good read on the futile stupidity of Starship, or as I call it the Space Cybertruck www.planetearthandbeyond.co/p/starship-d... - ThreadSky

niedermeyer.online • 3 days ago

good read on the futile stupidity of Starship, or as I call it the Space Cybertruck

https://www.planetearthandbeyond.co/p/starship-dead-end

Comments

steph1873.bsky.social•3 days ago

By the 9th flight of the Saturn V, Alan Shepard was hitting golf balls on the Moon.

tripledaddy.bsky.social•3 days ago

I thought this was humorous hyperbole but holy shit it's not.

conorwinkle.bsky.social•3 days ago

Put Elon on 10, I beg.

eddy-comrade25.bsky.social•2 days ago

GIANT DILDO CAN'T FLY STAIGHT

WEIRD ISN'T IT 😂😅🤣

tmoney2007.bsky.social•3 days ago

Imagine literally any other company grenading this many launches...

uckema.com•3 days ago

Titan did Tbf and so did Soyuz

tmoney2007.bsky.social•3 days ago

Titan lost 9 (in a row no less)?

Go count the Soyuz launch failures again. I'm not seeing that many.

jimlsilver.bsky.social•3 days ago

Oh, but maybe the next launch will be a spectacular success!!!
Well, I'm sure it will be some kind of spectacle.

davidpham5.bsky.social•3 days ago

I just had a conversation with a colleague and they shared their enthusiasm around spaceX. I wished I read this before that conversation.

Physics, man. It’s hard.

bonairevolt.bsky.social•3 days ago

Good watch. https://youtu.be/6NrDCvKp5-k?si=KR_sYqOgRYuIXCw3

ragingspirit.bsky.social•3 days ago

Ed, this guy is bad. You know i'm not a fan of the way Starship project is run, but this is bad. This guy's thinking about rocket engineering is on the level of "better passive safety = more or the same materials", and you know that's not how it works.

ragingspirit.bsky.social•3 days ago

This piece has several questionable points, just one that i think is illustrative: he seems to imply the loss on control of the ship prevented payload delivery to orbit. That was never the plan for this flight. The payload was to stay on the same suborbital trajectory at the ship.

jarrodhayes.bsky.social•3 days ago

I see your point here but as I read the piece it seemed like imprecise wording.

ragingspirit.bsky.social•3 days ago

The failure to open the payload bay door prevented the deployment, the ship lost attitude control several minutes after that.

niedermeyer.online•3 days ago

yeah, that was also the second time the cargo door failed IIRC? Seems like a separate issue.

I try to make it clear that I'm an amateur when it comes to the rocket criticism stuff. Can't go deep on everything!

ragingspirit.bsky.social•3 days ago

That door is a problem from the get go. First, they made a "pathfinder" by taking a barrel section and cutting out almost a half of the circumference, leaving only thin circular strips of steel on the top and the bottom. Naturally, it warped under its own weight.

ragingspirit.bsky.social•3 days ago

Then they made the shape we currently see, only usable for Starlinks, it also turned out to be too weak, so they had to weld it shut for the first few flights and weld on stiffeners all around it. Now it just won't open, probably due to the mechanisms warping on ascent.

ragingspirit.bsky.social•3 days ago

For anyone interested in how and why things explode at Starbase, recommend this channel. It's good for people who know little about the project, it has many photos and pretty graphics.
Their only problem is a religious one, not factual: SpaceX never does anything wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/@CSIStarbase

slingkong.bsky.social•3 days ago

Probably not very reliable then aina?

ragingspirit.bsky.social•3 days ago

In the latest video the part where he tries to rationalize why the ship is missing the parts it needs is in contradiction with the rest of the video.

avgeeknologist.bsky.social•2 days ago

Are you sure? I seem to remember a different sequence?

scraphog.bsky.social•3 days ago

Pls explain for those of us who don’t give a shit about space what is meant by “better passive safety = more or the same materials”

ragingspirit.bsky.social•3 days ago

Sure! I'll borrow another argument from Will Lockett. We now know that Flight 7 failed because a propellant line ruptured and it happened because of intense vibrations. Lockett posits that this was because the pipe was too light weight, then claims Starship's weight problems are insurmountable.

ragingspirit.bsky.social•3 days ago

If we look at the onboard video of the Flight 7, the vibrations are so severe, the lower flap visibly shakes and the camera that's looking at it too. With that, we can conclude the problem is not that the line was too weak, it's that the vibrations were well above acceptable levels.

ragingspirit.bsky.social•3 days ago

The channel i linked to discusses the source of these vibrations and methods to reduce them in the latest hour long deep dive. Long story short, the ship needs a device called pogo oscillation dampener, and it should be enough to prevent the prop line failure, not making the line heavier.

edgarageous.bsky.social•3 days ago

Taking all this as correct:

- did flight 8 have a pogo dampener that failed? Or did it not have one at all? If not, why not?
- how much weight does the pogo dampener add?

The author linked article is clearly On His Shit about Elon, which I personally respect, but it raises chances for errors.

sarcasmodemiami.bsky.social•3 days ago

Either way, it seems that the underlying criticism remains… making Starship work will make it heavier, and heavier will absolutely kill its ability to achieve economic viability? No?

danielsand.bsky.social•3 days ago

Huh. That was genuinely fascinating. Thank you for the explanation!

scraphog.bsky.social•3 days ago

Ok that didnt really help so I’m just gonna say nvm

ziplockwaffles.bsky.social•3 days ago

Skybertruck

thetallsister.bsky.social•3 days ago

Again, the lesson here is that SpaceX somehow needs to make Starship significantly more robust and lighter by well over a hundred tonnes if it is to conduct even one successful mission, let alone achieve constant reuse — which, let’s be clear, is basically impossible.

