Weekly explosions on a test pad? No. None of the integrated tests have exploded on the pad. (Edit: like this one, which did)
The last starship on the pad was mid March. It made it up, but fell apart during reentry. Before that, IFT 2 was in Nov 23, and the exploded 8 min up. IFT 1 was over a year ago, and that only made it 4 min after lift off.
Like you say, nobody is making this explosion out to be a deadly emergency but it also probably doesn’t inspire confidence when the company fails so much more often than it succeeds. Starship engines have been “unexpectedly” exploding for years.
I don’t think exploding was part of the test. I don’t think being investigated by the FAA in 2020 for failure to listen to warnings about unintended shockwave damage was part of their tests. I don’t think losing an entire rocket to a booster explosion last year was part of the test.
I think their tests are throwing things at the stainless steel wall and hoping it sticks.
This is dumb. SpaceX is launching over a hundred times per year. PER YEAR. Dear Moon was always a long term goal for anyone in the science community they understood it will never happen before 2030. The large launch quantity has helped reduce launch costs and has enabled small sat launches aka cubesats. Universities can now launch things to space because the launch costs are so low. So your statement that it hasn’t helped anyone is patently false. You just have a raging boner against SpaceX, but you are incredibly uninformed. You can either continue in your delusion or see that SpaceX is actually good for the industry, universities, knowledge, and technology over all. That is all. Have a good life, or continue being a miserable hater. Whatever
Telling how you only focus on the few experimental failures vs the hundreds of successes. Just admit you’re a hater based not on logic but just hate. You have no other argument. Loser
No, it was a test stand at the McGregor rocket testing facility, it wasn’t even at Boca chica (the place where all the finished rockets are launched from). This is not a big deal and won’t affect their schedule at all.
I don’t know how frequent it is, but the important point is the attitude that test failures can be ok. I don’t know if this one is, but yes there’s a pattern ….
Instead of being so risk averse that you take years and billions extra doing your best to create one of a kind hardware trying be perfect (NASA/Boeing), SpaceX builds many copies, iterate, test frequently, learn from failures. This approach seemed to have worked extremely well for previous rockets, so I’m still cheering them on.
Even just consider this test - the fact that they’re trying to build a rocket engine every week with the goal of automating the process well enough to have high confidence in them, can test it without the rocket, can build a rocket and attach engines later, can use a rocket and replace a failed engine. If this modular approach comes together this is huge!
…what? SpaceX is years behind schedule for delivering crewed space flight to NASA. US tax payers have had to cough up billions of dollars for seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to at least be able to get to space somehow in the meantime.
Iterating and failing is okay, but SpaceX has neither been faster nor cheaper in doing so than NASA’s original moon landing program.
SpaceX is years behind schedule for delivering crewed space flight to NASA
You are a few years behind the times yourself. SpaceX first flew crew to the ISS in 2020, and have flown 8 more crewed missions for NASA since then, as well as a few private missions.
Boeing (the other commercial crew contractor) has yet to fly a single human :)
Thanks! I don’t really see anything about this patient’s miraculous recovery in the paper, though.
I haven’t read the entire paper, so I could be being bone-headed enough. It’s good to see some acknowledgement of their work to help support the claims.
If I understood this correctly, we had good data from other studies supporting that this method (probably) works, it’s the actually doing it that is the challenge. And of course one study is just one study.
I’m glad such progress is being made, although I don’t see an actual verifiable report of the impressive claims for this patient. The linked paper doesn’t discuss the report, and no other references to this patient appear to exist from the article.
I’ve read too many truly impressive reports from Chinese researchers this year that I feel extra need to take such reports with a grain of salt. If I had a dollar for every claim that we’ve just made a major advancement in battery technology that will replace lithium-ion from a Chinese university…
At a greater cost than every starship built to date combined…
Congrats?
I expect they’ll be able to launch 2, perhaps even 3 more Artemis rockets before the program is cancelled and the rocket architecture abandoned due to unreasonable cost.
