History, Politics And Current Affairs

Isaacman might have more luck on the outside since he can run things the way he wants rather than fighting the NASA fiefdoms.

Looks like the payload bay door finally opened.

Musk is saying that preliminary data suggests it was a COPV tank in the payload bay that failed below it's proof pressure.

brovane wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 1:21 pm Looks like the payload bay door finally opened.

Well, that's one way of opening the Pod Bay doors, Hal.

I think the astronauts are going to need some confidence building measures in Starship. This is starting to look a lot like the Soviet N1 program.

Nightwatch2 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 20, 2025 1:52 am

brovane wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 1:21 pm Looks like the payload bay door finally opened.

Well, that's one way of opening the Pod Bay doors, Hal.

I think the astronauts are going to need some confidence building measures in Starship. This is starting to look a lot like the Soviet N1 program.

I would make the assertion that if SpaceX had decided to make the upper stage of Starship expendable and only recover the 1st stage the rocket would already be operational, the upper stage would be significantly less complex with less development problems.

brovane wrote: ↑Fri Jun 20, 2025 1:20 pm

Nightwatch2 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 20, 2025 1:52 am

brovane wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 1:21 pm Looks like the payload bay door finally opened.

Well, that's one way of opening the Pod Bay doors, Hal.

I think the astronauts are going to need some confidence building measures in Starship. This is starting to look a lot like the Soviet N1 program.

I would make the assertion that if SpaceX had decided to make the upper stage of Starship expendable and only recover the 1st stage the rocket would already be operational, the upper stage would be significantly less complex with less development problems.

An outstanding point! Most of the problems so far have been during re-entry. Setting aside;

Open the bay doors, Hal

A few launch failures

And now a tank failure below its designed pressure!
(Shades of Apollo 13)

It’s worth noting that this last failure would more than likely have been non-survival despite any kind of emergency escape system, including in orbit.

So instead of bringing the whole kit and kaboodle back perhaps just a small re-entry vehicle and design the Starship to remain in space. I think you’re on to something here and a path that maybe SpaceX should be looking at.

After all, so far the program has produced single use vehicles

Is it possible to leave the main part of Starship in a sufficiently high orbit to come back and reuse them later? Bring up fuel, air and food, and then send them off to the Moon, or use them as the basis for an orbital facility or whatever?

Or would the main part end up de-orbiting anyway?

Belushi TD

Nightwatch2 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 20, 2025 2:58 pm
An outstanding point! Most of the problems so far have been during re-entry. Setting aside;

Open the bay doors, Hal

A few launch failures

And now a tank failure below its designed pressure!
(Shades of Apollo 13)

It’s worth noting that this last failure would more than likely have been non-survival despite any kind of emergency escape system, including in orbit.

So instead of bringing the whole kit and kaboodle back perhaps just a small re-entry vehicle and design the Starship to remain in space. I think you’re on to something here and a path that maybe SpaceX should be looking at.

After all, so far the program has produced single use vehicles

SpaceX wants Starship to be a fully and rapidly reusable launch system. They want to get as close as possible to airliner style operations. For example SpaceX wants Starship to carry full V3 Starlink sats into orbit 60 at a time. These sats would have antennas with a 60 meter wingspan when fully deployed and would enable Starlink sats to fully support Direct to SAT Voice communication with a normal cell phone. They need the Starship upper stage to be able to come back to Earth and then be turned around for re-use in order to support these types of commercial operations.

Belushi TD wrote: ↑Fri Jun 20, 2025 3:15 pm Is it possible to leave the main part of Starship in a sufficiently high orbit to come back and reuse them later? Bring up fuel, air and food, and then send them off to the Moon, or use them as the basis for an orbital facility or whatever?

Or would the main part end up de-orbiting anyway?

Belushi TD

In theory yes. SpaceX at some point wants to create a refueling station in orbit. A Starship upper stage not designed to come back to Earth and optimized for propellant storage. The proposed lunar lander for Artemis will also not be capable of landing back on Earth.

brovane wrote: ↑Fri Jun 20, 2025 4:17 pm

Nightwatch2 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 20, 2025 2:58 pm
An outstanding point! Most of the problems so far have been during re-entry. Setting aside;

Open the bay doors, Hal

A few launch failures

And now a tank failure below its designed pressure!
(Shades of Apollo 13)

It’s worth noting that this last failure would more than likely have been non-survival despite any kind of emergency escape system, including in orbit.

