Cryogenic fuel is an added challenge, as it evaporates to create fuel-air explosion risk in a partially oxygen atmosphere like Earth.

That said, we have a lot of sensors to detect this. More later.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 11, 2022

Loading full tweet…

Here is a closeup: pic.twitter.com/5ATAxVI1LT

— Jason Short (@jason4short) July 11, 2022

Loading full tweet…

will25u said:

---

Yeah, actually not good. Team is assessing damage.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 11, 2022

Loading full tweet…

---

Huh, happened at 4:20 pm to boot


Drugs are bad mmmkay

---

HossAg said:

---

I think it's possible to see a galaxy during a time when life existed in it, even if it didn't exist at the same time as us. Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away, so I could see there being life there somewhere 2.5 million years ago even if it doesn't exist anymore. I'll admit that's a long shot when we're talking billions of years, but just pick a galaxy 1 billion light years away and the same logic applies.

But as far as actually making contact with other forms of life near us, I think that's impossible. There's just no way there's some form of intelligent life close enough to us to make contact that also exists in the same time period. We've barely had that type of communication ability for 50 years, and we still have barely sent the voyager probes beyond our own solar system.

---

TexAgs91 said:

The problem with the Fermi Paradox is that it does not account for the fact that the further you look in space the further back in time you're looking at. And the further back in time you're looking at, the fewer heavier elements beyond hydrogen and helium you see which is required for life.

Population III stars are made up of only hydrogen and helium. Population II stars contain some heavier elements and Population I contain the most.

So there's several billion years at the beginning of the universe where life is impossible. Then when you get to a time when 2nd generation stars come along with a few rocky planets and the ingredients for life, you still have to wait another few billion years for it to evolve into intelligent life.

So there's only a radius of about 3-5 billion LY from earth where we'd expect to find intelligent life. Anything outside of that hasn't had time to develop. You may find galaxies in every direction you look, but after you filter out everything further than 5 billion LY, you're left with much less.

---

Just because it's a great distance away doesn't mean there can't be life there. Are you saying that beyond a certain distance there isn't life that we will be able to detect from Earth with existing technology? Not being able to detect life at a great distance doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

will25u said:

---

HUBBLE vs JWST: Here's the difference. Welcome to a new era of astronomy. pic.twitter.com/ATIOhc2mnQ

— Ian Lauer (@ianlauerastro) July 11, 2022

Loading full tweet…

---

The JWST is so thin and weighs so much less too.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/james-webb-space-telescope/

---

---

+ 1 more quotes (click to expand)

HossAg said:

---

I think it's possible to see a galaxy during a time when life existed in it, even if it didn't exist at the same time as us. Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away, so I could see there being life there somewhere 2.5 million years ago even if it doesn't exist anymore. I'll admit that's a long shot when we're talking billions of years, but just pick a galaxy 1 billion light years away and the same logic applies.

But as far as actually making contact with other forms of life near us, I think that's impossible. There's just no way there's some form of intelligent life close enough to us to make contact that also exists in the same time period. We've barely had that type of communication ability for 50 years, and we still have barely sent the voyager probes beyond our own solar system.

---

TexAgs91 said:

The problem with the Fermi Paradox is that it does not account for the fact that the further you look in space the further back in time you're looking at. And the further back in time you're looking at, the fewer heavier elements beyond hydrogen and helium you see which is required for life.

Population III stars are made up of only hydrogen and helium. Population II stars contain some heavier elements and Population I contain the most.

So there's several billion years at the beginning of the universe where life is impossible. Then when you get to a time when 2nd generation stars come along with a few rocky planets and the ingredients for life, you still have to wait another few billion years for it to evolve into intelligent life.

So there's only a radius of about 3-5 billion LY from earth where we'd expect to find intelligent life. Anything outside of that hasn't had time to develop. You may find galaxies in every direction you look, but after you filter out everything further than 5 billion LY, you're left with much less.

