Can Fluther give me more details on Ellon Musk's SpaceX spaceship that blew up today or yesterday?
I believe that there were no astronauts.
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Unmanned.
From NYTIMES about 8 minutes ago:
SpaceX’s Starship rocket exploded on Thursday, minutes after lifting off from a launchpad in South Texas. The spacecraft, the most powerful ever to launch, failed to reach orbit, but it was not a total failure for the private spaceflight company.
Before the launch, Elon Musk, the company’s founder, had tamped down expectations, saying it might take several tries before Starship succeeds at this test flight, which was to reach speeds fast enough to enter orbit before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii.
But the launch achieved a number of important milestones, with the rocket flying for four minutes and getting well clear of the launchpad before it started to tumble, culminating in a high-altitude blast. The brief flight produced reams of data for engineers to understand how the vehicle performed.
@Forever_Free Did the ship have a nuclear reactor? Is there any worry about radioactivity from the wreckage?
Also was this spaceship the one with peoples cremated ashes?
There was no nuclear reactor. That would have been too hazardous in the event of a catastrophic failure on liftoff, re-entry, or otherwise.
I heard that 5 of the engines did not even ignite. And then the whole thing tumbled and exploded.
An embarassing joke, but the muskovite cultists are hailing this as a “success”.
Images showed several of the 33 main engines were not firing as the rocket climbed from the launch pad, reaching as high as 24 miles (39 kilometers). There was no immediate word from SpaceX on how many engines failed to ignite or shut down prematurely.
This was to be the inaugural launch of the first-stage booster with 33 methane-fueled engines.
“Fail fast, but learn faster” is supposedly their motto.
It’s a little too early to know exactly what happened. I watched the video & it looked like a normal liftoff & poof it disintegrated. It didn’t explode like the NASA flight back in the 80’s that killed the school teacher with the others. Times like this makes me glad that I’m not rich enough to pay to fly into outer space. I bet that there are fewer people now wanting to fly to Mars.
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I’m pretty sure everyone involved expected a high likelihood of this happening for the first test launch ever. They definitely wouldn’t put people, or a nuclear reactor onboard.
And there are people in such need all over the US. Billionaires at play.
@Forever_Free “And there are people in such need all over the US. Billionaires at play.”
I’ve never bought that argument because it can be used to justify all kinds of stupid shit. For example, we could close all art galleries to buy food for hungry people, or turn all state parks into private land to buy food for hungry people, or sell off all of the artifacts in the Smithsonian.
Without private space ventures, the US would be completely dependent on Russia for space travel and access to the International Space Station. This industry is growing and creating jobs, and the advancements in tech help make life better. Furthermore Science in-and-of-itself is a good and noble pursuit.
Yes, people are suffering, but there are many ways to address that such as reversing Reagan’s tax policies and taxing said billionaires.
@gorillapaws What has been done to do this considering we are talking about 40 years ago now.
@Forever_Free This is being done as the first steps to a Lunar colony and ultimately manned travel to Mars. That’s a big deal.
@Forever_Free I would argue that the progressive movement has been gaining steam and perhaps we may see things shift back in that direction (hopefully sooner than later). When you look at polls, taxing billionaires is overwhelmingly popular across Democrats, Republicans, Independents and 3rd party voters.
Their main goal was just to clear the tower with this launch. They did it.
Remember that by the Mollusk’s own timetable, “starship” was supposed to do unmanned Mars missions by last year, and manned ones by next year.
It has not even reached orbit. once.
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