So instead of bringing the whole kit and kaboodle back perhaps just a small re-entry vehicle and design the Starship to remain in space. I think you’re on to something here and a path that maybe SpaceX should be looking at.

After all, so far the program has produced single use vehicles

SpaceX wants Starship to be a fully and rapidly reusable launch system. They want to get as close as possible to airliner style operations. For example SpaceX wants Starship to carry full V3 Starlink sats into orbit 60 at a time. These sats would have antennas with a 60 meter wingspan when fully deployed and would enable Starlink sats to fully support Direct to SAT Voice communication with a normal cell phone. They need the Starship upper stage to be able to come back to Earth and then be turned around for re-use in order to support these types of commercial operations.

Belushi TD wrote: ↑Fri Jun 20, 2025 3:15 pm Is it possible to leave the main part of Starship in a sufficiently high orbit to come back and reuse them later? Bring up fuel, air and food, and then send them off to the Moon, or use them as the basis for an orbital facility or whatever?

Or would the main part end up de-orbiting anyway?

Belushi TD

In theory yes. SpaceX at some point wants to create a refueling station in orbit. A Starship upper stage not designed to come back to Earth and optimized for propellant storage. The proposed lunar lander for Artemis will also not be capable of landing back on Earth.

I know what they want and it’s an absolutely awesome vision.

I’m just wondering if it’s achievable at present.

That “little scratch” was pretty devastating

Nightwatch2 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 20, 2025 5:00 pm I know what they want and it’s an absolutely awesome vision.

I’m just wondering if it’s achievable at present.

That “little scratch” was pretty devastating

This is the exact reason that SpaceX isn't a publicly traded company. Musk could have made literal metric tons of 100-dollar bills if he had taken SpaceX public sometime after Falcon 9 was fully up and running. However, that would mean giving up SpaceX's fail-fast learn learn-fast methodology because of how volatile the stock market is. SpaceX knows that each time they start a completely new design, they are going to have at least 2-4 major malfunctions before getting to a stable design. Engineers and design work are much more expensive than the actual hardware.

This is the primary reason United Launch Alliance and other rocket companies haven't been able to copy SpaceX's methods. If they have several public failures in a row Boeing and Lockheed's stock is going to tumble. (Two of the companies that make up the ULA.)

Nightwatch2 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 20, 2025 5:00 pm

I know what they want and it’s an absolutely awesome vision.

I’m just wondering if it’s achievable at present.

That “little scratch” was pretty devastating

I think V1 of the Starship Upper stage is pointing the way that it full reusability is achievable. They got a V1 upper stage back down intact to land in the Indian Ocean at a precise point. However V2 was supposed to be a more optimized upper stage that allowed you to actually deliver usable amount of mass to Orbit (50,000kg) and be reusable. However those optimizations have obviously lead them into a bit of a engineering nightmare with a lot of teething issues and a lot of schedule pressure. From what I understand this schedule pressure has forced them to implement "temporary fixes" on the V2 upper stage when you should probably spend 6-months redesigning the upper stage and pause launched and building new upper stages. So you have pressure from leadership (Musk) to implement quick fixes and keep launching. You then incorporate all those learnings into the V3 Upper stage of Starship. In addition the team that is working on re-entry and heat shield for Starship has a lack of data because the last several launches have put them in a position that they never got to the point of a controlled re-entry to test heat shield materials and changes. In addition SpaceX doesn't have a test stand that allows full duration static fires for either the upper stage or the Super Heavy booster so the teams designing Starship have limited data unless they do a full launch.

Is full reusability achievable for a LV, yes. However because the launch vehicle is so big (Starship is enormous) that every time you have a failure it makes a big mess. Musk is willing to keep pushing because he thinks it is worth it and he has a schedule that he wants to keep. I worry at some point that people are going to get tired of the messes that Starship failures cause.

I think that you're being excessivly pessimistic. Precicely the same reasons he's been able to absorb significant failures is the same reasons he's able to continue to absorbe significant failures.

