Why SpaceX Needs New Launch Pads for Starship, and Soon
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- Опубликовано: 29 апр 2023
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For all the success of the first Starship launch, the launch pad left a great deal to be desired and could have been the reason why the biggest rocket in history's initial test flight ended in a termination just minutes into the flight. Elon Musk must bear some of the responsibility and he predicted back int 2020 that having no flame trench might not be a good idea. So in this video, we look at the issues the launch caused and how NASA has been doing this for over 56 years without any major problems.
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Written, researched and presented by Paul Shillito
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This rocket had the historic first of having both the vehicle and the pad clear the tower!
Dude the pad cleared the tower ? Neat
@JZ's BFF It's what happens when you allow a job to be rushed.
@JZ's BFF hey, watch it mister! Those amateurs clearly self-identity as professionals!
Don't try to use facts!
NASA have been clearing towers successfully since the 1960s (without absolutely destroying the launch pad and site including mutliple cars and trucks they had parked too close, while destroying a nature reserve).... Also already had reusable shuttles and faster turn arounds way back then too. 13/13 of Saturn2 rockets launched and were then retrieved successfully. I thought the Musk Rats were meant to be on Mars by now?😮 You know get in there Cybertruck, throw it on autopilot and jump in the Hyperloop to get to work ... Oh wait.
@JZ's BFF Tbf, it's not engineers who made those decisions, it is one genius we all know who.
I was on the crew that installed the sound suppression overpressure water bags in the srb holes of the mobile launch platform for the space shuttle for 10 years. They were made out of parachute material lined with plastic to hold water and needed to prevent damage to the Orbiter tiles on launch. We also dropped 300,000 gallons of water in 12 seconds from the rainbirds on 0 level. Spacex pad for this rocket was way insufficient. They need a proper flame trench and water deluge.
FYI 11:35 talks of a tank with 94,000 liters, a small fraction of 300g. (And he speaks of 30 seconds capacity.)
[Edit: I'm pretty sure I'm confusing shuttle vs. Saturn. But still, did the shuttle use 12 or more times the volume?]
Elon was talking about a giant water cooled steel pad. Hahah absolutely ridiculous. It would be an immediate steam bomb. There's a reason NASA used soft containment vessels for the water.... It expands.
They can't get permission for a large deluge because of environmental impact. They picked a lousy place to build a launch facility!
@@JohnDlugosz I can't understand why they picked there with all the environmental concerns?
Why does this man have to try to reinvent the wheel. The almost fanatical way he refuses to use the knowledge and technology that has been proven to work just because it's not new and shiney and can impress ignorant share holders.
I used to work as a tech in R&D at a diesel engine company startup. Just about as much design had to go into the test stand as went into the engine, and both engine and test stand were developed together and upgraded over time. SpaceX may have plenty of ex-NASA personnel but I'd wager that hardly any of them had to work on the launch pad design itself beyond incremental changes. The basic design decisions for the launch pads in Florida were done 60 years ago, and those engineers that experienced that brutal initial learning curve with the launch pads are long gone. Where I worked, new engineers would always try to reinvent the wheel and not understand why things were done and designed a certain way. I highly suspect that is what happened at SpaceX. The tribal knowledge/wisdom didn't get passed down.
That is human i think, people wont believe slippery floor sign until they get slipped 😅
I run paint store, no rocket science needed here, but sometime it is very hard to tell new staff to "do not rely on paint can hanger when you lift big can (20L) paint" until they drop the paint once because the paint hanger sometimes (not always and seldom, but it surely will happened) failed to support the weight of 20L paint (of course not every people are like these, but it happened to some people).
In short word, people tend to not believing in bad day experience that previously happened, until they experience it by themself 😂
I have the feeling it has more to do with management. Musk makes big promises and expects them to be delivered within a fraction of the time needed.
But Elon has invented a magical concrete….
Elon frequently directs his people to discard the tribal knowledge in order to reinvent the wheel on purpose, because the reasons that certain solutions were arrived at are no longer understood, and the old solutions may no longer be the correct ones.
Yeah, I know you're being sarcastic, but for the ignorant; Musk didn't invent shit. Literally, but on the topic of concrete he didn't invent that, either.
It's also NOT the strongest concrete out there by a LONG shot.
Love the explanation for why the Saturn V pads were built the way they were. I’d always wondered why there was the incline (and so the cleverness of the mobile launch tower keeping it level while going up hill) from the VAB to the pad
Curious Droid just did a great video on the Crawler Transporters :) ruclips.net/video/RAeQyJXsi7Y/видео.html
Although those pads are fantastic, and have stood the test of time, there is another pad that NASA uses that is even more impressive when it comes to civil engineering.