---

bmks270 said:

Just because it's a great distance away doesn't mean there can't be life there. Are you saying that beyond a certain distance there isn't life that we will be able to detect from Earth with existing technology? Not being able to detect life at a great distance doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

---

No. He's saying that there is a time differential between us and the rest of the universe, and we are not only looking out across space, but time. While the odds of there being other sentient life in the universe at some point are pretty good because of its immense size, whether we can or ever will detect it is conditional on it developing early enough for the light from it then to be getting to us now, and that conditional probably is a function of its distance from us. Anything we see beyond 3.5-5 billion LY away is 3.5-5 billion years younger than we are as we see it because that's when the light left. That is probably too young for the heavy elements that support life to have developed, so we can't expect to see any sign of life from further away than that. If there's life there now, the light for us to see it won't get here for another 3.5-5 billion years.

Any other civilization in our own galaxy would have needed to have developed tens of thousand of years prior to ours to be noticeable to us now, and for them to know we're here won't happen for tens of thousands of years. The closest galaxy to us is over 2 million light years away, so they would need to have developed a minimum of 2 million years ago for us to see them and they won't see us for another 2 million. So far, the span of human existence doesn't even register on galactic timescales, much less cosmic ones, so it is no surprise we haven't seen anything. We really haven't looked at much at all.

Well written.

That's a matter of detection, so my point is not being understood. Being unable to detect things in because light has a travel time between objects does not mean life doesn't exist where we cannot see.

bmks270 said:

---

That's a matter of detection, so my point is not being understood. Being unable to detect things in because light has a travel time between objects does not mean life doesn't exist where we cannot see.

---

"Are you saying that beyond a certain distance there isn't life that we will be able to detect from Earth with existing technology?"

You asked. I just clarified. It has nothing to do with ability, but probability. Life can certainly exist somewhere else and probably does, but we will likely never know.

I think the UAP/UFO stuff we already know about belies any contrary theoretical evidence.

Without going too far into the weeds/derailing this great thread, quantum entanglement/teleportation should enable, at some point, communication over very vast distances. Beyond my pay grade (by a lot), but yes, theoretically that includes interstellar space.

I could be misunderstanding this bigly, but don't we have to first send a quantum entangled photon out into space to communicate with it? So you're still limited by the speed of light which is very slow when you're looking at the vastness of space. It doesn't really solve the problem of it being insanely unlikely that we ever make contact with another life form. I don't think anything short of a wormhole really alleviates that issue.

I don't understand the theory that life couldn't have happened in a stable galaxy until…we got here. There are 13 billion year old supermassive black holes. There are supposed to be around 100-400 billion stars in just our Milky Way.

If the universe is about 13.8 billion years old, and there are…100 to 200 billion (other) galaxies (notice the spread there), and we have practically zero understanding of cosmic expansion/dark energy, I'd put my confidence that intelligent life couldn't be much older than us from the Big Bang just about as high as my trust in Fauci/global warming hysterics who claim I need to drive an electric car and eat bugs to save humanity/intelligent life.

HossAg said:

---

I could be misunderstanding this bigly, but don't we have to first send a quantum entangled photon out into space to communicate with it? So you're still limited by the speed of light which is very slow when you're looking at the vastness of space. It doesn't really solve the problem of it being insanely unlikely that we ever make contact with another life form. I don't think anything short of a wormhole really alleviates that issue.

---

I am the wrong guy to ask but yes I think the challenge is setting up the initial 'phone booths' if you will. However, there are some experiments very lately showing photons being entangled with each other at a distance.

I'm not going to Biden myself and try to explain it as it is way over my head. My guess is that if it is possible, and we are starting to toy with it, then…the physics might be better understood/more practically employed in a hundred or thousand more years etc.

will25u said:

---

Yeah, actually not good. Team is assessing damage.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 11, 2022

Loading full tweet…

---

Even worse is that the FAA will probably want to do their own investigation, so this may have just pushed any kind of launch until Q4 at best...

---

---

+ 1 more quotes (click to expand)

HossAg said:

---

I think it's possible to see a galaxy during a time when life existed in it, even if it didn't exist at the same time as us. Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away, so I could see there being life there somewhere 2.5 million years ago even if it doesn't exist anymore. I'll admit that's a long shot when we're talking billions of years, but just pick a galaxy 1 billion light years away and the same logic applies.

