I graduated in '98 -- so even considering up to Challenger and way before Columbia -- there were numerous enough significant failures within the shuttle program that it was by far the largest topic of discussion in the engineering ethics curricula. This was a new course at the time and folks from Texas A&M CoE were instrumental in getting it mandated for ABET institutional accreditation. The shuttle was at least 1/2 of the entire course. I believe we were the first such standalone course in the nation.

Lots of amazing people worked in that program no doubt, so this isn't a universal net across everyone. But it's ok to recognize there were systemic failures due to bad data, bad processes, and worst of all politics.

Having sat through briefings and lessons-learned on all of those incidents, again, they were not as close of calls as you think…

They were concerning issues, but they weren't moments from catastrophe…. What happens on 51-L was a total failure of both O rings due to low temps that reduced pliability of both O rings…

Foam strikes had always been observed on tile pieces, and after 27, steps were taken to revamp how the foam was applied…and it was quite successful…. They speculate there was a defect in the way the foam was applied to 107's ET because we had never seen a chunk that size come off…. Further, it smashed through the RCC on the wing's leading edge…not tiles…. Two totally different types of material…

But even with that, what you fail to see is Shuttle was originally designed to be a test program…it was modified by bureaucrats to be something it wasn't designed to be…

But what it all eventually boils down to is that, whether it's NASA or SpaceX, it is humans doing the work, and humans will make mistakes…Murphy's Law is very real in spaceflight, and it is astronomically difficult to engineer zero risk in every system…. Planes still crash, after all, and planes operate under conditions significantly less violent and unforgiving than you find in all aspects of spaceflight…

As for your comment about "the problem with NASA for decades", the actual problem is you have bureaucrats who control purse strings and set expectations and timelines that are damn near impossible given the budget they are given…. NASA is always forced to take calculated risks to make things work…

I've sat in the MER…I've been in the meetings…I was in the morning MER meeting where the 107 foam strike was discussed…

It's easy to armchair when you weren't there…but there's a lot you clearly don't know (and that's okay…I wish I didn't know)…

Again, I will say that I full support what SpaceX is doing…but spaceflight ain't easy, no matter who is building the vehicle and paying the bills…

Sea Speed said:

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FireAg said:

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Respectfully, you're talking out of your ass…

We did not barely avoid losing crews multiple times by the slimmest of margins during the Shuttle program…

Now I don't have a problem with the way SpaceX is doing things at all…their paradigm and mandate are simply different…

But before you go pissing on the Shuttle program, at least understand what you're talking about and the facts…you clearly have zero understanding about fault tolerances and redundancies that were mandated and followed…

I applaud SpaceX for doing the things they are doing, but there is a price to spaceflight…the venture is as bold as it is unforgiving…neither NASA or SpaceX approaches are drastically more safe or dangerous. SPACEFLIGHT is dangerous…it's not a game, and the risks are always high no matter who plants your ass in zero-G…

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I liken it to early seafaring. Seafaring is inherently dangerous and who knows how many millions of people have been lost to the sea over the years, and even after centuries of improving ships, charts, wx predictions, regulations etc., we still lose ships and people. We are basically at the "indigenous people making the first canoe" stage of space travel. We haven't even got past the breakers on our little island.

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Very well said…I agree with you…

There's simply no way to wave a magic engineering wand and make all of the risk magically disappear…

It's the cost of the venture…and you accept it and press forward…

Blue parachute to you, sir.

Elon has the ability to build multiple copies of his flight vehicles. One blows up, and his reaction is akin to, "Well, that was a design we were never going to fly long term anyway. We're a couple generations beyond that now." The next day, his garage door rolls up, and there's a shiny new rocket sitting there ready to go.

Although he probably wasn't the first to say it, I think Elon said, "Quantity has a quality all it's own."

NASA, on the other hand, spends years writing and refining requirements, because they know they have one or two shots at getting a flight unit built. They can build and test prototypes of subsystems, but integrating those prototypes into full up vehicles is much more expensive due to the cost of design, testing, safety, reliability, and quality control requirements, and procurement regulations.

The NASA of today knows from experience that if you run a very expensive flight test that results in a very public failure, you run the risk of Congress looking to make political hay out of it, especially if they want to embarrass the party in the Oval Office. Therefore, every large scale test - and even some smaller scale tests - get lots of internal scrutiny.