Stennis Space centre test pad.
It can hold the entire SLS on an 8 minute green run just metres above the ground without digging a huge hole or the whole thing trying to take off.
ruclips.net/video/XGRE_7yz_kM/видео.html
And note built with very little earth ramp even though at near sea level. No trees were hurt during these 8 minutes, though the lesser spotted gulf sparrow minding its own business lost all its feathers....
Their torque wrenches must be mighty .......
@@zakelwe Excellent observation.
Yes, then imagine an idiot who has that knowledge ready to go- and then he builds the space-x...
I don't think I'd call that clever, more just the massive bud`get NASA had at the time. Being the cold war and all
The Russian N-1 launch pad had three separate trench outlets at 120 degrees to each other for a similar stage 1 engine arrangement. Food for thought for SpaceX?
Also, one of the on-the-pad failures of the N-1 pretty much wiped out the 6-storey underground facilities & machine rooms under the launch ring, resulting in a near two-year rebuild. Expensive.
Ironically pre launch on a twitter spaces Elon compared it to a N1. They’re not going to make the 2025 lunar landing launch.
Do you really expect the good Americans to learn from the bad and evil Russian? They are inferior by design, how could you forget..... 🙄
@@sparten17708 well they have to wait on NASA anyway so I doubt spacex is in any need to rush things
@@Toefoo100 No they don't NASA is on track to meet it's deadline.
@@kcufhctib204 Seems to be so. In spite of all the SLS delays and cost overruns it looks more and more likely that the gating item will be the human landing system. Incidentally, that was also true back in the 1960s with Project Apollo. The Lunar Module was the last piece to fall in place. Of course back then there was a lot more government money and things were happening on a much faster schedule compared to now.
This channel is an absolute treasure to all curious minds alike. It's astounding that Paul has singlehandedly kept it going for all these years and I am so thankful for it.
well said
And to think he was almost taken from us.
Why then he refer to himself as "we"?
It's possible that he has help with editing these (many channels do), or compiling the futage, hence the "we," but as stated in his intro, they're written, researched, and presented by himself.
@@Neb_Raska His illness is still terminal though. He has MDS
Surprising that Musk and SpaceX thought "the most powerful rocket in history" would not need ... the strongest launch platform in history.
It's almost like the owner of the company isn't actually a rocket scientist but can't help himself pretending he is...
@@ChristopherSadlowski As for NASA, it's almost like they looked at the ground out at Canaveral in 1965 and said, "you know, we need some thought into launch facility ... because this giant rocket of Wernher's is gonna blast a typical pad to bits."
@@ChristopherSadlowski It's one thing to make a pad as beefy as possible when you have taxpayer money and plenty of time. Another thing altogether when you work on a tight budget and time schedule, need to be able to replicate the pad in different environments (and probably on another planet) and make it withstand multiple uses a day.
It makes sense to aim for the lowest possible specs you can get away with and improve from there until it works. That, of course, includes the possibility that you blow up the pad at the first real test and probably damage it considerably in further iterations until you reach the state you aim for.
If you chuckle at the blown-out pad, what until they get to test their landing system for the first time and they miss the chopsticks.
@@strangereyes9594 Yeah. because destroying a rocket is far and a setback. Is far cheaper then doing it right the first time!!!! /s
@@justcows7772 Well, it IS cheaper. In case you don't know, they already built 26 Starships and 8 boosters in their iteration progress and it was cheaper than building one Saturn 5 by a huge margin. Starship development cost so far: 2 billion. Saturn 5 development cost: 50 billion.
I guess even you can see that 2 is less than 50.
It’s honestly pretty impressive this was the first rocket to launch with the pad coming with it
I'm sure the endangered wildlife next door didn't like massive chunks messing up their nesting
@@ev17dan The funny thing is, the people who are big space enthusiasts, who you would expect to be interested in scientific endeavors such as preservation, seem to not give a damn about that. The real truth that no one wants to mention is that they should never have been given the go-ahead for a site this close to a protected wildlife area.
But now that they have, it's all just kind of a mess to try to figure out how to deal with a really precarious location.
@doublestrike photo yea the typical response is "what did you invent?" idk, seems NASA had more accountability than some edge lord who thinks Twitter is real life
I agree. Elon looked pleased afterwards.
STARSHIP Mission Control: "Stage-1 separation failure."
