothing more than a land grab situation and has nothing to do with the betterment of mankind.

There are no altruistic goals here this is driven by greed plain and simple.

If we clean up our own back yard we won't need to leave this rock.

In reply to bentwrench :

Cheaper access to space benefits humanity in a whole bunch of ways - better communication, better weather prediction, better mapping, improved knowledge of both our world and others. It's also not unregulated. But a lot of the information used to "clean up our own back yard" comes from space. So a rocket that burns a cleaner fuel, is fully reuseable and makes it less expensive to get stuff into orbit is an overall win.

Starship isn't being funded by tax dollars other than having won a competitive contract to supply the lander for the Artemis moon missions. Unlike things like the Orion capsure and SLS, it's not the only reason it's being built, though.

You can't have a "clean back yard" if the town it's in doesn't exist.  There are also reasons why easy access to space is potentially critical.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Those images make me upset. 

In reply to hunter47 :

It probably would have been a good idea to have those parts in place before this launch. That wasn't a great call.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

No, it's not that. It's that he's taken pictures of parts + part numbers freely posted on the internet. I don't think SpaceX would be too happy about that. 

Keith Tanner said:

In reply to hunter47 :

It probably would have been a good idea to have those parts in place before this launch. That wasn't a great call.

???

In reply to hunter47 :

SpaceX doesn't seem too concerned about their various paperwork being published. Snapping pictures of labels on...things...coming in to Starbase has been going on for years, with no attempts made to limit the practice. The "tankwatchers" have been given pretty free reign. It's probably one reason they have so many fans, they're doing everything out in the open.

Duke, those parts are apparently for a flame diverter. The launch resulted in a fairly spectacular amount of damage to the concrete under the launch pad. One of the dates on the labels is from about a month after the full static fire. SpaceX was probably hoping the damage wouldn't be TOO bad on this launch, based on the results of that static fire. But it apparently takes 6-8 seconds to get all 33 engines lit in stages, and that's a long time to blast concrete with a flamethrower. Correction, the world's largest flamethrower.

Scott Manly usually does a pretty good of analyzing these things, and just posted a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8q24QLXixo

Oh man, you weren't kidding about need for a flame diverter.  I hadn't seen the photos of the damage to the launch structure until just now and it's impressive.

Yeah, I think that particular question was answered fairly emphatically.

Keith Tanner said:

Cheaper access to space benefits humanity in a whole bunch of ways - better communication, better weather prediction, better mapping, improved knowledge of both our world and others. It's also not unregulated. But a lot of the information used to "clean up our own back yard" comes from space. So a rocket that burns a cleaner fuel, is fully reuseable and makes it less expensive to get stuff into orbit is an overall win.

Starship isn't being funded by tax dollars other than having won a competitive contract to supply the lander for the Artemis moon missions. Unlike things like the Orion capsure and SLS, it's not the only reason it's being built, though.

A quick search has 85% of spacex's income coming from government contracts. So, we are all paying for it.  And if they won a bid, why can't they be held to the same standards that all of the rest of the bidders are held to?  If this was a ULA launch, there would be so much more hate being leveled at them, it's not even funny.  They have for less  

Given the huge amount of completely insane garbage the fed gubmint spends money on, I'm not about to get upset about spending a few billion on furthering space exploration.  The shuttle missions stopped over a decade ago.  It's time we got back in the game.

alfadriver said:

A quick search has 85% of spacex's income coming from government contracts. So, we are all paying for it.  And if they won a bid, why can't they be held to the same standards that all of the rest of the bidders are held to?  If this was a ULA launch, there would be so much more hate being leveled at them, it's not even funny.  They have for less  

Most of that SpaceX govt income is for stuff being launched on Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy -- military and NSA satellites, stuff like that.  If SpaceX wants to take the profits from Falcon 9 launches and reinvest them in Starship development, that's their business, not ours.

In reply to alfadriver :

I said Starship. Other than the HLS contract, it's being funded by SpaceX.

SpaceX has won a very large number of government launch contracts and have been utterly reliable. Those government contracts have saved taxpayers a very large amount of money over other bids. In fact, they had to sue in order to be considered for some of those contracts which would have otherwise just been handed to ULA. When doing the Commercial Crew development, SpaceX was actually given more oversight than the other bidders by NASA and were paid billions less. I'm sure they would have been happy to be held to the same standards and paid the same amount as the other bidders. Meanwhile, SpaceX has done 7 operational missions for Commercial Crew while the other bidder is hoping to do their final Crewed Flight Test sometime this summer before starting operational missions in 2024.

If you're looking for SpaceX hate and ridicule because their big test rocket done gone blowed up yesterday, it's out there. But not by those who watch space development closely, in large part because SpaceX has proven they get stuff done despite their different approach. There will be another test soon enough, and more after that. More things will go wrong, but problems will be fixed and eventually we'll have a pretty useful tool.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Spacex is funded by the US government, by a wide margin. Therefore all income that funds starship is mostly from our pockets. 

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

Ok, I'll stop questioning Elon musk.  We should not question where our tax dollars end up. 

In reply to alfadriver :

SpaceX contracts to provide a service to the US government, not quite the same as "funded by". And that service is the result of a competitive bidding process, just like the contracts my wife's employer gets to pave interstate highways. Does that mean that the paving company is funded by the US government?

What they do with the profits is their choice. SpaceX chooses to pour it back into R&D and tests. That doesn't really seem so terrible.

And we're not talking about Elon Musk here. While he's the chief engineer of SpaceX, he's not the president or COO. There are some adults in the room, unlike at Twitter. Best thing he ever did for SpaceX was hire Gywnne Shotwell. These are SpaceX decisions, not Elon Musk decisions.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

alfadriver said:

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

Ok, I'll stop questioning Elon musk.  We should not question where our tax dollars end up. 

Sooooo... Lockheed Martin makes most of their money from US government sales.

Does that mean they are not allowed to invest that revenue as they see fit, once their contracts are fulfilled?