Space X just blew up

originally posted by: stumason

originally posted by: jimmyx
there is an article below on that page that says "elon musk trying to reduce the cost of space launch"....uhmmm....maybe a little more money spent on it might be a good idea at this time.....failures don't exactly jive with cutting more costs...

This is their first failure in almost 20 launches - compared to many other State run programs, that's not bad.

originally posted by: IAMTAT
Heartbreaking.
Good thing we still can bum rides from the Russians.

Whose rockets blow up more often than not.....

Exactly. Thank you.
Even a privately owned and funded rocket enterprise is still more successful than all of Russia's attempts to do anything besides have the first man floating in space throughout all of history.

We need Elon to make SpaceX public, so people can invest, buy stock, help get them what they need. I sincerely believe that Musk is the guy who can get done what NASA has failed to do.

All NASA does is talk and waste money. They are interested in whatever missions are going to make big bucks and please their corporate sponsors.
Surely, no one believes otherwise?

There is a book y'all can read if you need proof of how much NASA gets off blowing tax payer's money on outrageous wastes of resources and personnel.

Check out The Mars Society by Robert Zubrin. He's the inside man who can illustrate the numbers and reference the examples for you.

I'm not saying Musk and SpaceX are good enough right now, to achieve anything more than feeding astronauts in the ISS (though they could be, and I want them to be); but I do know for certain that NASA are the last people who are interested in taking anyone besides whoever tugs their leash to other planets and beyond.

They still laugh when people suggest cheaper, practical ways to explore mars, with manned missions. They cackle at the audacity of off-planet colonization and asteroid/moon mining.

Elon Musk furrows his brow and gets back to business trying to find a way to make it happen.

originally posted by: DEIKOBOL
Even a privately owned and funded rocket enterprise is still more successful than all of Russia's attempts to do anything besides have the first man floating in space throughout all of history.

You mean stuff like constructing the first proper space station (Mir), building their half of the International Space Station, and having the longest-running and very reliable orbit-delivery program (Soyuz)? Yeah, those Russians can't do $hit.

Let's see a privately owned and funded rocket enterprise launch rockets for a few decades, and then we can talk.

a reply to: wildespace

NASA has been useful, in the past. No one with any sense would argue that. I'm always happy to geek out about their past accomplishments... I just feel that the future is going to rely on private companies, and that the glory days of NASA are long past.

But I'll take whatever I can get. I just want someone who can actually achieve something aspire to more than just taking cutesy selfies on the ISS or fiddling about with robots.

a reply to: DEIKOBOL

I admit there's a certain charm to independent, commercial manned spaceflight. This seems like something out of a sci-fi novel or movie, a future we're all aspiring to.

On the other hand, government-run space agencies have decades of research and technology behind them, as well as the public funding. And in rocket science, it takes all that you can give to plan and execute space missions, especially if they be manned ones.

We're still waiting for a commercial manned orbital flight, even if it's just for a couple of orbits. The safety considerations are huge, and, unlike in the 60s, it's not enough to stick a person at the top of a rocket and hope for the best.

I'd like to be optimistic, but I fear that commercial launches will produce a lot more failures than the government ones, and it will take a lot to trust a commercial organisation to launch people into space.

a reply to: wildespace

In terms of successful launches, the Commercial firms have a high success rate - I've not done the maths, but at a glance it seems to be at least on par with the most successful Government backed launches and certainly better than many.

As I said earlier in the thread, this is SpaceX's first failure in 20 - better than the Russians - and ArianeSpace (yes, it's a private firm, not Government backed) has been successfully launching rockets for close to 30 years, becoming a world leader in heavy lift rockets and the go to people for chucking large lumps of crap in to geo-synch orbit.

As for manned launches, there is no money in it, at the moment at least. So why would they do it? Unlike Government programmes, there is little interest in prestige, only profit.

As for manned launches, there is no money in it, at the moment at least. So why would they do it? Unlike Government programmes, there is little interest in prestige, only profit.

This is exactly why I don't trust anything run by corporate interests with mankind's future in space.

I just hope we figure it out before we're extinct.

Ideally, whatever future programs are selected, they aren't some asinine hundred-billion dollar redundant endeavors such as what NASA and their associates were coming up with in the von Braun era.

a reply to: DEIKOBOL

There will be huge money for any that can start to lift people into space reliably and comfortably. Profits will evaporate if it is unsafe, so that is a force that will promote safety. No one is going to want to go on a tourist flight into orbit if there is a reasonable chance of a fiery death.

Beyond that, into the far future where we can begin to exploit resources on other bodies, reliability and safety will also be a factor. You're not going to be able to extract those resources at a profit if your people keep dying or your spaceships keep exploding - they would be expensive to replace!

Look at the airlines - the most successful have built a reputation on safety and reliability. I see no reason why space firms wouldn't want to do the same - it's excellent PR.

Cause of SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Explosion Traced to Failed Strut: www.nbcnews.com...

SpaceX suspects a 2-foot steel strut snapped inside its rocket and led to last month's launch accident. The company's founder and chief executive, Elon Musk, said Monday that these struts had flown many times before without any problem. But two minutes into the June 28 launch, one of the struts in the second stage of the unmanned Falcon 9 rocket likely broke loose.

The strut was holding down a high-pressure helium bottle in the liquid oxygen tank. If the strut snapped as engineers believe, according to Musk, the bottle would have shot to the top of the tank at high speed, dooming the rocket and its Dragon supply ship for the International Space Station.

So, it seems that the snapped part shot up into the top of the liquid oxygen (LOX) tank and caused its disintegration. This confirms my initial analysis that the "explosion" happened due to the LOX tank disintegrating, rather than due to the controlled explosion in order to terminate the flight.

Rupturing LOX tank:

a reply to: wildespace

Another change: Beginning with its next launch, each Falcon rocket will be equipped with software for deploying the Dragon parachutes. The Dragon destroyed last month, along with an estimated $110 million worth of NASA equipment and supplies, would have survived if the parachutes normally used for descent at mission's end could have been activated, Musk said. Musk pointed out that it's the first rocket failure in seven years for his company.

So, the black object falling off in the disassembly event apparently was the Dragon Capsule. Had that already been stated for sure by SpaceX? Or was that just conjecture on videos?

originally posted by: apex
a reply to: wildespace
So, the black object falling off in the disassembly event apparently was the Dragon Capsule. Had that already been stated for sure by SpaceX? Or was that just conjecture on videos?

I haven't seen the official mention of this, but there's also this blog mentioning that the object was the capsule: www.planetary.org...

In launch videos, the gumdrop-shaped Dragon spacecraft can be seen tumbling away from Falcon through the cloud of rapidly venting liquid oxygen. Dragon continued to communicate with ground controllers until it fell behind the horizon, impacting in the Atlantic Ocean. The cargo carft was carrying 1.8 metric tons of ISS supplies, along with a docking adapter in its unpressurized trunk designed to allow future commercial crew vehicles to dock at the station.

Though Dragon was equipped with parachutes meant for the trip home several weeks later, it did not contain the necessary software to make use of that potential lifeline. From now on, Musk said, all Dragons will be equipped with this feature. If the parachute had deployed, SpaceX believes the vehicle would have survived its fall.

I made a video that morphs individual frames into a more-or-less smooth slo-mo animation: www.youtube.com...



Not the best result, done with a free morphing software WinMorph.