Elon: "Mmmkay.....make it do Loop-De-Loops"
SpaceX Mission Control: "Luh Luh Luh Loops??!! ..... Suh Suh Suh ....SIRRRR??!!
Elon: (raises Force-Choke hand) Gimme my loops. /ovo\
@MAGGOT VOMIT Gratz my man, of the most dent headed things to say, that was the most dented
It's been a head scratcher for me ever since Space-X started building the first starship launch stand. If there was ever any doubt that the design was inadequate, the earlier Starship second stage launch/hop tests (where only 3 Raptor engines tore up the concrete in the flame path) should have dispelled that myth.
100%
How much evidence do we need to finally conclude that Elon actually is not smart?
Musk likes taking shortcuts. Build the rocket first and figure out the pad later sounds exactly like the kind of brain dead backwards thinking he is known for.
Didn't musk tweet something about it would probably be a problem before the launch? I also heard that launching from Mars would present similar issues so maybe they wanted to test that. Seems a bit too predictable that it would go wrong though
They even left trucks and other heavy machinery nearby to be burned to the crisp , you can see burnt carcasses on some photos, maybe cost of those vehicles is small , comparing to rocket, pad etc, but driving those machines further away was such a simple task, makes you wonder what's going on in SpaceX.
Absolutely the best info session on the event! No hysterics, no hype, just facts. Thanks 'Droid!
@glenn. What would space x do without these blogs. LOL.
@@danwright1794 Dunno. Elon must be a subscriber.
I dunno, I came for the hype and hysterics
You might wanna watch the Common Sense Skeptic. He is less polite, and brings up many more things, like how out of whack Elon is with his EPA agreements, and other stuff.
@@dougerrohmer CSS definitely pulls no punches, but they bring the receipts which is something no one else seems to do.
Even Canaveral LC-5, where the relative tiny Mercury-Redstone rockets launched from had a small, pyramid shaped flame diverter on the pad. As you progress through the later launch complexes, you see more and more elaborate flame diverters and shock suppression systems. Obviously this was intentional based on lessons learned.
How SpaceX thought that they could just ignore these lessons and blast a flat concrete pad with the largest rocket ever is baffling to me.
Even the Nazi V-2 rocket had a flame diverter under it!
They needed to see how bad it cpuld be, given the possibility a Starship launch from the Moon or Mars will not have suppression.
If they can't lick it on Earth, they will have to devise some means of constructing a launchpad far more extensive than they anticipated in the hostile environment beyond Earth.
@@BogeyTheBear That doesn’t make sense. They are not launching the 1st stage (“Superheavy”) from anywhere but Earth. Extraterrestrial launches would be done with the much less powerful 2nd stage (“Starship”). There’s no reason for Superheavy to be able to endure adverse condition launches.
I’m pretty sure the real reason is that SpaceX wanted to build a proper launch facility, but they couldn’t get the construction approvals and costs to line up. So they gambled big that they could get by with a really half assed launch facility, and now it’s coming back to bite them.
@@splewy I bet they expected this, even counted on it. Now either A) they have pre-dug a trench to use for a flame diverter or the metal plate OR B) they have ammo to try to force approval of a more complicated launch platform.
They didn't think they could ignore anything. This video sadly ignores a pretty big point. There's increasing indication that boca chica may end up being nothing more than a development station. There's constant pressure of lawsuits to stop them from launching (too many) rockets from there. And Elon himself already had doubts, but I guess enough people felt it was a risk that could be accepted. The question is largely what spaceX is going to do on the site where they actually want to do high cadence launches from.
Its incredible the chain of engineering problems that needed to be solved by nasa to get the Saturn v launched. From the site chosen to the method to dig the flame trench to how they would have to get the rocket up the hill etc
My thought exactly. This whole "NASA dumb, Elon smart" stuff is in fact the pinnacle of ungratefulness.
@@eriktempelman2097 and the whole „elon dumb, nasa can do no wrong“ is even more annoying. SpaceX doesn’t have 5% of the federal budget to spend. Just the crawler cost 360 million in today’s money, that’s probably more than what SpaceX has spent so far in Boca Chica, including all the test vehicles. Also, do you think the EPA did any environmental assessments back then? In a military base?
NASA did a pretty good job of thinking the whole thing through from beginning to end, including everything from hurricanes at the launch site to how to pee in space.
It feels like SpaceX have concentrated mostly on the exciting rocket bit, forgotten some significant but boring details.
