He’s released a spectacular mix tape of bloopers.
This is just crying out for a subtitled narrative, a la the Corporal Story.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here it is:
This is how you learn to fly rockets. NASA could never do this.
12 thoughts on “Elon’s Rocket Failures”
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Between NASA and Air Force, they sure blew up their share of rockets in the early days.
Think of Discoverer/Corona that had failure after failure after failure. The story I read is that the team was offered encouragement from the highest level (Ike himself) to keep at it because what they were doing was “that important” (Ike knew about the risks with the U2 flights).
That was the early days. I’m talking about today.
Even in the 90s NASA was a pioneer in the field of crashing VTVL rockets; it was just the “quickly building another and trying again” part they couldn’t handle.
That said, there’s a big chance that SpaceX is about to go all-in on structural carbon fiber, and there’s a non-negligible chance that they won’t be able to pull it off eventually either, in which case I’ll be much more forgiving of X-33 in hindsight.
NASA can’t build build quickly or at scale because the customer they serve doesn’t desire the scale that demands quickness. They could change their organizational mindset to compensate but that is just as hard for rocket surgeons as it is for anyone else, without even getting into congressional oversight.
The whole cost vs profit thing is always going to make NASA look bad in comparison to other options too. I guess efficiency, opportunity costs, and scale don’t really matter since NASA and much of the scientific industrial complex is just graft, cronyism, and jobs programs but if the mindset was changed on cost, production, and mission, NASA could get a lot more done with its current budget.
X-33’s problem was not carbon fiber.
I think SpaceX has killed future SSTOs. Why push a design that far, with attendant poor payload capability, when they’ve made it almost trivial to land a big first stage? However advanced an SSTO design might be, it would perform vastly better if stuck on top of a reusable booster.
My take is the X-33 tried to make too many innovations in one project. And some of those innovations, like structural carbon fiber and the shape of the tanks, presented additional complications in combination. All in a project where loss of vehicle was not an option.
In contrast, the ongoing development on the Falcon-9 is making many small steps, allowing that rockets may be lost before it works right.
Can’t they? Some would say they did, although indirectly. 😉
Now turn this into talking heads daily news…
“SpaceX is doomed with failure upon failure. Government oversight is required. ULA spokesman vows to get to the bottom of this… the very bottom.”
Just awesome. Don’t be afraid to fail.
In case anyone hasn’t noticed, this is how North Korea is developing its missile capability.
The beauty of SpaceX’s scheme has been that it still works as a business even if reusability fails completely. Any reuse is icing on the competitive cake. And he gets to blow up all these stages because (at least on the ones in launches) he’s getting it “for free”.
Another message he’s sending here is to competitors: “look at what you’re in for if you try to follow me. Good luck!” It’s near the point where those competitors won’t have the $$$ cushion in their pricing to fall back on if reusability can’t be made to work, as SpaceX currently has. First mover advantage.