But as far as actually making contact with other forms of life near us, I think that's impossible. There's just no way there's some form of intelligent life close enough to us to make contact that also exists in the same time period. We've barely had that type of communication ability for 50 years, and we still have barely sent the voyager probes beyond our own solar system.

---

TexAgs91 said:

The problem with the Fermi Paradox is that it does not account for the fact that the further you look in space the further back in time you're looking at. And the further back in time you're looking at, the fewer heavier elements beyond hydrogen and helium you see which is required for life.

Population III stars are made up of only hydrogen and helium. Population II stars contain some heavier elements and Population I contain the most.

So there's several billion years at the beginning of the universe where life is impossible. Then when you get to a time when 2nd generation stars come along with a few rocky planets and the ingredients for life, you still have to wait another few billion years for it to evolve into intelligent life.

So there's only a radius of about 3-5 billion LY from earth where we'd expect to find intelligent life. Anything outside of that hasn't had time to develop. You may find galaxies in every direction you look, but after you filter out everything further than 5 billion LY, you're left with much less.

---

bmks270 said:

Just because it's a great distance away doesn't mean there can't be life there. Are you saying that beyond a certain distance there isn't life that we will be able to detect from Earth with existing technology? Not being able to detect life at a great distance doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

---

No, it's not just that it's a great distance, it's also further back in time. In the early universe there were not enough heavy elements beyond hydrogen and helium for any life to consist of.

---

will25u said:

---

Click to load Tweet

---

Maximus_Meridius said:

Even worse is that the FAA will probably want to do their own investigation, so this may have just pushed any kind of launch until Q4 at best...

---

Does the FAA even have jurisdiction here? This was a test that never left the ground or was intended to leave the ground. In McGreggor, Musk says they've blown up dozens of engines.

I know they were involved with some of the stuff with SN8-11, and they actually withheld a launch license for one of them because SpaceX didn't give them some info they wanted or something (don't remember 100% here). I honestly don't know if they'll be able to do anything on this one or not, but as it is a spacecraft and a spaceflight organization, I think they do have jurisdiction.

My point being, it was a big enough PITA for us just to get through the preliminary environmental crap with these clowns, they're going to want to know why something went boom and what SpaceX intends to do to prevent it in the future. Then they'll have to approve that before any launch license is given.

lb3 said:

---

so while we may not be leading the race, it's doubtful there are many intelligent species more than a couple hundred million years older than us. And most of those destroyed themselves in the woke wars following the invention of social media.

---

nortex97 said:

---

I think the UAP/UFO stuff we already know about belies any contrary theoretical evidence.

Without going too far into the weeds/derailing this great thread, quantum entanglement/teleportation should enable, at some point, communication over very vast distances. Beyond my pay grade (by a lot), but yes, theoretically that includes interstellar space.

---

This thread is all about rocketry, space & astrophysics. It is an oasis in F16

Yes with quantum entanglement there can be instant communication across any distance. But you'd need to know conditions on the other end, which would amount to a crypto key to decipher it. And from what I understand that key would have to be communicated at the speed of light.

---

---

+ 2 more quotes (click to expand)

---

HossAg said:

---

I think it's possible to see a galaxy during a time when life existed in it, even if it didn't exist at the same time as us. Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away, so I could see there being life there somewhere 2.5 million years ago even if it doesn't exist anymore. I'll admit that's a long shot when we're talking billions of years, but just pick a galaxy 1 billion light years away and the same logic applies.

But as far as actually making contact with other forms of life near us, I think that's impossible. There's just no way there's some form of intelligent life close enough to us to make contact that also exists in the same time period. We've barely had that type of communication ability for 50 years, and we still have barely sent the voyager probes beyond our own solar system.

---

TexAgs91 said:

The problem with the Fermi Paradox is that it does not account for the fact that the further you look in space the further back in time you're looking at. And the further back in time you're looking at, the fewer heavier elements beyond hydrogen and helium you see which is required for life.

Population III stars are made up of only hydrogen and helium. Population II stars contain some heavier elements and Population I contain the most.

