What is happening to this site?
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Wasn’t able to see whole article because of paywall
Both my kids are darling angels.
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Elon might be getting around to admitting to himself 4/20 screwed SpaceX. [Edit: Oh, this seems to be about getting sued for his hiring practices. He must still be good with FAA, EPA, FWS, etc.] Nothing much new in @econophile’s Bloomberg article; it didn’t mention that the deluge water, which should be treated as industrial waste, isn’t being contained. Judging from Elon’s whining, the environmental regulators may not be willing to look the other way.
They did another static test today. They at least lit all the engines but two flamed out. The test lasted <3 seconds. That was “full duration”, meaning I guess that is what was planned this time, but the previous test was supposed to go longer and shut down early after 3 (4?) engines failed to ignite. This lack of reliablility seems not good. Some people are saying thrust was 50% of max today. No info on pad condition. Last I saw, launch is now expected no earlier than 9/8.
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A perfect example of how fucked the algorithm is now.
https://x.com/azimakhtar_/status/1694799750581612594?s=46&t=k3YA52U8SV6oodQANcy20g
You need to read the replies vs. the quote tweets.
The longer it takes to get the flame diverter in place and the more trouble they’re having with Raptor reliability, doesn’t the decision to launch on 4/20 look better and better? If they could have had a successful launch in May with a diverter installed, then OK maybe it’s a mistake to cut the corner, but if the long pole is Raptor, getting flight data in April rather than October seems like a big win, no?
I want to understand but I cannot
Non-black people like fried chicken, too.
The replies are all paid blue check slappies (99% not Black) saying how great it is and you have to scroll miles to see the first criticism of the stereotype.
The quote tweets (besides the weird rap beef bots) are literally ALL black people and allies saying “ this ain’t it, chief”
I guess if you don’t see the obvious racial stereotype in the ad campaign, it’s easy to write it off.
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If those were the only issues I’d say it was SpaceX’ call to make based on the information they had at the time. But Musk took additional, gratuitous, risks by not implementing a reasonable measure (flame diverter/deluge system or whatever) he knew was necessary. And why? Because he was in a hurry and/or he thought it would be funny.
If it happens that the timing works out that they solve the technical problems at about the same time the pad changes are complete and the regulators decide they’re cool with the changes and look the other way on the water and whatnot and approve a ~September launch, then Elon got away with his grandstanding with minimal consequences. This time.
But SpaceX should be looking ahead. And so should the regulators. And so should we. Everyone should understand that people are going to die on rockets. Eventually, people are going to die in space. When that happens, there are going to be investigations and delays that last years and somebody is going to get blamed. We know that because it’s happened before. People aren’t going to be quite so forgiving of Elon’s little jokes if one of them leads to that kind of disaster.
SpaceX isn’t an outsider anymore. They are the establishment now. They should grow the fuck up. The regulators should be brushing them back here. There shouldn’t have to be a lawsuit to make the FAA and SpaceX meet their responsibilities.
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Are you paid by Elon and/or Putin?
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You just know there’ll be a cyber truck model 42069.
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This is completely backwards. The point of testing is to uncover flaws before you put people on the rocket. Aggressive testing gives you a safer product. How do you reconcile the idea that SpaceX has an immature safety culture that needs to learn from the grownups with the fact that Falcon 9 has the longest streak of consecutive launch successes in history by a huge margin (>200 vs 100 for Delta II)? The whole point is that the aerospace establishment is bad at producing rockets, and that a fail-fast, iterative design process is superior.
He is actually unstoppable. I had no idea. Here is Ronan Farrow on how Elon controls half the satellites orbiting earth and is the key to the war in Ukraine.
This is completely backwards. The point of testing is to uncover flaws before you put people on the rocket. Aggressive testing gives you a safer product. How do you reconcile the idea that SpaceX has an immature safety culture that needs to learn from the grownups with the fact that Falcon 9 has the longest streak of consecutive launch successes in history by a huge margin (>200 vs 100 for Delta II)? The whole point is that the aerospace establishment is bad at producing rockets, and that a fail-fast, iterative design process is superior.
The point is that Elon is making bad decisions based on ego. I don’t know anything about SpaceX’ safety culture. I do know his idiotic demands and pronouncements can’t be helpful. Elon is a problem.
SpaceX has been successful but decades of development work was done before Elon came along. SpaceX’ scientists and engineers came from other companies. They didn’t invent risk-taking. They’re welcome to do all the aggressive testing they want until it starts affecting the rest of us. The regulators are supposed prevent that but they didn’t and I don’t know if they will now.
SpaceX’ development philosophy is fine. But it’s not unique to them, it’s no guarantee of success, and it’s not a pure strategy. You can only do so much testing. You can’t expect to fix all potential problems even if you know what they are. There is a limit to how good rockets can be. In practice, the whole life of a launch system is a test program, including the part where people risk their lives. I don’t want Elon involved.
SpaceX was at the point of going bankrupt on Falcon 1, it has been at risk more than once since then, and it continues to be. Like it or not, there is a lot of just plain luck involved in their success. Luck runs out. And Elon is pressing not just his luck, not just SpaceX’ luck, but ours too.
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You are making a lot out of an issue with a single launch that hasn’t even had its FAA accident report published. So far all that was found is that not using a deluge system caused a lot of sand to be blasted all over the place. And not using a deluge system was not even as dumb as everyone with 20/20 hindsight now claims. As for Elon giving hugely optimistic launch dates. That is nothing new either. Artemis gets its dates pushed all the time and is not even using new technology. ULA kept announcing Vulcan launches that never happen and is now delayed indefinitely. Elon is a problem these days but he got the right people together for SpaceX which is doing things the entire space industry at that time said was foolish and impossible. He deserves credit for that no matter what dumb shit he says and does these days.
This is so completely silly for anyone to say who remotely understands probability, confounding variables, barriers to entry, or life in general
Great man theory is a helluva drug
Not giving founders of companies credit for their ideas is just as delusional.