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March 2021

jimbo0117

Getting closer! ?

March 2021

Arthur_Foyt

A fiery ball of flames an complete loss of the vehicle at a precise point on the planet is only “near perfect” if we were talking about an ICBM. Since this ai about manned space flight then this is called a disaster.

3 replies
March 2021 ▶ Arthur_Foyt

system

No it isn’t. But it thrills the anti-Musk and anti-SpaceX crowd like yourself.

2 replies
March 2021 ▶ system

Arthur_Foyt

I was pointing out that this was as “near perfect” as the Kenosha riots were “mostly peaceful”. Captions no longer match the pictures.

2 replies
March 2021 ▶ Arthur_Foyt

system

Nope.

1 reply
March 2021 ▶ system

Arthur_Foyt

Don’t care what you say or believe; it blew up.

March 2021

John_PS1

Near perfect?
Three of the six landing legs flopped around during descent, it bounced hard on landing and stood like the tower of Pisa with flames at the bottom.
Then.
BOOOM…
If thats near perfect for the Musk fans…

3 replies
March 2021

system

Do not return to fireworks once lit…

March 2021 ▶ system

Keith_Sketchley

Huh?

‘Near’ doesn’t count.
As in ‘near the runway’ on contact with earth, and ‘nearly cleared the mountain’ as with most CFIT accidents. Both usually fatal.

Tweaking software at the last minute is experimentation/prototype work, not for flight near other people nor with people on board.

1 reply
March 2021

system

What’s being missed here… especially by this community… is really more interesting than the landing difficulties. All three of these flights have successfully demonstrated using areo surfaces to glide this massive booster back to a precise spot on the surface. That was the major unknown for Spacex in this test program.
They will get the landing issue sorted. No aerospace on the planet has more experience in landing orbital boosters… in fact they are the only company doing so. The Falcon series has over 70 landings and are flying reused boosters more than new. The Starship is a different beast, but they’ll get it. They crashed a bunch of Falcons perfecting those systems.

1 reply
March 2021

cdrkit1

Had it landed on the failed landing legs and “not” exploded, would it have been referred to as a “near disastrous” landing? How many times have we heard sports announcers say the gymnast or figure skater nearly “stuck” the landing? It’s no different here. SN10 nearly “stuck” the landing. I’d give it an 8.5 out of 10! Previous landings were in the 6.5-7.0 range.

1 reply
March 2021 ▶ John_PS1

system

While we sit, lamenting of the passing of lighted airways, four-course radio ranges, loran; and bemoan the use of GPS and heaven forbid, the dreaded iPad…

Meantime, Musk and his team are making regular trips, some manned, to the ISS. And in his spare time, perfecting spot landings with a vehicle with ever changing CG and the complexity the Wright brothers never dreamed of.

Let’s whip out the whiz wheel and slide rule and we’ll show him what aviating is all about.

March 2021

Richard_G

Looked like it hit Harding that ruptured the tank, or something… NASA had recoverable boosters that worked. Why not use that tech?

1 reply
March 2021

Richard_G

Looked like it hit hard during that landing and ruptured the tank, or something… NASA had recoverable boosters that worked. Why not use that tech?

March 2021 ▶ Arthur_Foyt

system

Shockingly, Arthur F. comes in without all of the information. Again.
We do believe that it blew up, BTW. But we know it was successful, as well. You can have both, ya know. (You don’t know, I know). You can be pro-troops, and anti-war. You can be pro-choice, and anti-abortion. You can be a curmudgeon seeing only trees, in a vast forest.

1 reply
March 2021 ▶ John_PS1

system

What’s the point of tossing out snarky comments about “Musk fans”? I’m not a fan of him personally but I can’t help but be excited about what SpaceX is doing. And I find it hilarious that these same comments were coming in when SpaceX was trying and mostly failing to land their Falcon 9 boosters. Now they’ve nailed it and it’s almost routine.

And apparently we’ve collectively forgotten that this is just how it’s done, as far back as the 60s when NASAs work to modify the Atlas rocket into a spacecraft booster resulted in numerous, often spectacular, launch failures. Those too were well-publicized by the media, giving the impression that our rockets always blew up during launch. I seem to recall that they successfully worked through it and did things like sending John Glen up into orbit.

March 2021 ▶ Richard_G

system

Richard… what NASA program are you referring? Shuttle? Only marginally reusable… tank was thrown away… SRB’s only saved the steel casings and main engines went through a complete rebuild each flight.
SpaceX’s Falcon is operationally reusable and has been for years now. They rarely loose a booster anymore. (@ in the last 30 or so recoveries). The Falcon mission last weekend used a booster already flown and recovered eight times. Now it will fly a ninth time.
NASA has historically thrown away every launch booster they operated. Redstone, Atlas, Titan, Saturn. Even their new perpetually developing SLS heavy lift system will be single use. Millions thrown into the Atlantic after each flight.

March 2021 ▶ system

system

“What’s being missed here… especially by this community… is really more interesting than the landing difficulties”. Actually jonmark this “community” is made up of more than a couple of regular Musk naysayers whose naysaying is not worth dignifying with replies. Most of us are not missing the fact that SpaceX is “hardware rich” (credit Paul B) and is using its hardware to gather priceless data and learning from it.

March 2021 ▶ Arthur_Foyt

system

Have to disagree with the initial post, I’m almost positive this wasn’t a manned spaceflight, so doubtful it constitutes a “disaster”. Sometimes during development and test things don’t go right, and I’m fairly certain that is why they do development & test rather than building a single final product and launching it cold with a full crew on board. But of course that’s just my opinion.

March 2021 ▶ Arthur_Foyt

maule

Obviously a failure to successfully land the craft. If the craft cannot be used again it is not a good landing.

On the other hand it did take off and fly without exploding, so that’s an improvement and I have to give them credit for having it at least impact its intended final resting place.

I do believe they will eventually succeed in landing and reusing the spacecraft, but I’m not sure I would trust their workmanship or work ethic to get me home safely if I were to fly in it.

It sounds like they tried a Tesla style ‘over the air update’ between launch attempts when they should have fixed something mechanical.

March 2021 ▶ system

maule

Being pro-troops IS being anti-war so you CAN be both.
Being pro-death IS NOT being pro-life so you CANNOT be both.

March 2021 ▶ Keith_Sketchley

maule

Looks like a Tesla-esq ‘OTA’ update/shortcut. Like when the Model 3 was panned by Consumer Reports for poor braking which was ‘fixed’ by an OTA which increased regenerative braking. Works for cars but not rockets it seems.

March 2021 ▶ John_PS1

maule

Musk fans are almost a cult. Granted a person can like what he does and not be in the cult, but in general they are easier to understand if taken in that context.

My distain for the man has more to do with what he has done to the auto industry with Tesla. Space-X offends me much less.

March 2021 ▶ cdrkit1

maule

The spacecraft was not reusable.

The landing gets a ‘0’

I give the flight itself a 9.