Where’s your evidence proving exactly how much Starship has cost in total? Or wait, maybe you are just making bullshit up because you have no idea how much it has actually cost them because they don’t disclose that information like NASA does.
SpaceX can likely build and launch a fully expendable version of Starship for about $100 million. Most of that money is in the booster, with its 33 engines. So once Super Heavy becomes reusable, you can probably cut manufacturing costs down to about $30 million per launch.
This means that, within a year or so, SpaceX will have a rocket that costs about $30 million and lifts 100 to 150 metric tons to low-Earth orbit.
Bluntly, this is absurd.
For fun, we could compare that to some existing rockets. NASA’s Space Launch System, for example, can lift up to 95 tons to low-Earth orbit. That’s nearly as much as Starship. But it costs $2.2 billion per launch, plus additional ground systems fees. So it’s almost a factor of 100 times more expensive for less throw weight. Also, the SLS rocket can fly once per year at most.
The starship is built out in the open, the whole world can watch. Because of that, there are pretty good estimates for how much construction costs. If you take the more pessimistic estimates, my statement would still hold true.
Also, as a reminder, even without knowing exact numbers you can still make some ballpark assertions with confidence. For example, Jupiter has the mass of more than a dozens earths. I could look up the actual number, but I can be pretty damn sure it’s more than twelve.
Different philosophy. Play it safe and analyze everything extensively to make sure you don’t have a PR nightmare. That leads to less aggressive designs and longer schedules, but looks better for the public and Congress.
And they don’t even have a goal of more than one launch a year and billions of dollars per launch. Artemis is the same old flag waving BS: do it once to say you’re first, then lose interest.
Starship’s goals of reusability, frequent launches, order of magnitude cost reductions can be the foundation of the next jump in space industry/exploration
It’s a thorium based subcritical reactor. India tried to make something similar, but with some amount of plutonium to start this thing and to not include accelerator. The problem is that accelerator required is large and expensive, and needs to use up some fraction of power produced. As of waste, no heavy actinides are produced, and spiciest fission products have half-life of about 30 years, in particular there’s no plutonium or americium made with half life of 80 ish years and 430ish years respectively. This makes radioactivity drop in 100s of years instead of thousands. These problems can be solved in other ways, for example by using fast breeder reactors, but these are hard to make. So will be massive accelerator required, so i’m not holding my breath
freshly burned fuel is kept at nuclear powerplant spent fuel pool for months to years anyway precisely for this reason. heavy actinides have longer halflifes anyway
I’m confident enough in that to put my money where my mouth is.
SpaceX has been very transparent about their testing procedures and it is established that testing locations are always evacuated for any kind of test, as is required by the FAA. If you really wanna cast doubt on this, then why don’t we put some money on it?
oh aren’t you a treat. For a second I almost had you mistaken for one the few Moskal typewriter monkeys who remembered to bring a joke book, but now I’m beginning to worry that you’re own of my those fellow constituents of ours who’s succumbed to the brain rot.
At least we won’t have to worry about you voting for a few more years, judging by the way you act kiddo. Or perhaps you are old enough, but the polling place is too sus for your precious intellect.
Word of advice though, if you’d want any hopes of being employable or perhaps even making IRL friends, ditch whatever this is you think you’re doing with your attitude, it just ain’t working in your favor. While you’re at it, might also help to learn the definition of the word “untenable”-- if you need a visual example, any mirror should do the trick.
Anyway, maybe put down the smartphone and walk a natural trail or visit the library bud. Based on your comments, you owe it to yourself badly. I mean, if you fancy yourself a socialist then why aren’t you taking advantage of the freely available public recreational services that our tax dollars fund to live a better life? Everyone else is, and it makes dealing with this late stage capitalist hellscape just a bit more tolerable.
