News Changes to the SpaceX BFR rocket.

[steph]

RIP in pieces:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1649425500526329863

I guess there might have been a real risk of the launch pad and/or the ring thing collapsing with the rocket still on the pad

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Liftoff may be a relative thing. Did Starship/Superheavy actually leave the Earth, or did it push the Earth away from it in bits and pieces?

Maybe they actually think of Stage 0 as reaction mass?

 

[Thunder Chicken]

I guess there might have been a real risk of the launch pad and/or the ring thing collapsing with the rocket still on the pad

From the tilt of the stack seen from San Padre Island just after release, I actually think the launch stand may have tilted while the hold-downs were in place. Just spitballing some dimensions of the hole and multiplying it by the approximate density of sand and concrete suggests a couple million lbs of concrete and soil were excavated.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Scott Manley's take:

 

[RisingFury]

I am not sure why everyone is congratulating SpaceX for this. The more we see, the bigger the disaster this seems to be.

• If this was a NASA launch and it somehow was launched in this state, it'd be considered a failure.
• The amount of debris launched around the launch pad and left by the rocket seems exceedingly high. Seems like no measures were taken to cut down the debris thrown around.
• This thing was doomed from the start. As soon as it launched and left the dust and smoke behind, you could see parts falling off. Then it went spinning for a while. I'm not sure I'd trust SpaceX to reliably terminate the launch. I think an outsider is needed that is a bit more objective.
• "They know more for next launch. They learned something!" - what the fuck could have been learned from this that wasn't already known? Don't stick many engines on a rocket? Build a flame trench?

This was the most Kerbal shit anyone's ever done.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

I am not sure why everyone is congratulating SpaceX for this. The more we see, the bigger the disaster this seems to be.

• If this was a NASA launch and it somehow was launched in this state, it'd be considered a failure.
• The amount of debris launched around the launch pad and left by the rocket seems exceedingly high. Seems like no measures were taken to cut down the debris thrown around.
• This thing was doomed from the start. As soon as it launched and left the dust and smoke behind, you could see parts falling off. Then it went spinning for a while. I'm not sure I'd trust SpaceX to reliably terminate the launch. I think an outsider is needed that is a bit more objective.
• "They know more for next launch. They learned something!" - what the fuck could have been learned from this that wasn't already known? Don't stick many engines on a rocket? Build a flame trench?

This was the most Kerbal shit anyone's ever done.

Indeed. I think they ruined their test simply because they literally shot themselves down with tons of pad debris. It could very well have been that they could have gotten Starship to orbit, or at least pushed the failure much farther down the mission. Now all they are going to learn (maybe) is that throwing car-sized chunks of concrete at metal rockets breaks things that are needed for flight.

They took chances with and destroyed the one thing with zero redundancy that couldn't be reconstituted quickly, the launch pad. They also trashed the tank farm. They have boosters and Starships queued up and nearly ready to fly, but they won't have a pad to launch them from for many months if they are lucky. And I wonder if an environmental impact re-assessment may be coming down because of all this. And, oh, NASA was planning to use Starship as the HLS for Artemis 3 in late 2025.

I wonder if we just watched SpaceX destroy its Starship program and kneecap NASA's return to the moon.

 

[RisingFury]

Now it makes me wonder why FAA or whoever approves these flights actually gave regulatory approval. This whole "Shatship go boom boom hurr hurr" happy-go-lucky approach seems very reckless. It seems it doesn't even matter what they trash along the way or who they might kill.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

I think somebody greened out on 4/20:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1649523985837686784

1-2 months in Elon time...what does that translate to in actual time?

 

[GLS]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1649515491621216258

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Look at the debris hitting the ocean from this view:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1649097087248891904

 

[francisdrake]

Thanks for sharing all this detailed videos!

Looking on the footage two questions came to me:

• The grid fins were extended during the launch. Is this by design? Shouldn't they being retracted on the way up?
• Was the second stage fueled? I did not see ice on the second stage, even in the few shots showing the side opposite of the heat shield.

 

[jedidia]

I am not sure why everyone is congratulating SpaceX for this.

I think it's because the only test criterium by SpaceX itself was to get the thing off the launchpad. Like, that was literally the declared goal of the test, everything else was considered a bonus.
I was really wondering about this criterium. It seemed very pessimistic, almost defeatist, for an otherwise very optimistic company. But I guess Data was the major point here. They are building the largest rocket ever launched from new tech, I think they needed to see what this actually means in reality. It does seem like a rather expensive way to acquire that data, but maybe it was considered potentially less expensive than spending a couple years on simulations that couldn't be entirely relied on, or maybe it was considered that there was just no substitute for a real test this early on.
I don't think the results are quite what they expected, and right now I'm having doubts if you can actually launch such a stupidly big rocket safely and reusably or if the energy involved is just too big to practically handle. But I have no doubt that they got a whole lot of reliable data from this that would have been difficult to obtain otherwise.

 

[steph]

They also trashed the tank farm. They have boosters and Starships queued up and nearly ready to fly, but they won't have a pad to

Assuming those are still intact themselves

 

[cosmonaut2040]

Thanks for sharing all this detailed videos!

Looking on the footage two questions came to me:

• The grid fins were extended during the launch. Is this by design? Shouldn't they being retracted on the way up?
• Was the second stage fueled? I did not see ice on the second stage, even in the few shots showing the side opposite of the heat shield.

Hi Francisdrake,

• yes, the grid fins are permanently extended by design. You can see them extended also on the SpaceX CG drawings and animations: https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/
• the second stage was fully fuelled. The ice apparently doesn't form on the side covered by heat-shield tiles, and the other side is difficult to see in the launch video. But at about 20 minute mark in the webcast they showed the propellant tank levels during the loading, with the 2nd stage already almost full:

 

[RisingFury]

I think it's because the only test criterium by SpaceX itself was to get the thing off the launchpad. Like, that was literally the declared goal of the test, everything else was considered a bonus.
I was really wondering about this criterium. It seemed very pessimistic, almost defeatist, for an otherwise very optimistic company. But I guess Data was the major point here. They are building the largest rocket ever launched from new tech, I think they needed to see what this actually means in reality. It does seem like a rather expensive way to acquire that data, but maybe it was considered potentially less expensive than spending a couple years on simulations that couldn't be entirely relied on, or maybe it was considered that there was just no substitute for a real test this early on.
I don't think the results are quite what they expected, and right now I'm having doubts if you can actually launch such a stupidly big rocket safely and reusably or if the energy involved is just too big to practically handle. But I have no doubt that they got a whole lot of reliable data from this that would have been difficult to obtain otherwise.

• I very much doubt that this is the only test that would have gathered the required data.
• I very much doubt the telemetry will tell them something groundbreaking or that the data they get back will be groundbreaking.
• The whole "it's a success if it gets off the pad, damn everything else" goal is them knowing they're launching an alpha version of the rocket and skipping out on safety measures, tests and procedures that will still take years to do.
• What they really wanted was some publicity. Tests don't generate that.
• Falcon 9 is reliable and reusable, but it is not economically reusable. If they make this thing reusable, its same story as the Shuttle.

 

[N_Molson]

If it had a KORD, this would be called the N2.

Who would have thought ?

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Assuming those are still intact themselves

They are at the build site a few miles down the road. Poor Hoppy did get banged up, but it's pretty much a static display and camera tower now.

 

[GLS]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1649785111037059079

Launch close-ups coming today

 

[GLS]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1649785111037059079

Launch close-ups coming today

... or maybe not

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1649843591160684546

 

[GLS]

Found the card!

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1649847778858930177