Space X Starship Explodes

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Sing "This is how we do it"

[LEAKYSEALS951]

I think this was shared on ppot long ago-

[LEAKYSEALS951]

If anyone here knows Elon, tell him to build the damn flametrench, crank up the MTV theme song, and fly away.

[unclebilly]

So who cleans up the debris in the gulf?

[sc_rufctr]

I feel like we're living in the movie Gattaca (1997).

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by unclebilly

So who cleans up the debris in the gulf?

I'm guessing most of it sinks .... just like other space debris, ships, etc. and becomes an artificial reef for fish.

[billybek]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

I never thought to look. That is interesting.

I did the google maps tour after it was mentioned too.

What I found really interesting was switching the map date back to 2011. Not much of anything there!

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Makes me wonder how they will secure the mars surface on the return trip.

[Tervuren]

Some supposition:
They may have been done with that pad.
Tesla doesn't have a marketing department.
Demolition by largest rocket in history is gonna get more clicks than a no longer used pad.

Originally Posted by masraum

Right. Why they thought "meh, we don't need that" is a little surprising.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by Amail

Watching some YouTube video I see the launch pad was severely damaged. Lots of broken concrete, but the tower seems intact. Amazing to see the back end of the booster with little dots for engines! Weird to see six (or so?) blank spots where engines weren't lit. Lots of data to unpack from this, I'd call it successful enough!

I think the little icon in the lower left of the video was showing the engines that were supposed to be firing. Strange that at 1km altitude they weren't all going 100%.
The video of the actual rocket at 1km shows a different number of engines lit up. I wonder why.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

I think the little icon in the lower left of the video was showing the engines that were supposed to be firing. Strange that at 1km altitude they weren't all going 100%.
The video of the actual rocket at 1km shows a different number of engines lit up. I wonder why.

good catch. I wonder if that's "what's supposed to be running" or if it's a graphical display of telemetry that tells us what is running. It's pretty close except it appears to be a mirror image plus one that's missing or maybe/probably two.
Maybe the telemetry view is from the top down or the camera was in an odd spot that caused the image to appear reversed


I suppose this seems more likely. Still, mirror image or odd perspective of camera, but missing 2 engines.

[jyl]

It seems to me that need for flame trench/water flooding of launch pad are things that don’t need a launch to test, being understood from prior launches e.g. Saturn V, and that Space X would have gotten more data if Starship had reached the planned altitude (150 mi?).

[herr_oberst]

Watching those huge chunks of concrete put massive dents in the fuel tanks at the tank farm seemed like a real swing and a miss on the part of the SpaceX team.

[flatbutt]

Originally Posted by jyl

It seems to me that need for flame trench/water flooding of launch pad are things that don’t need a launch to test, being understood from prior launches e.g. Saturn V, and that Space X would have gotten more data if Starship had reached the planned altitude (150 mi?).

The water isn't just for flame quenching. NASA engineers figured out that the acoustic energy generated by the engines was damaging them and the water absorbs that acoustic energy.

[Rusty Heap]

Quite the destructive force!

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Rusty Heap

Quite the destructive force!

I suspect it wouldn't have made enough of a difference, but I've got to think that rather than the exhaust hitting a perpendicular surface, at least they could have given it a fighting chance by creating a cone of some sort that more gradually deflected the exhaust.



Still, I think without the water, they are just screwed.