As countries look for ways to move away from fossil fuels, nuclear fission technology is poised for a comeback. At COP28 last year, 20 nations decided to triple their nuclear energy capacity in the next 25 years but plans for long-term storage of spent fuel have yet to be drawn up.
Where the alchemists failed, former scientists from CERN have been able to succeed. Using a particle accelerator, the researchers propose using a slightly radioactive element such as thorium and transmuting it into an isotope of uranium.
The technology is the brainchild of Carlo Rubbia, the former director-general of the physics laboratory at CERN.
While Rubbia might have had access to a particle accelerator at his old workplace, nuclear energy plants do not have the same luxuries. Building a particle accelerator near each plant can be quite expensive, considering that CERN spent nearly US$5 billion to deliver the Large Hadron Collider.
The other challenge is the opposition to nuclear technology itself. Interesting Engineering has previously reported how Germany phased off its nuclear power plants. Switzerland, too, has similar plans for its four existing nuclear power production facilities.
According to the Swiss national body, Transmutex’s technology could help reduce the volume of nuclear waste generated by 80 percent and reduce the time it remains radioactive to less than 500 years. More importantly, the technology could also be applied to 99 percent of existing nuclear waste.
Edit: added info below
Links in article:
Finland builds a facility to store nuclear waste for 100,000 years [Ameya Paleja | Jun 01 22 | Interesting Engineering]
Bruh its a TEST STAND TEST STAND this is not the Frist time a engine exploded on a test stand raptor engines in their development phase are supposed to explode. Elon musk has said if something doesn’t explode then you did something wrong
A few years ago (already) I would have been sad and shocked. Now I don’t give a shit about SpaceTwitter. That douchebag managed to kill all the interest I had for space exploration, a topic I was passionate about for most of my life. He really is that kind of killjoy.
Why would you let that ruin all of space exploration for you? He’s a dick. I don’t give a crap about his company. But exploring the solar system is still absolutely amazing.
SpaceX is still making tremendous progress compared to NASA. I’m as annoyed with Musk as everyone else, but it’s looking like they’re the biggest hope we have right now of actually making progress with space exploration.
But are they really making progress? NASA has pured billions into SpaceX, are they really getting what they were promised? AFAIK the answer to that is No-No-No and No, because they are so far behind, and haven’t met any requirements for what SpaceX was supposed to do for the NASA manned moon mission Artemis.
SpaceX launched the biggest rocket every to be launched in history, three times at this point, and you're questioning whether they're "making progress?"
As I said, you've prioritized hating Elon Musk over everything else.
This is focused more on NASA’s problems with the Artemis program, but I highly recommend reading this article.
Basically the whole Artemis mission plan is riddled with issues, and SpaceX and Blue Origin are required to have major breakthroughs in space refueling tech for their required roles to even be possible. With how many different issues the project has, it looks like the only good thing we may get out of the project is these breakthroughs (if they happen).
If you think he’s a liar and a con man, then why even bring up his promises? They’re obviously false. SpaceX has done great work despite who their current CEO is.
He was saying several years ago that he would be start building a Mars base in 2022 and have manned missions in 2024 which are both basically no closer today than they were then, that was a lie.
He said he would build hyperloops that would be cheap fast efficient across the country, that was a lie, that we now know was to stop building public transport.
He said in 2016 that full self driving that was safer than a person driving would be ready in 2017, and that was something they could do TODAY (in 2016). He repeated that lie in 2019, even claiming people could make up to $200000 per year if they bought a Tesla, because they could drive as autonomous taxi’s beginning 2020. He claimed buying anything other than a Tesla would be stupid, because Tesla cars were the only ones that could do that. Except they couldn’t and they still can’t.
There is a very clear picture that Elon Musk is lying through his teeth, and he cons people into investing in and buying his products under false pretenses.
Okay? I thought we already established that he’s a liar. You really sound like a fan of the guy since you follow his every word, but none of this detracts from the accomplishments of the engineers working at these companies.