So there's several billion years at the beginning of the universe where life is impossible. Then when you get to a time when 2nd generation stars come along with a few rocky planets and the ingredients for life, you still have to wait another few billion years for it to evolve into intelligent life.

So there's only a radius of about 3-5 billion LY from earth where we'd expect to find intelligent life. Anything outside of that hasn't had time to develop. You may find galaxies in every direction you look, but after you filter out everything further than 5 billion LY, you're left with much less.

---

bmks270 said:

Just because it's a great distance away doesn't mean there can't be life there. Are you saying that beyond a certain distance there isn't life that we will be able to detect from Earth with existing technology? Not being able to detect life at a great distance doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

---

TexAgs91 said:

No, it's not just that it's a great distance, it's also further back in time. In the early universe there were not enough heavy elements beyond hydrogen and helium for any life to consist of.

---

That's just what we detect.

No. This was not a flight test, it was a spin prime test on the ground. This does not encroach on the FAA's jurisdiction.

I do think this will set things back significantly due to the stage zero repairs that will be needed. The control cabinets on the outside of the launch table got crunched in like the Viper's head on Game of Thrones despite being in the leeward side of the launch table from the detonation. Booster 7 looks okay but I bet some if not all the engines are in need of replacement or repair since they were directly over the detonation. The chopsticks are suspect as well. A lot of material got ejected from the top side of the arms during the explosion. This looks like smaller rails/pieces/parts and the arms got forced open so the actuators are probably ****ed up too.

Beyond just repairs, there are some productive takeaways from this incident that could telegraph some changes to the stage zero design. Fortifications around the launch table likely need to be improved. The exposed hydraulics, and controls infrastructure on the launch table are either not robust enough or not shielded enough to take an explosion like we saw. Then there is the response to finding out what the cause of the explosion in the first place and amending the problem to prevent the occurrence again. There will likely be changes in protocols as well. There was a lot of construction equipment around the launch site and there will likely need to be an evacuation of equipment carrying fuels or lubricants to prevent fires in an oxygen rich environment. All resulting in more lead time.

That leads me to another question which someone else can probably better explain. Since there was no activity from the Methane cooler, this leads me to think there was no Methane on board during this test. Especially since there was no overpressure notice to Boca Chica Village before this test. So they probably loaded the Methane tank with Liquid Nitrogen and the LOX tank with Liquid Oxygen. The spin prime test results in the sudden release of Oxygen, so plenty of oxidizer in the air. So then what was the fuel that exploded and continued to burn for a few seconds after the engines where shutdown? The anomaly produced a flame that stretched as high as a couple hundred feet. I am perplexed by this.

Yes, but where would the rest of the elements come from?

They don't get made out of thing air…

---

will25u said:

---

Click to load Tweet

---

Fightin_Aggie said:

Huh, happened at 4:20 pm to boot


Drugs are bad mmmkay

---

always a good time to burn one

---

lb3 said:

---

so while we may not be leading the race, it's doubtful there are many intelligent species more than a couple hundred million years older than us. And most of those destroyed themselves in the woke wars following the invention of social media.

---

TexAgs91 said:

---

That's a joke to help keep this thread f16 friendly, but there is a theory that civilizations that are sufficiently advanced reach a point where they are prevented from advancing any further.

In the 50s it was thought that the development of nuclear weapons would eventually destroy civilization but some, including Elon Musk, now speculate that social media is the "Great Filter" which prevents societal advancement.

I'm partial to believing we live in the matrix. The resource limitations of simulations do a great job of explaining much of quantum physics. Just like a video game doesn't render blades of grass until they are within a certain range, electro-magnetic phenomenon are rendered as waves unless closely observed. Additionally, time in the sim advances in discrete chunks we call Planck time and distances are measured in Planck distances.

I've been curious as to how we could test this theory from within the sim and the best I can come up with is that if we could cause a cascade of observations, we might be able to cause a stack overflow error and crash the sim.

OnlyForNow said:

---

Yes, but where would the rest of the elements come from?

They don't get made out of thing air…

---

The heavy elements get made out of supernova's. The earliest stars, "Population III" to be specific, were huge and blew up very quickly/got very hot. Getting to the point where 2 percent of the universe is heavier stuff (vs. Helium/hydrogen) took a long time, but some heavy elements happened pretty quickly.