Musk is, effectively, in the same era as the heydey of NASA when a rocket failure was met with 'What went wrong? and "How do we fix it?"

He also owns the company, so until he looses his guts, he's going to be able to keep running it the same way. For all of the critisisms of SpaceX amd their "eat them up" workstyle, they're DOING things. And nothing succeds like success. For as long as he's successful, he'll have an endless supply of engineers who are willing to spend 80+ hours a week working just so they can say "I worked for SpaceX and did *THIS*" on their resume.

He very much brings to mind the image of Heinlein's Delos D. Harriman.

Belushi TD

Flight Test-10 SpaceX nailed all objectives.

Test Deployment of Satellites, Engine Re-light and then landing in the Indian Ocean on target. Starship got a little toasty on the way down but SpaceX was testing how much they could push the vehicle. Super Heavy booster was landed in the Gulf of America because there testing new entry angles and they also tested a engine fail during landing.

We are going to make it to mars...really shouldn't matter to me but it does. I want to see that in my life so bad.

When I was laid off from JSC in 2012, I had expected NASA would have people back in orbit within no longer than five years, seven on the outside.

Until SpaceX came long, I was wondering if the US would ever put people into orbit on a US vehicle. Now I'm wondering if China or SpaceX will get to Mars first. I think NASA has FUBAR it's ability to do anything.

jemhouston wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 2:00 am When I was laid off from JSC in 2012, I had expected NASA would have people back in orbit within no longer than five years, seven on the outside.

Until SpaceX came long, I was wondering if the US would ever put people into orbit on a US vehicle. Now I'm wondering if China or SpaceX will get to Mars first. I think NASA has FUBAR it's ability to do anything.

Congress has FUBAR NASA's ability to do anything. Trump dumping Jared hasn't helped. The only bright spot is that NASA was able to get it's way with the Human Lander Selection and get two companies competing under firm fixed price contracts. There is a lot of bright people at NASA. I don't think SpaceX would even be here if it wasn't for NASA people pushing for COTS and getting SpaceX that first commercial Cargo contract. SpaceX had to earn that contract but NASA employees got the COTS program started when Congress hated it.

brovane wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 2:41 am

jemhouston wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 2:00 am When I was laid off from JSC in 2012, I had expected NASA would have people back in orbit within no longer than five years, seven on the outside.

Until SpaceX came long, I was wondering if the US would ever put people into orbit on a US vehicle. Now I'm wondering if China or SpaceX will get to Mars first. I think NASA has FUBAR it's ability to do anything.

Congress has FUBAR NASA's ability to do anything. Trump dumping Jared hasn't helped. The only bright spot is that NASA was able to get it's way with the Human Lander Selection and get two companies competing under firm fixed price contracts. There is a lot of bright people at NASA. I don't think SpaceX would even be here if it wasn't for NASA people pushing for COTS and getting SpaceX that first commercial Cargo contract. SpaceX had to earn that contract but NASA employees got the COTS program started when Congress hated it.

Congress has done a lot but NASA has FUBAR a lot of it themselves too. Like projects blowing through the budgets, Webb is a prime example but the Mars Sample Return is a contender too. When NASA says the plan is FUBAR you know its bad.

Rocket J Squrriel wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 3:40 am

brovane wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 2:41 am

jemhouston wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 2:00 am When I was laid off from JSC in 2012, I had expected NASA would have people back in orbit within no longer than five years, seven on the outside.

Until SpaceX came long, I was wondering if the US would ever put people into orbit on a US vehicle. Now I'm wondering if China or SpaceX will get to Mars first. I think NASA has FUBAR it's ability to do anything.

Congress has FUBAR NASA's ability to do anything. Trump dumping Jared hasn't helped. The only bright spot is that NASA was able to get it's way with the Human Lander Selection and get two companies competing under firm fixed price contracts. There is a lot of bright people at NASA. I don't think SpaceX would even be here if it wasn't for NASA people pushing for COTS and getting SpaceX that first commercial Cargo contract. SpaceX had to earn that contract but NASA employees got the COTS program started when Congress hated it.