During Apollo, NASA was not as risk averse as they are today. There is a video somewhere on YouTube from the 1960s of a test subject suffering a rapid suit depressurization in a vacuum chamber. The subject passed out in less than ten seconds. There was an emergency repressurization of the chamber and a rescue technician jumped in to render aid. (Some years later, the test subject said that the last thing he remembered was the sensation of the saliva boiling off his tongue.) Six weeks later, after an investigation and corrective action was taken, that same suit was being tested again in that chamber. That would never happen in today's environment. Testing would cease for at least a year while every single aspect of the process and hardware was reviewed and recertified.

100% spot on…

Respectfully, the engineers at Thiekol that found constant burn throughs and underperforming seals on multiple flight prior to Challenger, and where summarily fired in the cover up disagreed.

Or the knownissue of foam strikes on EVERY flight that where ignored until it finally killed Columbia's crew.

Or the fact the vehicle had an abort blackout nearly the whole launch envelope, and when it did open several 9f the modes are near impossible to perform.

I've done plenty of research on shuttle. There are former nasa administrators still sitting back claiming the post mortem risk assessment is wrong, some of them still blaming theikol for challenger*

Nasa became too politically motivated internally. It's a problem for government folks especially. It's unquestionably true imho that we nearly lost lives many times over in Apollo/space shuttle statistically speaking if not in specific flights.

Nasa still has vastly more human spaceflight experience than SpaceX though, and the latter benefit from working with the former, without being wholly reliant on the senate launch funding system/bull**** machine. I think back a few dozen pages on this thread we had a good Eric Berger column on that linked.

Congrats…I've helped launch them…

Here's the deal, and I am going to leave it at this and not engage further on the subject…

You are talking about two completely different paradigms, both with the same end goal, but both with very different rules of engagement…

The Thiokol guys you reference? They were studs…huge respect for those guys…but they didn't get to make the final decisions…managers who reported to politicians made the final call…and they were dead wrong…. But the issue with burn through specifically didn't have to do so much with design as it did limits of the chosen design, and in this case, it was ultimately temperatures…

But listen…I studied 51L inside and out…I've taken countless classes on that accident and Apollo 1…I spend a ton of time looking at all angles…. I participated in post-107 meetings and return to flight…

It's one thing to see it from the outside and form your opinion…it's a whole different vantage point from the inside out…

In the end, it's about engineering to manage risks, and NASA did a an good job of managing risks through the history of the spaceflight program to date…

It wasn't perfect…it can't be…and SpaceX is learning that too…

Spaceflight is hard…it's unnatural…and yet we have found a way to achieve it…

Celebrate NASA for what it is, and celebrate SpaceX for doing what they are doing…they aren't mutually exclusive…

FireAg said:

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Celebrate NASA for what it is, and celebrate SpaceX for doing what they are doing…they aren't mutually exclusive…

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Irony is apparently dead. Your first posts to this thread as far as I can tell were this morning, and have been outright derogatory toward SpaceX all day. SpaceX isn't perfect and no one here ever claimed they were, yet you still felt the need to tell us:

Wrong per the FAA

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That didn't look good at all...vehicle lost control about 2 min in and was finally destroyed by ground command...

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Re: the flip

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Yes, I get that...Starship was also supposed to separate, but didn't...

They still have a lot of work to do...

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Again wrong per the FAA

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I wondered the same...it's possible that it was a line-of-sight issue from the commands being sent to actually being transmitted to the vehicle while it was flipping...

SRB-detonation was and still is a ground command from RSO (Range Safety Officer)...not automatic...

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Quote:

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Looks to have a few "Pisa" characteristics, if you ask me...

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It was during the Shuttle program, and I can't imagine they changed it for Artemis...

The detonation, in my mind, should have come earlier, and since it is a single-press ground command, I wonder if the vehicle struggled with communications as it tumbled, prior to receiving the detonation command...

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Yay I guess?

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I get it's a test flight, and I hope they achieved their goals with this, but if it is deemed a "success", it will be done merely on the basis that the bird got off the ground...

My hunch is the SpaceX engineers feel bittersweet right now...

I'm a veteran flight controller of over 30 Shuttle missions and 15 ISS expeditions at JSC...I lost two colleagues and friends on Columbia... Spaceflight is a risky business, and it's gut-wrenching for me to watch these things and them not be pristine... I get it, but it is still very hard... The public needs to be prepared for commercial spaceflight to cause some spectacular deaths on live TV during its infancy... Not a question of if, but when, unfortunately...

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I concur with this...leaning more toward "miracle" it lifted off...I think they got a bit lucky today...

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I'll stop there because I think I've made my point. Sounds like you have amazing experiences and can be an awesome and welcome contributor here with vast knowledge in this domain beyond most of us. But asking all of us to remember to celebrate NASA for NASA and SpaceX for SpaceX isn't exactly consistent with you repeatedly downplaying SpaceX most of the day.

