https://matlabmadness.ytmnd.com

4/17/2023 7:46:59 PM

That's a whoopsie?

4/20/2023 9:51:52 AM

The announcers really kept trying to say everything was fine as the thing was doing flips

4/20/2023 1:52:49 PM

so technically they are claiming that the flight was only to test the release from the launch pad. Which there are a thousand simpler/cheaper ways to do that instead of having a full scale launch to attempted orbit. Right off the bat at ignition they had three engine failures, with another one a few seconds after clearing the pad, then I think two more later in flight. Which is insane. They are yet to have a successful test even where all boosters fired at 100% and there wasn't a failure. Admittedly, you can have failures when you have a thousand engines, and that brings into play whether you want to focus more on redundancy vs. reliability, but there are clearly some serious quality assurance issues going on.

Even their ground systems are questionable, I heard that tons of chunks of concrete got blown off the pad, including one that hit some poor guy's car. Which is interesting, because you can't park anywhere near the pad, so it had to have been blown like miles away from the pad.

4/20/2023 2:01:41 PM

I've seen people on reddit say the concrete on the pad caused some of the engine failures

https://twitter.com/labpadre/status/1649062784167030785

It certainly does not look in great shape.

4/20/2023 2:04:47 PM

Wraith, watch the ocean in this video


https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1649097087248891904

4/21/2023 7:36:55 PM

Not sure if this pic will work, but the pad was absolutely destroyed. There is a reason that pads of this size have flame trenches to redirect all of that energy...



[Edited on April 24, 2023 at 2:44 PM. Reason : ]

4/24/2023 2:44:13 PM

That's way worse than the other pic i saw

I remember though the first dragon landing was really bad, but they fixed the problems and improved it very rapidly. The super heavy was designed to fly with multiple engines out, the problem happened on the roll, and it didn't seem intrinsic to the design (assuming it was a range abort that blew up the craft when it failed).

the destroyed launchpad is a bad sign though, if the rumors that Musk personally intervened to stop the building of the flame trenches are true.

4/24/2023 4:35:56 PM

Looks like Russia bombed the launchpad.

That's why you need a Sea Dragon.



Tears For Fears will get us to the moon and beyond every time!

4/24/2023 7:21:58 PM