Maybe he lost interest because of all the bullshit Elon Musk promised that came to NOTHING, remember a few years back he promised there would be manned missions to Mars now… NOW!!! MANNED MISSIONS!!! They were supposed to be well along building a base on Mars that should have started 2 years ago!!
Reality may seem kind of dull compared to the fantasies Musk promised.
Personally I never believed Musk for a second, and I thought Neil Tyson was a blabbering idiot for parroting him. But many fell for it, and my wife thought I was “negative” for not believing and agreeing with them!
But things like the James Webb telescope are 100% cool.
Well, before SpaceX I looked at the space exploration program as a science enthusiast. The missions were rare but important for science. Then this dude came out of nowhere, saying he was about to save the Earth with electric cars and build a station on Mars. And for a moment it really worked. I genuinely thought he was a good billionaire. Then he completely loose his mind, start talking and acting like the worse moron of the universe, and I started studying his statements without the shiny distorting layer. He’s so full of shit it makes me sick. Most of the things he says is nonsense.
So I can’t tell why my brain works that way, but it does. Today I’m more exited by new ways to produce renewable energies on Earth than I am about rockets. That joy I felt for any SpaceX news slipped away.
My comment was just the realization of that. That was weird to be honest, but true.
Wow talk about blaming someone else for your waning interest. If you were really into space exploration, you wouldn’t let one person come in the way. A person who doesn’t even know you. Or you don’t know either technically. I’m no Elon shill and I dislike him like everyone else. But I’ll be damned if I lose interest in space just because of him. Even if the whole world was a douchebag, I’d still get out telescoping equipment and gaze at the skies. And oh by the way, if not for SpaceX do it for NASA who were there way before anyone else. Do it for your ancestors who looked at the sky in amazement every night.
I could probably say the same about AI and crypto and mega yachts sure
But healthcare, housing, education, childcare, sustainable green energy, sustainable food production… All of them seem way more important than sending more junk into orbit.
I mean you could say the same thing about the whole entertainment industry, or the whole tech industry, or basically anything else that isn’t directly necessary for human survival.
All of them seem way more important than sending more junk into orbit.
Do you know what actually goes into orbit? Mostly 4 categories: communication satellites (both commercial and governmental), scientific monitoring, ISS support, and military satellites. Every satellite we send into space has a purpose. Without satellites, we don’t get: widespread aerial imagery, accurate weather forecasting, GPS, widespread ecological data, etc.
I ordered my horse out of the stable. The servant didn’t understand me. I went into the stable myself, saddled my horse and mounted it. I heard a trumpet blowing in the distance and asked him what it meant. He knew nothing and had heard nothing. He stopped me at the gate and asked: “Where is the Lord riding to?” “I don’t know,” I said, “just away from here, just away from here. Always away from here, that’s the only way I can reach my destination.” “So you know your destination,” he asked. “Yes,” I replied, “I told you: ‘Away from here’ - that’s my goal.”
Oh my God my wife bought this bean bag once. It was a photography thing so it had to be absolutely packed full. So the skin came folded up in this tiny little plastic bag and then it came with three giant bags of styrofoam balls.
If you stuck your hand in the back and pulled it out it would just be coated. I spent hours just trying to scoop them into the bean bag.
When I got to the second bag to fill I found a long narrow box and taped it up to the side of the bean bag slice the bean bag open and used it to pour them through.
The whole experience was awful. And the cleanup took nearly as long as the fill.
I completely concur, I have been consistent with my profit regardless of the market conditions, I got into the market early 2019 and the constant downtrends and losses discouraged me so I sold off, got back in Dec 2020 this time with guidance from an investment adviser that was recommended by a popular economist on a popular forum, long story short, its been years now and l’ve gained over $850k following guidance from my investment adviser. A referral for good trading, check out VERONICA TOLAN ON FACEBOOK, They have a user-friendly platform and offer a wide range of trading options. WhatsApp her directly; +44 7465283150
interestingengineering.com
Active