.
Definitely not a good look and Elon isn't even apologizing
Definitely not a good look and Elon isn't even apologizing
NASA & World Space Exploration...News, Views, Photos & videos
- Thread starter bd popeye
- Start date
I feel like we are going to see a period of review over this. This is different from the other failures which were generally localized to the launch site or landing site.
Maybe SpaceX will move away from Starship after this failure and go for a more traditional upper stage layout? It seems like the booster section is reliable and performing well. I don't know why you need this crazy complex upper stage instead of a more traditional design. I think a more traditional design would likely allow a greater lift capacity to LEO along with probably better prospects for a lunar mission.
I have never understood the obsession with a manned mission to Mars without first perfecting Lunar operations. I think SpaceX should have built a LEO / Lunar focused super rocket first, then transitioned to some sort of Mars vehicle. I think the next phase is going to be increasingly more capable upper stages, particularly nuclear, which will allow for greater time on station along with maneuverability.
They better not review for too long. Artemis III is on for 2027, or else the US ain't getting boots on lunar this side of 2030.
I don't think SpaceX will reconsider their choice. He is like "I do it my way, or I don't do it at all." And reason below.
Actually Starship isn't much more radical from the Shuttle. They only differ in vertical landing instead of horizontal landing and the accompanied smaller range of manuver. Their core objective is fully reusable, especially the more challenging reusable orbital stage. The starship is essentially shuttle removing the wings and landing gears. A small difference is the staging where starship has a bigger tank and acts as a full 2nd stage and payload structure, while shuttle's main engines act as 2nd stage and uses OMS to go from suborbit like a partial 2nd stage. From this view, Starship is just continuing NASA's footstep since the 1980s, although NASA moved to conventional approach, the idea continued. So I guess the idea is quite popular in US space industry, not just Elon Musk.
For the lunar mission reaching moon before China, it is too late to change anything.
Yes, I agree with you that a more traditional approach is more reliable and quicker in principle and in China's case, but SLS proves opposite in the US.
It seems that US including SpaceX have been over ambitious in their objectives and planning. What you suggested is exactly what China has been doing. However, if US followed your suggestion, they will be at best doing something equal to China, that is not acceptable as Obama once put it.
Overall, I predict US will push even harder on the current approach/solution even if that means higher risk. They will only backdown if the risk is too high even for them to accept, this means accepting defeat in moon race. In short, they have gone too far to turn around.
I think the worst nightmare scenario that NASA should strive to avoid is the prospect of astronauts stranded on the moon because the Starship toppled over or the engines fail to reignite to lift back off the surface. The more they rush, the less time they have to prepare for contingencies. Also, the SpaceX methodology, that is to do adopt an agile approach to development, doesn't provide much comfort when you are quarter of a million miles from Earth.