re: SpaceX Starship Full Stack Test Flight Thread | Cleared Tower, Thru MaxQ, then RUD

All this money and they can’t get cameras to not screw up?
The main shot on the launch fizzled then three of the five shots showed nothing.

Also I need some altitude and speed with the video.

What a bummer of a video. That sucked balls.

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For you aerospace engineers, do 33 rocket engines increase the number of possible failure points?

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IANAE, but from a basic systems design perspective more redundancy = more reliability generally. More potential failure points is not necessarily bad if the result is the elimination of single points of failure.

What it boils down to is that yes, 33 small engines as opposed to say 5 large ones does increase the chance of at least 1 failure, but lowers the chance of a catastrophic number of failures. For example, if the mission requires 75% of total available thrust, then with 5 engines you need either 4 or 5 engines to work (because 3 gives only 60% thrust) and with 33 engines you need 25 or more to work. If the failure rate per engine is 10%, then with 5 there's 91.85% chance that 4 or 5 will work but with 33 there is 99.6% chance that 25 or more will work. Even if the larger engines are more reliable the probability of success favors more smaller engines. For example the 5 larger engines would need to be 98% reliable (2% failure vs 10%) in order to match the 99.6% success rate of 33 (90% reliable) small engines.


And that's in addition to other advantages like more precise control of thrust and the cost savings of using a single engine design that can scale from small to large vehicles.

I wonder with the proximity to the beach if they could open a lock and flood the under rocket area or if flashing seawater to vapor would be just as harmful to the engines.

I am surprised they think this can be completed this quickly, but Elon is usually pretty good about not meeting his timeframes.

I am hoping the deluge system is more than just a water cooled steel plate, but it does do not look like they have a lot of water storage capability now.

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I wonder with the proximity to the beach if they could open a lock and flood the under rocket area or if flashing seawater to vapor would be just as harmful to the engines.

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That might open up a huge can of federal environmental red tape that would take years to resolve.

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If setting unrealistic goals is the key to building several multi-billion dollar companies then I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

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it is when you are under contract to the US taxpayer for $8B. And that contract requires NASA to build a whole bunch of other shite that costs billions more.

letting the launchpad get destroyed regardless of the cause is ridiculous. I’m not saying there was a solution because I don’t know but there dang well better be one coming

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it is when you are under contract to the US taxpayer for $8B.

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Destroying shite on the reg has been their MO from day 1 and it's what got them the fat contracts in the first place.

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letting the launchpad get destroyed regardless of the cause is ridiculous.

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Pretty much every single thing they do has never been done before and the limits are not known until you exceed them. Case in point, prior data suggested that the launch pad would survive one launch, now they know that it didn't and future expectations and designs will be better aligned with the data.

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I’m not saying there was a solution because I don’t know but there dang well better be one coming

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Of course there will be a solution. After all the shite spacex has done already, you don't think they can build a fricking launchpad that works?

Look, unless you think NASA could do it cheaper and faster themselves using their methods, wtfrick are you bitching about?