Well, it got off the pad. That’s good. But at least six of the engines didn’t seem to be burning, and the whole stack started tumbling just before stage sep… and then the stages didn’t sep.
But it got not just off the pad, but away from the pad, and made it a good way toward first stage burnout before things went sideways. So… a qualified woohoo.
EDIT: Just saw a different launch angle: It clawed its way off the pad at something of an angle. The thrust vector seems to have been off from the beginning; SpaceX is probably lucky they didn’t lose the pad.
Seems relevant:
Nailed it.. 😂 pic.twitter.com/FC5wo1eppH
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) April 20, 2023
Six of the 33 engines weren’t running:
4 responses to “Starship: RUD”
Still … it flew! Biggest damn rocket ever!
Not what SpaceX was hoping for, nor was it what they might have been most afraid of. (blowing up on the pad, flying off and landing in the middle of Houston etc,,)
While I am personally skeptical of the whole starship concept, I hope they can make it work, but it is certainly a high risk, high reward project.
SLS at least doesn’t require funding that comes from the output of new Gigafactories that keeps Xi’s China hanging around longer than Gordon Chang believed…that’s my definition of “unaffordable,” not SLS.
I wonder how long it will be before folks who purport to be against gov’t picking winners call for SLS money to be spent propping up Starship-by punishing success.
SLS +1.
Starship -1
The SLS is a true political boondoggle, an expensive, impractical prestige project made up of spare parts included in the design simply to keep voters in certain districts employed. Its been in development for almost 20 years, longer if you count various shuttle derived studies going back to the 80s. I say scrap the whole thing, limit NASA to sending probes on other peoples launchers, and, as you mentioned, pour the lot into SpaceX.
Assuming Starship makes it out of development, and I don’t see any insurmountable obstacles at this time, you might as well forget New Glenn, SLS, Vulcan and the rest… Unlike SLS, In Starship you have a new vehicle, with a new engine, not Kerbled together shuttle parts and used SSMEs. That offers new capabilities. THATS something worth spending money on, not a too slow, too expensive Saturn 5 want to be.
Yes, Starship is a high-risk, high-reward program, but as it seems likely that its development faces insurmountable challenges. As with Falcon you lose a few in testing, It is, after all, rocket science. In this case, remember, Starship survived Max Q which was the biggest concern with the vehicle. I am more concerned with orbital fuel transfer than I am with anything else in the project. This optimism is supported by SpaceX’s successful Falcon and Dragon programs.
But recognizing that we don’t agree,
I’ll bet you, “100000000 internet points” Starship makes a manned circumlunar flight before Artemis does.