Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket explodes in second test flight | CNN
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SpaceX’s Starship rocket system reached several milestones in its second test flight before the rocket booster and spacecraft exploded over the Gulf of Mexico.
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Alright, let me clear something up.
This is literally rocket science. The process to put humans into space is literally done this way, for this exact reason. They had two key primary objectives for this launch:
The first stage separated entirely and gained plenty of distance before it did explode.
The second stage flew for several minutes before the automated emergency flight termination kicked in and destroyed it.
All of the data that they were recording will pinpoint the failures in the return of the first stage, and the destruction in the second stage. They would not have that data if they did not do this test and nothing went wrong.
Do they need data like last time with the launch pad? Where it was clear that it will desintegrate? Did that give them additional insights into how the engines react to debris doing back into them? Was that the goal all along?
Seriously, they are iterating, sure. But we already know they ignore known problems. So it is not like every explosion is necessary or helps in any way.
I'm not a rocket scientist, but I research complex systems. Failure is the best way to improve something, even if you know it's going to fail, you want to see how and what are the repercussions. I've done so many experiments that I knew were doomed, but I still have to do them just because I wanted to see how the system is would react.
Not a fan boy of Elon by the way, not trying to defend him or anything.
That was really non of that. It was predictable that and how it would fail. NASA etc. solved that issue decades ago. It also created new issues, like the (protected) water table being affected. All because he wanted a certain date and cheap out.