😆😆

jmodysseus.bsky.social•3 days ago

Remember they actually managed to soft land at least two starships in the Indian Ocean. They’re not just failing to make progress. They’re moving backwards.

6gun-sally.bsky.social•3 days ago

And still collecting the money

aviendha69.bsky.social•3 days ago

it's real purpose: wasting your money

christosilvia.bsky.social•3 days ago

I am not as pessimistic as you, but the Starship program is absolutely cargo culting iterative failure. When these sorts of failures happen it's time to send the engineers back to CAD until problems are understood, however long that takes.

thegreatduggo.bsky.social•3 days ago

Fascinating read!

redtriage.bsky.social•3 days ago

Ever notice the more Elon gets involved in the direction of a product, the crappier it is?

realroffs.bsky.social•3 days ago

My takeaway quote from the article.

johnmone.bsky.social•3 days ago

It sure is good at ruining Boca Chica

sutherla.bsky.social•3 days ago

The Space Swasticar 😁

rickywlmsbong.bsky.social•3 days ago

but the Data Gathering, we’re doing iterative improvement very strongly

bagofbleeps.bsky.social•3 days ago

Until they kit it out with a shit ton of accellometers and a black box...

simonoz.bsky.social•3 days ago

I'm pretty sure they'll make it work, eventually. Elon's a dick but he built a very strong team and still has a lot of $ to throw at it. Starship V1 made it to a successful landing more than once, so we know it can be done. The booster has also done what no one thought it could more than once.

bonairevolt.bsky.social•3 days ago

There are other good rocketry companies to go work for.

teslatakedownott.bsky.social•3 days ago

📌

gibcurry.bsky.social•3 days ago

Great read, thanks for sharing.

tjovialist.bsky.social•3 days ago

Starshit*

danielsand.bsky.social•3 days ago

Have they even begun designing a version that can hold a crew?

brianbartky.bsky.social•3 days ago

Since Day One Musk has claimed that Starship will carry up to 100 people. I've never seen an official diagram, just concepts by Musk fans. I can't even find an official diagram of the crew cabin for the lunar HLS, which is planned for Artemis III in 2027.

https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/

kimmok.bsky.social•3 days ago

I know something is being done vs HLS in co-operation with NASA engineers.
But SpaceX engineers hint that they truly are not interested in Artemis.
They silently donate it to Blue Origin.
The contract with NASA is milestone based. No milestones are reached yet.

brianbartky.bsky.social•3 days ago

Wow! That's amazing. And thanks.I didn't realize that they hadn't accomplished any milestones yet.

danielsand.bsky.social•3 days ago

And with Musk now out of the inner circle, and his pet flunky being replaced at NASA, chances of him getting the Artemis contract killed in favour of one exclusively to his company on his terms and all milestones forgiven have massively dropped.

He is now going to have to actually try.

kimmok.bsky.social•2 days ago

Jared was against NASA cuts and against focusing only on Mars.

Next dude will be worse.

6gun-sally.bsky.social•3 days ago

drdodjie.bsky.social•3 days ago

Just call it Cybership.
The word cyber can never be used again without being associated with the Cybertruck, and maybe the Cybercab soon. 🙃

superlanyard.bsky.social•3 days ago

Oh no. This is a big part of Musk's big con. Going to Mars. When in reality that's a cover for cornering the Internet.

fatraccoon.bsky.social•3 days ago

Space X-Crement.

skmt.bsky.social•3 days ago

They must have obtained enough data by now. Maybe they'd probably better stop using any sensors but camera, and rewrite whole stack with neural network.

drdodjie.bsky.social•3 days ago

I didn’t catch the sarcasm until a second read of your post. 🙃

berfield.com•3 days ago

😂

vaguepariah.bsky.social•3 days ago

He'll only get it to work when he has a small child implanted with neuralink and locked in a basement.

ragle.bsky.social•3 days ago

It's the Homermobile: Space Incel Edition.

grunteledboomer.bsky.social•3 days ago

👍

coverdrive12.bsky.social•3 days ago

Let's hope that Elon can analyze the data and come up with a robust solution for SpaceX. Starbase City will soon be cranking out 1000 ships per year.

grogofgrog.bsky.social•3 days ago

why not just do a shuttle that glides in without being full of explosive fuel that also cuts amount of cargo that can go to space.

shell351.bsky.social•3 days ago

They're trying to return to the moon and eventually go to Mars.

wkymary.bsky.social•3 days ago

I miss the shuttles. I miss NASA as the leader of American space exploration.

thomashansen.bsky.social•3 days ago

ICYMI:

me-6061.bsky.social•3 days ago

I want an aerospike engine. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/VentureStar

elirabett.bsky.social•3 days ago

Where they going to get the steel and aluminum from?

drguru.bsky.social•3 days ago

as far as I know, SpaceX mainly sources its steel and aluminum from Outokumpu Oyj (Sweden & Finland) and (Centravis) Ukraine.

elirabett.bsky.social•3 days ago

Subject to the tariffs just announced.

drguru.bsky.social•3 days ago

yes, subject to whatever the daily tariff rate is 😂

coverdrive12.bsky.social•3 days ago

Trump will release it from the Strategic Metal Reserve.

manitou202.bsky.social•3 days ago

A big question is if Trump cancels the program will it essentially bankrupt SpaceX? I’ve got to imagine they are funneling so much money from this contract to prop up other parts of the business.

With Trump pulling Elon’s preferred NASA admin, it’s possible Trump will kill the program.

magixpunx.bsky.social•3 days ago

Musk actually would rather Artemis be cancelled because accountability is due soon. What he really wants is a Mars program so he can escape accountability far longer.

jhaygood.bsky.social•3 days ago

Or the Space TacoTruck

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