...nothing much different going on here than watching historical rocket development videos from the 1950's. The A, B, and C versions of SM-65 had horrible track records. We're kind of used to another Space-X rocket blow up, aren't we?

So. Space-X blew up a rocket. TOTAL FAILURE!!!! MASSIVE failure!!!! Hey take a chill pill already. Sheesh...



The FAA is upset. Falls kind of in the, "Oh, so what..." Department to me. They'll get over it, probably sooner than later...

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I have a book around here somewhere on the development of the Atlas rocket. Lots of similarities to what Space X is doing here, with the rockets and engines being pretty much mass-produced.
The failure rate of the early launches was close to 100% - but they kept trying and eventually got something usable. OTOH, even at the time of the Mercury/Atlas program, the failure rate was still around 33%.
Can you imagine 'man-rating' (or is it 'human-rating' now?) a launch vehicle today that has a 1 in 3 failure rate?
The four Mercury astronauts who rode that one had some serious gonads...

Oh, man, you said it! No guarantees back in those days at all. Even if the Atlas had had a perfect success rate, when you peer into an old Mercury capsule and think about actually getting into that thing and being blasted into orbit, it really hits home just how brave those guys were.

I think it was Deke Slayton who said in this autobiography (good book, by the way) that they FULLY expected to lose an astronaut or two early on. He said basically that they would not have really believed how good the success rate was up through the end of Gemini if they would have had a way to see the future; it would have been very hard to believe that they would not have had a serious accident after something like 15 manned missions by the end of Gemini. Of course as we all know, that good fortune ran out with the first Apollo, but still….

Earl

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Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
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Rocket-Brained Since 1970

Upsetting the FAA is not a good thing - there is no "sooner" with them; it is always later. The FCC is a pushover compared to them.

I suspect that, despite SpaceX's superb efforts to forge ahead, they are going to be grounded for some time over the FTS. Both the FAA and DoD (which doesn't have any say in a Texas launch) insist on that being absolutely 100%.

Hope I'm wrong. But I kinda doubt it.

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Bill Cooke
NAR #31312
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Huntsville, AL

My rocket blog
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And yet, thanks to the Space Shuttle & Apollo 1, they've killed more astronauts than any other agency on earth. Space flight is, indeed, hard.

I only posted the FCC application to show that the process had begun, not that they were jumping tall hurdles for the FCC compared to FAA, nor did I post it to insinuate a 2nd launch was close.

As for making the FAA mad, SpaceX has NASA and other parts of the govt. on their side because NASA is depending on SpaceX for their immediate future. The FAA will let them launch another test or two. They may eventually say no mas and make them go to Florida as more flights ramp up, but we will have to wait and see on that. Starship will have to start launching fairly frequently to really piss off the FAA.

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Nice views from the pad and onboard.

Starship | First Integrated Flight Test | (short) Recap
SpaceX - 26 May 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_krgcofiM6M

__________________
The other day I sat next to a woman who has a profound fear of flying. I wanted to comfort her, so I said, "Don't worry, we're not gonna' crash. Statistically, we got a better chance of being bitten by a shark." Then I showed her the scar on my elbow from a shark attack. I said, "I got this when my plane went down off of Florida." - Dennis Regan

NASA Office of Inspector General
May 25, 2023
NASA’s Management of the Space Launch
SLS Booster and Engine Contracts

Looking more broadly, the cost impact from these four contracts increases our projected cost of each SLS by $144 million through Artemis IV, increasing a single Artemis launch to at least $4.2 billion.

versus:

SpaceX investment in Starship approaches $5 billion
May 26, 2023

https://spacenews.com/spacex-invest...ches-5-billion/

WASHINGTON — SpaceX will have spent $5 billion or more on its Starship vehicle and launch infrastructure by the end of this year, according to court filings and comments by the company’s chief executive.

__________________
The other day I sat next to a woman who has a profound fear of flying. I wanted to comfort her, so I said, "Don't worry, we're not gonna' crash. Statistically, we got a better chance of being bitten by a shark." Then I showed her the scar on my elbow from a shark attack. I said, "I got this when my plane went down off of Florida." - Dennis Regan