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this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
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Alright, let me clear something up.
This is literally rocket science. The process to put humans into space is literally done this way, for this exact reason. They had two key primary objectives for this launch:
The first stage separated entirely and gained plenty of distance before it did explode.
The second stage flew for several minutes before the automated emergency flight termination kicked in and destroyed it.
All of the data that they were recording will pinpoint the failures in the return of the first stage, and the destruction in the second stage. They would not have that data if they did not do this test and nothing went wrong.
Do they need data like last time with the launch pad? Where it was clear that it will desintegrate? Did that give them additional insights into how the engines react to debris doing back into them? Was that the goal all along?
Seriously, they are iterating, sure. But we already know they ignore known problems. So it is not like every explosion is necessary or helps in any way.
I'm not a rocket scientist, but I research complex systems. Failure is the best way to improve something, even if you know it's going to fail, you want to see how and what are the repercussions. I've done so many experiments that I knew were doomed, but I still have to do them just because I wanted to see how the system is would react.
Not a fan boy of Elon by the way, not trying to defend him or anything.
That was really non of that. It was predictable that and how it would fail. NASA etc. solved that issue decades ago. It also created new issues, like the (protected) water table being affected. All because he wanted a certain date and cheap out.
Primary objective was things not to explode, which they did. Everything else you just said was repeated PR. Yes, it was a success, they wanted to throw hundreds of millions for no reason. More to the point, second stage blew up in low earth orbit, which is within reach of satellites. So your so called success is yet to be proven. It's going to be weeks and months before we see the real effect of explosion propelled debris around the planet.
Primary objective was to get further than last time, which they absolutely did. Not only were all the engines reliable for their first burn, they tested a successful hot separation, in flight ignition, and effective flight termination system. All of this was on top of the achievements they made last time and allowed Starship to reach space for the first time, making it reach past the N1 in only two attempts.
It was a great success.
PS. No it did not explode in orbit. The actual rocket scientists did think about this you know. The flight plan featured a suborbital track, and it splashed down safely in the ocean somewhere along it's predicted path at most about an hour after launch.
Great success would be landing it. Exploding and ramming the rest of the wreckage in ocean is not a success, but I guess Musk fans will repeat everything verbatim. If someone drives a car through your house but jumps out just before it smashes. Them claiming it was a great success, initial goal was to get the car moving... hardly constitutes a success to you, does it?
You're either a malicious troll or completely uninformed. A landing sequence was never planned for this test nor the one before it. Even if they met all their stretch goals, both stages would have crashed into the ocean, just in a different location from what ended up happening. The goals haven't changed, you just assumed that they were something they were not.
People here are conflating progress with space flight with Elon musk. Like yeah Elon musk sucks, but frankly, progress in space flight is cool. It is a good thing that space x exists because it is on one of the frontiers of science.
As for this flight, like yeah of course it would be cool if they could just know that their designs would work on the first flight up, but that's not how science works. This was a test. They learned from the test. Next time they will improve and make more progress.
One day that progress will take us to Mars. That is cool not because musk wants to go to Mars - it is cool because humans going to Mars is freakin amazing and an incredible achievement.
Oooh, so those are called stretch goals now. Good to know. So anything you don't manage to do you just call stretch goals. Noted.