On the starship/booster blast, Elon had just gone on about how there is a goal for less thermal shielding as the Raptors evolve further, yet there's a lot today. He seemed to indicate more to follow today but we should learn more pretty quickly about if any damage from that brief fireball that really is substantial; maybe not.

Base of the vehicle seems ok by flashlight. I was just out there about an hour ago. We shut down the pad for the night for safety. Will know more in the morning.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 12, 2022

Loading full tweet…

I doubt many of the engines were too damaged as it was again a brief thermal event. They've gotta withstand a lot more than that in a future launch/landing.

Kceovaisnt- said:

---

No. This was not a flight test, it was a spin prime test on the ground. This does not encroach on the FAA's jurisdiction.

I do think this will set things back significantly due to the stage zero repairs that will be needed. The control cabinets on the outside of the launch table got crunched in like the Viper's head on Game of Thrones despite being in the leeward side of the launch table from the detonation. Booster 7 looks okay but I bet some if not all the engines are in need of replacement or repair since they were directly over the detonation. The chopsticks are suspect as well. A lot of material got ejected from the top side of the arms during the explosion. This looks like smaller rails/pieces/parts and the arms got forced open so the actuators are probably ****ed up too.

Beyond just repairs, there are some productive takeaways from this incident that could telegraph some changes to the stage zero design. Fortifications around the launch table likely need to be improved. The exposed hydraulics, and controls infrastructure on the launch table are either not robust enough or not shielded enough to take an explosion like we saw. Then there is the response to finding out what the cause of the explosion in the first place and amending the problem to prevent the occurrence again. There will likely be changes in protocols as well. There was a lot of construction equipment around the launch site and there will likely need to be an evacuation of equipment carrying fuels or lubricants to prevent fires in an oxygen rich environment. All resulting in more lead time.

That leads me to another question which someone else can probably better explain. Since there was no activity from the Methane cooler, this leads me to think there was no Methane on board during this test. Especially since there was no overpressure notice to Boca Chica Village before this test. So they probably loaded the Methane tank with Liquid Nitrogen and the LOX tank with Liquid Oxygen. The spin prime test results in the sudden release of Oxygen, so plenty of oxidizer in the air. So then what was the fuel that exploded and continued to burn for a few seconds after the engines where shutdown? The anomaly produced a flame that stretched as high as a couple hundred feet. I am perplexed by this.

---

There was most definitely fuel in the air. Could be any number of reasons why that no body can be certain of except those who ran the test.

OnlyForNow said:

---

Yes, but where would the rest of the elements come from?

They don't get made out of thing air…

---

Through fusion stars create new elements, and also from supernova which disburses the new elements.

---

---

+ 3 more quotes (click to expand)

---

---

HossAg said:

---

I think it's possible to see a galaxy during a time when life existed in it, even if it didn't exist at the same time as us. Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away, so I could see there being life there somewhere 2.5 million years ago even if it doesn't exist anymore. I'll admit that's a long shot when we're talking billions of years, but just pick a galaxy 1 billion light years away and the same logic applies.

But as far as actually making contact with other forms of life near us, I think that's impossible. There's just no way there's some form of intelligent life close enough to us to make contact that also exists in the same time period. We've barely had that type of communication ability for 50 years, and we still have barely sent the voyager probes beyond our own solar system.

---

TexAgs91 said:

The problem with the Fermi Paradox is that it does not account for the fact that the further you look in space the further back in time you're looking at. And the further back in time you're looking at, the fewer heavier elements beyond hydrogen and helium you see which is required for life.

Population III stars are made up of only hydrogen and helium. Population II stars contain some heavier elements and Population I contain the most.

So there's several billion years at the beginning of the universe where life is impossible. Then when you get to a time when 2nd generation stars come along with a few rocky planets and the ingredients for life, you still have to wait another few billion years for it to evolve into intelligent life.

So there's only a radius of about 3-5 billion LY from earth where we'd expect to find intelligent life. Anything outside of that hasn't had time to develop. You may find galaxies in every direction you look, but after you filter out everything further than 5 billion LY, you're left with much less.