I wonder how many engineers in SpaceX are prepared to say "this is a bad idea"?.
@@HNedel "that’s probably more than what SpaceX has spent so far in Boca Chica, including all the test vehicles" that's nonsense, they spent a billion dollars alone on the whole tower, insider sources reported already over 10 billion dollars total for the whole project, last year. Musk announced 2 billion dollars expenses only for this year, they're probably gonna reach over the budget NASA spent on SLS which is a bit over 20 billion. Spaceflight on this level is super hard and expensive, there's no way around it. Musk's marketing of Starship are nothing but delusional fantasies, reality is different. If people haven't learned at this point to not trust anything Musk says, they never will. Being a salesman is what he's truly good at.
@@HNedel NASA isn't run by a petulant manchild who can't take no for an answer
It’s wonderful to see Curious Droid covering Starship events.
I've watched several videos from several videos from several space oriented RUclips channels and this is by far the best explanation and analysis of the damage done to the starship launch Tower and the need for something vastly more expensive and complex if they plan on doing this on a regular basis at Boca chica.
I grew up as a kid watching all of the NASA launches from Mercury through Apollo, and I don't think anyone at anytime ever really gave any attention to the launch towers or the flame diverters, I guess they just aren't considered sexy! I had no idea that it took three and a half years and so much work to build the launch towers at 39a, so once again thanks for taking the time to explain this to all of us so that we have a much greater appreciation of just how much work (and time) SpaceX has ahead of it if it wants to launch starship at Boca chica. Thanks!
That's treu but, it's also the last one, so he had 10 days to study the competition and write a script. 😀
As just like all the others there's no word about the failing flight termination system even though Musk mentioned it in a twitter -llive😀
This is good, but Common Sense Skeptic has a better video on the aftermath, I recommend you check it out
Agreed, Paul did a fabulous job on this video. Looks like far more engineering will have to go into their flame diverters. I'm sure that SpaceX will come up with something good - I just wonder if it will also lead to more delays.
later on in the shuttle program they did have problems with the fire brick along the sides of the trench with them being shot out of the fire trench. they had to make some quick fixes to keep it in place. If I remember right, they ended up rebuilding the sides before the SLS program. Also, they ended up adding the water bags under the engines after the first launch (STS-1) because of the pressure wave reflecting back and damaging the back side of the shuttle.
NASA had a similar train of thought with their recent moon mission; thinking it's better to re-build stronger, than delay the launch working-out how & where to reinforce the launch-pad.
Great video! I'd hate to see 39A obliterated!!!
@JZ's BFF 💀
The whole point of the Boca Chica site is development of the starship and the launch pad. Most of the work at the Cape has stopped apparently to see how development at BC gets to the working model of both.
I’d love to see a supercomputer simulation of the starship launch with current setup compared to a couple alternatives.
@@monohedron9633 I think Elon knows a little about everything he does, but the issue is that he knows a little about it. He can’t effectively and consistently make good decisions, although often spacex is still working out because of those engineers you mentioned.
you don't need a supercomputer to find out this is exactly what was always going to happen. They launched anyway because they had no choice, they're running out of money and they need something, anything to grab more investors.
@@tvre0 this is the correct answer. They also make the decisions based on cost vs best choice.
@@chengong388 I doubt that display of reckless stupidity attracted any investors
@@sparten17708 they make the best decision per dollar, that is legal and safe. Still not the best choice, especially long term like we saw with the IFT flight
Actually 39A did suffer damage on several occasions. The video segment starting at 11:07 was actually the original flame trench being relined with refractory shotcrete after a Shuttle launch blew firebricks out to and through the perimeter fence.
he said substantial damage so that might fall under lesser damage maybe?
@@samuelzackrisson8865possibly in the category of cheap to repair damage, if one just out the brick back, but also probably an unacceptable risk going forward. A loose brick smashing into a shuttle engine could cause an explosion killing the crew.
I suspect that they decided that the task of guaranteeing that each and every brick was firmly attached was too difficult, and it would be cheaper in the long run to reline it with larger blocks whose fixament can be tested, as there's fewer of them to test!.
Hush, you can't upset the hate train in the comments section. The armchair rocket scientists will get very upset.
@@abarratt8869 ahh cool
@@samuelzackrisson8865 In safety engineering, it pays to take the hints from small discrepancies. Get a little lucky with something going wrong in a small way once, one then has proof positive that something can go wrong. Next time, it might be a lot worse.
When calculating the risk, if a variable goes from "100% cannot break" to "has broken" , that's like pulling the whole system risk figure all the way up.
