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Second SpaceX Starship launch ends with explosion. What happens next?
(www.nationalgeographic.com)
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this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
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They absolutely didn't invent reusable rockets.
They created reusable rockets. Lots and lots of concepts on the drawing board, but theirs was unique and the first one to get made.
The rocket boosters on the space shuttle were absolutely reused. Here's video of one being retrieved.
We can argue about semantics, but they were moreso rebuilt from the same parts than reused as is. NASA found that it would have been much cheaper to build new SRBs after each launch than rebuild them.
The SRBs used on the final shuttle mission were the same boosters used on the first mission. That set was used a total of 60 times. Only 2 sets of boosters were never recovered for re-use. The set from STS-4 had a parachute malfunction, and the set from the Challenger exploded.
Literally reused. What are you talking about.
SRB boosters are quite close to literally just a big steel tube, and they reused them by dropping them into the ocean under a parachute.
They still had to clean out and refurb every booster launched. And that was without the complex rocket engines that would get destroyed by being submerged in the ocean.
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Creating isn't inventing, and there's wasn't the first to be flown. Man, the SpaceX fans don't really know the history of the industry they make these claims about.
You referring to the DC-X subscale tech demonstrator?
I think inventing is a less well defined term, since anyone with a napkin can claim to invent something to a very low fidelity. The details are the hard part, not the idea itself. So that's why I specified created, since that is inventing to a very high level of fidelity.
There's several other examples. I also don't think inventing is an ill-defined term. That's an absurd thing to even say.
You mind telling what those other examples are, and defining in inventing?
I hope this is simple enough for you.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/invent
So it needs to be created in real life, rather than just a drawing or design? Or does creating it only as a design without building it count?
Also, all technology is built on previous work, especially rocketry. That would seem to eliminate the possibility of invention in rocketry due to the clause of your own ingenuity, etc. What's the cutoff for invention vs refinement?
Musk simps try soooo hard and it's hilarious.
I don't even like musk? And how does that have anything to do with SpaceX?
Sure repeating his lies well for someone pretending not to like him. Maybe have a few moments of critical thoughts about the marketing BS you believe and who created it?
Is it an elon lie that SpaceX has incredibly effective cheap reusability in their rockets? That seems pretty well established at this point.
It isn't well established, look how much NASA paid Russia for launch services, now look at SpaceX. Seriously. For pretending to be fans of this shit in general, it really is only the musk lies you people repeat.
5k/kg for Soyuz vs 2.5k/kg for SpaceX? I don't get your point. Or are you talking about the ride swaps with Russian and US Cosmonauts and Astronauts respectively to ride in each other's rockets to give dissimilar redundancy?
Ah yes, the dollars per kilo fallacy. A favorite of people that don't understand the industry but want to repeat the things Musk tells them to. Fantastic. We're already on page two of the script. Now, go ahead and tell me how SpaceX invented something that already existed for decades.
How would you propose measuring launch costs?
You could start off with actual mission costs, launch support costs, and what missions need to be met. For example, this is why Star Shit is such a moronic idea when Falcon could perform all its launch needs.
Are you about to tell me that a 747 is always cheaper than a Cessna? Is that the next argument in your script, or do we have to skip a couple pages before you bring that one out?
No, I was going to say that the launch support costs and mission needs are also more capable with falcon 9 than soyuz.
Starship is actually planned to be better on all those fronts than falcon 9. Cheaper per launch, less support costs, more capable and flexible system, etc. There might be some small use case where falcon 9 is still superior, but it will be pretty small if starship works.
I mean, I now know how little you know. Congratulations tipping your hand here, because truly these are the words of someone that's a fan of Musk and has zero serious thoughts about space. Jeff Bell would be beside himself reading what you've written. Back to the Zubrin books with you.
You mind enlightening me?
It's guaranteed nothing I could say would make you leave your religion of musk lies. So, I'll pass. Reality is available for you any time you want to try it out, though.
You've not actually said anything or given any evidence other than generally waving towards that Russia is cheaper, but have not clarified at all. If you know some secret sauce, I'd be happy to hear it. But you so far have stayed miles away from anything remotely close to solid evidence.
I'm guessing you work at a competitor as a parking lot attendant or something? Because saying Star Shit is going to be better than Falcon is utterly hysterical.
Nope. Anyway, evidence or references would be nice.
Who outside of TinTin comics has done a reusable rockets other than SpaceX?
I mean, just basic research would answer this for you. But I'll start you off with an easy one. The SRB on shuttle launches was reusable. Now go forth and look up rocket history.
Sure, fishing a burning bucket out of the ocean is the same as an actual rocket that lands by itself and just needs to be refueled.
If you tried just a little harder, he'll notice you.
It depends how you define your terms. The parts were disassembled, cleaned, inspected, and reassembled. That's not what most people think of as reusable, more like refurbishable. And anyway, they didn't save any cost or time doing that vs building new ones, hence why SLS is using them as single use.
It doesn't depend on how I define my terms. It was reused. You literally just fucking said it was reused. What you just described is the exact definition of what everyone considers reused. This is such a stupid conversation to have, and only the SpaceX sense are the ones that ever want to have it.
Also, because you don't seem to know anything about anything, what you described is exactly what SpaceX does. How the fuck did you get this so wrong?
SpaceX did all the inspections for a falcon 9 booster in 9 days. No way they did a full rebuild in that time.
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-falcon-9-new-booster-turnaround-record-21-days/
Yeeeah, so, you didn't read your own link I guess? Because it says, on a Tesla simp blog, that it was a refurbishment. Not an inspection.
Here's a nice write-up from NASA on what the SRB refurb process was. Feel free to read it.
https://llis.nasa.gov/lesson/836
Again, I'm not trying to say these words have a single defined meaning. I'm saying that SpaceX's reusable rockets are in a different category compared to SRBs. Call those reusable and refurbishable if you like, or call them anything else. I just use the reusable refurbishable terminology because that's what everyday astronaut uses.
Do you know the turn around time on an srb? I couldn't find it in your doc or in the wiki.
The only difference is propulsive landing. You're obviously attempting to backpedal here, and it's not working. SpaceX also refurbishes their units, you're just bullshitting at this point. It's painfully transparent.
NASA stopped refurbishing their SRBs because it costs more to do so. SpaceX is able to drastically lower it's launch costs because of the immense savings they can realize by a quick turnaround for reuse. That's the difference.
Russia has drastically lower launch costs than SpaceX. Justify it now.
Mind giving your source? I found 2.5k/kg for falcon 9 vs 5k/kg for soyuz. The shtil is as far as I can tell military surplus and is now retired, so it's costs aren't really reflective of long term usage.
https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2023/04/20/t-minus-6-seconds-starship-and-humanitys-next-major-step-into-space/
https://marspedia.org/Financial_effort_estimation
The shuttle SRB's were really only reusable in the same sense that the engine from a wrecked car can be removed, stripped to a bare block, bored out, rebuilt, and placed into a new car is reusable. Hard to say exactly how long it took to turn around SRB segments, but just the rail transport between Utah and Florida was 12 days each way. SpaceX has turned around Falcon 9 boosters in under a month.
And even with all of that, the most reused reusable segments barely flew a dozen times. There is one Falcon 9 first stage that has now flown 18 times.
You're not wrong about parts having been reused in the past but the scale of what has been done before really doesn't compare to what SpaceX does now.
Looks like you also need to review the publicly available NASA documentation for refurbishment.