---

bmks270 said:

Just because it's a great distance away doesn't mean there can't be life there. Are you saying that beyond a certain distance there isn't life that we will be able to detect from Earth with existing technology? Not being able to detect life at a great distance doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

---

TexAgs91 said:

No, it's not just that it's a great distance, it's also further back in time. In the early universe there were not enough heavy elements beyond hydrogen and helium for any life to consist of.

---

bmks270 said:

That's just what we detect.

---

It's not about limitations of sensor equipment. This is where issues of simultaneity from Relativity come into play. The further out you look, it is literally further back in time. Things that happened 10 billion light years away, 10 billion years ago happen "simultaneously" with things happening here on Earth now.

Elon said something about risk when venting methane in a (partially) oxygen rich environment....Maybe someone can explain what a 'spin' test is, but I imagine it involves running the turbopumps on the engines (which power them) being run with some methane/oxygen running through them and...there was a spark somewhere.

Quote:

---

Musk said cryogenic fuel is an 'added challenge'.
'It evaporates to create fuel-air explosion risk in a partially oxygen atmosphere like Earth,' he said on Twitter.

'Going forward, we won't do a spin start test with all 33 engines at once,' Musk also tweeted.
MailOnline contacted SpaceX and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for an official comment.

An FAA spokesperson replied: 'The FAA is in close contact with SpaceX as the company looks into the fire that occurred as part of its Super Heavy booster rocket development.

'The law limits the FAA's safety oversight to protecting the public during scheduled launch and reentry operations. Yesterday's event does not fall under the agency's jurisdiction.'

---

Kinda surprising if they were spinning the pumps on all 33 engines...

Was it an oversight not putting Shuttle style sparklers (Radial Outward Firing Igniters) under the vehicle?

---

---

+ 1 more quotes (click to expand)

lb3 said:

---

so while we may not be leading the race, it's doubtful there are many intelligent species more than a couple hundred million years older than us. And most of those destroyed themselves in the woke wars following the invention of social media.

---

TexAgs91 said:

---

lb3 said:

That's a joke to help keep this thread f16 friendly, but there is a theory that civilizations that are sufficiently advanced reach a point where they are prevented from advancing any further.

In the 50s it was thought that the development of nuclear weapons would eventually destroy civilization but some, including Elon Musk, now speculate that social media is the "Great Filter" which prevents societal advancement.

I'm partial to believing we live in the matrix. The resource limitations of simulations do a great job of explaining much of quantum physics. Just like a video game doesn't render blades of grass until they are within a certain range, electro-magnetic phenomenon are rendered as waves unless closely observed. Additionally, time in the sim advances in discrete chunks we call Planck time and distances are measured in Planck distances.

I've been curious as to how we could test this theory from within the sim and the best I can come up with is that if we could cause a cascade of observations, we might be able to cause a stack overflow error and crash the sim.

---

You might like Max Tegmark's theory that the universe is made of math that he discusses in his book "Our Mathematical Universe" and also discussed here

Maximus_Meridius said:

---

I know they were involved with some of the stuff with SN8-11, and they actually withheld a launch license for one of them because SpaceX didn't give them some info they wanted or something (don't remember 100% here). I honestly don't know if they'll be able to do anything on this one or not, but as it is a spacecraft and a spaceflight organization, I think they do have jurisdiction.

My point being, it was a big enough PITA for us just to get through the preliminary environmental crap with these clowns, they're going to want to know why something went boom and what SpaceX intends to do to prevent it in the future. Then they'll have to approve that before any launch license is given.

---

Here is the FAA's position on the test. They do not have jurisdiction

Well there ya go. I stand corrected.

nortex97 said:

---

I think the UAP/UFO stuff we already know about belies any contrary theoretical evidence.

Without going too far into the weeds/derailing this great thread, quantum entanglement/teleportation should enable, at some point, communication over very vast distances. Beyond my pay grade (by a lot), but yes, theoretically that includes interstellar space.

---

Well yea, obviously. How else would the aliens have reached out to fox mulder