Congress has done a lot but NASA has FUBAR a lot of it themselves too. Like projects blowing through the budgets, Webb is a prime example but the Mars Sample Return is a contender too. When NASA says the plan is FUBAR you know its bad.

The prime contractor for JWST is Northrup Grumman not NASA. Cost Plus contracts are the problem. The contractor gets paid more that more money that needs to be spent, which incentivizes the wrong things. However keep in mind, JWST was a one of a kind bespoke space telescope so probably budget over-runs are inevitable.

brovane wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 1:04 pm

Rocket J Squrriel wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 3:40 am

brovane wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 2:41 am

Congress has FUBAR NASA's ability to do anything. Trump dumping Jared hasn't helped. The only bright spot is that NASA was able to get it's way with the Human Lander Selection and get two companies competing under firm fixed price contracts. There is a lot of bright people at NASA. I don't think SpaceX would even be here if it wasn't for NASA people pushing for COTS and getting SpaceX that first commercial Cargo contract. SpaceX had to earn that contract but NASA employees got the COTS program started when Congress hated it.

Congress has done a lot but NASA has FUBAR a lot of it themselves too. Like projects blowing through the budgets, Webb is a prime example but the Mars Sample Return is a contender too. When NASA says the plan is FUBAR you know its bad.

The prime contractor for JWST is Northrup Grumman not NASA. Cost Plus contracts are the problem. The contractor gets paid more that more money that needs to be spent, which incentivizes the wrong things. However keep in mind, JWST was a one of a kind bespoke space telescope so probably budget over-runs are inevitable.

While cost plus contract is one of the problems the issues go deeper than that. The big aerospace corporations are spread out all over the country so that if their contract is canceled jobs are lost in multiple districts which then makes congress get involved to reinstate it even if the project is obsolete even before being built. The culture of a single failure during testing, meaning the canceling of the project, means they spend years in between tests. This is incredibly expensive.

Don't get me wrong. Cost plus contracts are an abortion. I have a friend who worked in the only company authorized to make some of the parts that go into nuclear submarine reactors. He is in the middle of a management chain where 1 Manager manages only a single person who than manages a single person under him who manages a single person under him who manages a single person, who than manages a small team. A small team where they have laid of so many workers with experience that fires are not uncommon when they have to make small changes in production because they have fired everyone who knows how the automation machines actually work.

They do this because managers can charge the government more than per time spent on a project than line workers.

Calder wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 6:57 pm

brovane wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 1:04 pm

Rocket J Squrriel wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 3:40 am

Congress has done a lot but NASA has FUBAR a lot of it themselves too. Like projects blowing through the budgets, Webb is a prime example but the Mars Sample Return is a contender too. When NASA says the plan is FUBAR you know its bad.

The prime contractor for JWST is Northrup Grumman not NASA. Cost Plus contracts are the problem. The contractor gets paid more that more money that needs to be spent, which incentivizes the wrong things. However keep in mind, JWST was a one of a kind bespoke space telescope so probably budget over-runs are inevitable.

While cost plus contract is one of the problems the issues go deeper than that. The big aerospace corporations are spread out all over the country so that if their contract is canceled jobs are lost in multiple districts which then makes congress get involved to reinstate it even if the project is obsolete even before being built. The culture of a single failure during testing, meaning the canceling of the project, means they spend years in between tests. This is incredibly expensive.

Don't get me wrong. Cost plus contracts are an abortion. I have a friend who worked in the only company authorized to make some of the parts that go into nuclear submarine reactors. He is in the middle of a management chain where 1 Manager manages only a single person who than manages a single person under him who manages a single person under him who manages a single person, who than manages a small team. A small team where they have laid of so many workers with experience that fires are not uncommon when they have to make small changes in production because they have fired everyone who knows how the automation machines actually work.

They do this because managers can charge the government more than per time spent on a project than line workers.

Wouldn't that lead us back to Congress as the biggest problem and not NASA?

Just watched the Flight 11 test launch from yesterday, the last block 2 Starship.

i think this has been the most successful test so far. every engine worked, the dummy sats deployed without a hitch, no anomalous engine bay explosion, no significant burnthrough on the flaps, powered into a soft splashdown next to the camera buoy.