Sea Speed said:

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FireAg said:

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Respectfully, you're talking out of your ass…

We did not barely avoid losing crews multiple times by the slimmest of margins during the Shuttle program…

Now I don't have a problem with the way SpaceX is doing things at all…their paradigm and mandate are simply different…

But before you go pissing on the Shuttle program, at least understand what you're talking about and the facts…you clearly have zero understanding about fault tolerances and redundancies that were mandated and followed…

I applaud SpaceX for doing the things they are doing, but there is a price to spaceflight…the venture is as bold as it is unforgiving…neither NASA or SpaceX approaches are drastically more safe or dangerous. SPACEFLIGHT is dangerous…it's not a game, and the risks are always high no matter who plants your ass in zero-G…

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I liken it to early seafaring. Seafaring is inherently dangerous and who knows how many millions of people have been lost to the sea over the years, and even after centuries of improving ships, charts, wx predictions, regulations etc., we still lose ships and people. We are basically at the "indigenous people making the first canoe" stage of space travel. We haven't even got past the breakers on our little island.

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100% agree. We're still in the infancy stages of space flight and it's felt like over the last 10 years that bureaucracy has slowed that growth to a crawl in terms of manned space flight. The hard part for people to come to terms with unfortunately is that the consequences if anything goes significantly wrong, the result is loss of life.

There is still so much to learn and become better at for all entities, but at the end of the day, strapping 200 lbs of flesh and bone to the end of a metal frame propelled by 1000s of lbs of explosive mixture is wildly insane and dangerous

I will say I got a kick out of EA jumping shouting, "I'm gonna ride one of those to the moon" only for it to RUD 30 seconds later when he had his back turned.

RED AG 98 said:

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Just got off a call so haven't had any volume on the NSF steam. Is this tank damage new?
And now they're showing hopper and it looks to have come out ok but it took a beating

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These are insulated double walled tanks so I suspect that damage is superficial.

The launch of was 25' of steel reninforced concrete. All shredded and ejected from the launch pad in about eight seconds

Thinking now 2022 Aggie football had a RUD start.

FireAg said:

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lb3 said:

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FireAg said:

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I left in 2006...unless she's in Medical Operations, EVA, or has become an FD from a former position in the last few years, I probably don't...but never know...PM me if you want...

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Aggie, back row ISS flight controller leaving in 2006…. You had my curiosity before but now you have my attention.

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PM me…

If it helps, I hung out with Aerosmith in the original BFCR back in 2004 when they visited prior to the Super Bowl…

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Oh yeah, I remember Aerosmith when they visited at JSC

Competitor, that's what you call your 300 lbs girlfriend?

FireAg said:

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I suppose it's possible, but I Am personally skeptical…

The vehicle was well out of control for a relatively long period of time, and if it had an auto destruct, it took its sweet time to trigger…

Looked more like to me that the ground wanted to gather as much data as possible before destroying down range…

I have no idea what Artemis has beyond what I assume remains unchanged on the SRBs…. For reference, the 51-L SRBs continued up hill, post crew vehicle and ET failure, until the RSO sent the destruct command (as evidenced by both SRBs being terminated simultaneously)…

Now, even if there was an auto destruct feature on the Starship launch today, I guarantee there was a backup manual destruct feature, and frankly, based on how long the vehicle was allowed to burn while clearly out of control (and folks, it was out of control to some extent at liftoff, and it only got worse), then the auto destruct had to have failed and a backup manual command was sent…

Either way, doesn't matter…the vehicle was lost (and folks are welcome to argue as to whether or not that matters based on a NASA vs SpaceX paradigm)…

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I think they waited on the self destruct until it was out of propellant… or running out of propellant actually caused the self destruct due to bubbles or sucking air into the turbo pumps.

It clearly didn't perform the correct stage separation maneuver.

There were problems even before lift off. Lift off was slow with not all engines firing. There was a big explosion from the aft end shortly after lift off. And the bright orange flames indicate things were not right. Either Incorrect ox-fuel ratio or consuming metal somewhere. You can see from the bars in the feed indicating remaining propellant that it wasn't consuming ox and fuel at the same rate.

5 engines went offline early into the flight. But letting it fly as long as possible was the right approach.

I haven't checked his math, because that's not how I roll, but some pretty good stuff here, I think. It's interesting that the exterior engines are not supposed to be capable of being re-lit.

Here is an aerial view taken today of the damage to the concrete surrounding the OLM. @elonmusk flame trench by the next Starship Launch?

Full gallery will be available at https://t.co/l5nZ12tVTO or subscribe to our twitter pic.twitter.com/vOOjdm1mpv

— RGV Aerial Photography (@RGVaerialphotos) April 20, 2023

I know a lot of folks are all 'omg, look at that concrete! it's a disaster' about the area around the launch tower (I get it), but really, is it that big a deal? Isn't all of the stuff that matter really the steel/covered by steel that holds it up a hundred feet? We don't really know if that is substantively destroyed/damaged.

Scraping up/pouring new martite etc. isn't that big a deal, it would seem. If they are launching in a few months might as well try to get the new water deluge system in by then, too.

Ag_of_08 said:

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Chris Hadfield shutting a reporter down. Been interesting to see several astronauts speak on today's events.



Just catching up on a lot of it, mom fell and ended up in the ER today. Nothing broken thankfully.

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He didn't mention, and that's OK, but how many Atlas and Redstone rockets blew up on their launch pads? How many F1 engines ripped the test stand apart?

NASA benefited greatly having a bunch of their early tests conducted deep in the New Mexico desert, and not on a packed Texas beach.

Edit... NASA caught a lot of flak for a bunch of broken windows in Huntsville testing engines out in the country. They had to fix that! SpaceX too though had rattled their share of windows in MacGregor.

Okay so you read what I said as being negative and poo-pooing what SpaceX did yesterday…not even remotely where I was coming from, but feel free to believe what you want to believe…

And I don't know nor care what the FAA has claimed, all of the major news outlets indicated that part of the mission was to try to get the vehicle to orbit (which would have required separation btw) and drop it into the South Pacific…so if that is all false, why was everyone reporting the opposite?

As for the detonation, even Hadfield (good guy, BTW…one of the more down to earth astronauts I ever met, no pun intended) said it appeared to him like a ground-sent self destruction…

As for it being a miracle that it got off the ground, well, it was…that many engines experience catastrophic failure at liftoff but didn't wind up sending debris straight up into the fuel tanks causing a massive failure on the ground is a miracle…thankfully they got off the ground and likely have some very good, helpful data now because of it…

Bud…every flight, whether seemingly pristine or not, has lessons to be learned, and you always discuss the good, bad, and ugly post flight…. That's why all liftoffs, regardless of agency or entrepreneurship, should be considered TEST flights, even the ones that look perfect on TV…even if run by those who have been doing it for decades at NASA…

We are in the mere infancy of space travel…and it will never be "routine" in our lifetime (at least not on the scale of getting aboard a SWA 737 and flying between Houston and Orlando to visit The Mouse)…

I'm sorry if you or others were offended…I was merely critiquing (as I have been trained to do) the attempt…

A lot of good happened yesterday…even some great…but there were "failures" too, and failures help us learn where and how to be better…

I'm not pro/anti SpaceX or NASA…but I am pro spaceflight…. It's one of the coolest, most spectacular things we, as a species, have (or will) ever accomplish…

BudFox7 said:

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NASA is a govt entity. Like almost all of them, it has become a bloated dinosaur that burns cash. Total waste that every citizen should loathe.

I suppose when SpaceX loses its first astronaut, the NASA cheerleaders will have an argument. Until then, the hate absolutely reeks of jealousy. I do the same when my competitor is crushing me.

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I was having this exact conversation with my best friend this morning.

Old entities, like the government, General Motors, GE, etc..struggle with innovation because they can't get out of their own red tape ways. Everything they do is utterly expensive because they have so much bureaucracy that gets in their way.

Fail fast is a GOOD thing.

Iterating to ensure that you are moving in the right direction is a great thing. It saves MONEY in the long run.

Sounds good. Not personally offended in any way whatsoever. Elon was on record saying weeks ago saying that clearing the pad was the first order goal, anything beyond that would be success, and that it was at best 50% they reach orbit.

I think we all agree space is hard and we know next to nothing. What SpaceX is doing now for space exploration is very much akin to what NASA did in the original space race decades ago.

Charpie said:

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BudFox7 said:

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NASA is a govt entity. Like almost all of them, it has become a bloated dinosaur that burns cash. Total waste that every citizen should loathe.

I suppose when SpaceX loses its first astronaut, the NASA cheerleaders will have an argument. Until then, the hate absolutely reeks of jealousy. I do the same when my competitor is crushing me.

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I was having this exact conversation with my best friend this morning.

Old entities, like the government, General Motors, GE, etc..struggle with innovation because they can't get out of their own red tape ways. Everything they do is utterly expensive because they have so much bureaucracy that gets in their way.

Fail fast is a GOOD thing.

Iterating to ensure that you are moving in the right direction is a great thing. It saves MONEY in the long run.

---

Exactly. When you fail fast, you design things with cost in mind. If you know the rocket is probably going to blow up, you're not going to build it out of solid gold. Your going to figure out how to make reusable components. Your going to figure out how to cut your costs. Your going to figure out how to build things quickly. SpaceX already has more Starships ready to go.

On the flip side, if you've only got one shot at it, you're going to cram as much stuff in as you can. It's going to take a lot longer to build, because you're not worried about your manufacturing pipeline since you're only building one. You're not worried about learning and improving the next ship because you're only building one.

I've been hearing that the next launch will be in a few months. But I think that's from what Elon said yesterday morning



That was at 9am. I wonder if he knew about the launch site damage when he said that. Within the hour Stage 0 pictures started coming out



There were also photos of large dents in the fuel farm tanks and I think someone said rebar had pierced one of those tanks. There's probably a lot of other stuff that we haven't seen yet.

I wonder how long it will take to get Stage 0 operational again and with a flame diverter and deluge system.

My other question is even if they do install a flame diverter and deluge system, that takes care of liftoff (hopefully), but what about catching boosters and starships when they're landing? Although by landing time they will be lighter and will require less thrust.

TexAgs91 said:

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I've been hearing that the next launch will be in a few months. But I think that's from what Elon said yesterday morning



That was at 9am. I wonder if he knew about the launch site damage when he said that. Within the hour Stage 0 pictures started coming out



There were also photos of large dents in the fuel farm tanks and I think someone said rebar had pierced one of those tanks. There's probably a lot of other stuff that we haven't seen yet.

I wonder how long it will take to get Stage 0 operational again and with a flame diverter and deluge system.

My other question is even if they do install a flame diverter and deluge system, that takes care of liftoff (hopefully), but what about catching boosters and starships when they're landing? Although by landing time they will be lighter and will require less thrust.

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This was completely foreseeable and Elon was dumb to skip a flame diverted.

Concrete was thrown hundreds of feet in every direction and it wouldn't surprise me if concrete debris is what took down some of the engines.

That crater is huge. That's a lot of debris ejected.

AustinAg2K said:

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Charpie said:

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BudFox7 said:

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NASA is a govt entity. Like almost all of them, it has become a bloated dinosaur that burns cash. Total waste that every citizen should loathe.

I suppose when SpaceX loses its first astronaut, the NASA cheerleaders will have an argument. Until then, the hate absolutely reeks of jealousy. I do the same when my competitor is crushing me.

---

I was having this exact conversation with my best friend this morning.

Old entities, like the government, General Motors, GE, etc..struggle with innovation because they can't get out of their own red tape ways. Everything they do is utterly expensive because they have so much bureaucracy that gets in their way.

Fail fast is a GOOD thing.

Iterating to ensure that you are moving in the right direction is a great thing. It saves MONEY in the long run.

---

Exactly. When you fail fast, you design things with cost in mind. If you know the rocket is probably going to blow up, you're not going to build it out of solid gold. Your going to figure out how to make reusable components. Your going to figure out how to cut your costs. Your going to figure out how to build things quickly. SpaceX already has more Starships ready to go.

On the flip side, if you've only got one shot at it, you're going to cram as much stuff in as you can. It's going to take a lot longer to build, because you're not worried about your manufacturing pipeline since you're only building one. You're not worried about learning and improving the next ship because you're only building one.

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When it costs 100 million instead of 1 billion, you can spare 10 before hitting the same cost.

TexAgs91 said:

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I've been hearing that the next launch will be in a few months. But I think that's from what Elon said yesterday morning



That was at 9am. I wonder if he knew about the launch site damage when he said that. Within the hour Stage 0 pictures started coming out



There were also photos of large dents in the fuel farm tanks and I think someone said rebar had pierced one of those tanks. There's probably a lot of other stuff that we haven't seen yet.

I wonder how long it will take to get Stage 0 operational again and with a flame diverter and deluge system.

My other question is even if they do install a flame diverter and deluge system, that takes care of liftoff (hopefully), but what about catching boosters and starships when they're landing? Although by landing time they will be lighter and will require less thrust.

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Wait until it lands on the moon. What crater will that leave on the moon's surface?

Interesting point. They would need to land a considerable distance from any habitats or significant work areas. Moon dust sprayed 360 degrees with minimal gravity sounds like an issue.