It's difficult to be completely honest about such risks. NASA had calculated it for Space Shuttle overall and got it wrong, far too optimistic. This was something that emerged in the Challenger enquiry.
A lack of honest assessment of the risks posed by loose foam lead to Columbia getting clobbered and lost. Of course, when they did a test afterwards... Sometimes the most innocuous of things can be misunderstood by everyone, leading to what I call a "Conspiracy of Optimism". Test, test, test is a useful mantra, even if it seems dumb.
It's the same in every day ordinary engineering, except there one can pick and choose. If there is a risky aspect of a project that you know can be fixed later, provided one explores the risk and understands it, one can park it until later.
Thanks for the physical and historical context of the launch pad troubles of Space X's first Starship launch, just ten days after the event. Your account of how construction firms built the 39A and B launch pads was eye-opening -- a massive civil engineering project in a water-logged coastal environment. Another gem is the possibly prohibitive impact of coastal environmental regulations on a contemporary attempt to dredge locally in support of a launch pad build. Fascinating!
Thank you, Paul Shillito, for a very informative article. I was curious both before and after the launch about the feasibility SpaceX building a LC Pad 39A-style launch facility and you filled in the gaps.
To be fair, SpaceX only said the goal was to reuse the rocket, not the launch pad. 😊
i think you will find keeping the aeroplane but rebuilding the airport each time much more expensive 🤣
Great piece Paul. The definition of madness is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
Got a feeling Elon might have to pull the pin on launching super heavys from Boca Chica for now and launch them from Cape Canaveral. At least until they make a proper launch pad.
No heavy or super heavy rockets have ever been launched without a flame diverter and deluge syatem. The FAA shouldn't have allowed the first launch to take place without a diverter- deluge system. They won't the next time around. Nevermind that the FAA is now getting sued for this FUBAR.
If you watch the drone launch footage, you can see that about 3 seconds after engine start, there are about 20 or more massive concussive shockwaves that shoot up the side of the rocket. This is the constructive interference of the supersonic shockwaves coming off the engine exhausts. ( the thousands of sonic boom shockwave that are the crackling sound of rockets launching, and the things causing that violent camera shaking even in the NASA rigid mounted engineering cameras that shot the shuttle launches ) You don’t see these shockwaves in shuttle launches because the flame diverter causes them to reflect to the SIDE out the trench. The flat surface under starship causes them to reflect straight back up.
It was these shockwaves that shattered the concrete under the pad, and its not until these shockwaves start to subside that you see massive chunks of concrete flying. They subside because the flat surface of the pad is no longer there to reflect them straight up. THIS is the Acoustic damage that actually shattered the concrete. Its the SOUND of the hundreds of sonic booms created by the super sonic turbulence between the rocket exhaust and the surrounding air.
THIS is what water deluge systems are largely for. They Absorb the shockwaves into atomizing water, and then the engine flames can flash that atomized water into steam and the diverter deflects the steam in the rocket exhaust plume to carry the heat away from the pad.
A flat water cooled plate will NOT solve the problem. Musk needs a launch pad that needs zero repair and maintenance. One that diverts the blast AWAY from critical nearby infrastructure. He hasn’t got one. And shoving a water cooled plate under the pad won’t provide those features that every other large launchpad has. That’s his ‘team’ trying their best to come up with something slapdash to solve the problem of an entirely insufficient design.
Excellent analysis. Thanks CD for not falling for the apparent cult of personality around Elin Musk and intead giving a calm, objective account away from the hype.
Some of his information was a bit misleading (because obviously, you can’t know everything about a project by just researching it for a video) but overall it’s a good video.
It’s always just super impressive what NASA did in the 60s. I hope SpaceX comes up with a solution as durable as the pads at Kennedy have been.
So... you don't find it odd in any way that space travel technology is the only sector is human history to move backwards? It doesn't raise any questions for you regarding the legitimacy of NASA's presentations?
Excellent reporting as usual. Thanks CD
Excellent, thoughtful video, especially when you included the 65 year history of NASA launch pad design, construction and use. I will be surprised if SpaceX ever uses SLC 39A for Starship based on possible destruction of nearby structures especially those for SLS. NASA seemed to be in the dark (or out to lunch) regarding this hazard.
Forget about using pad 39 and give SpaceX a remote site to build an entirely new pad. I think Maralogo would do.
SpaceX needs to upgrade their launch pads to Level 3, which will cost 280,000 Kerbal bucks.
And hopefully not so many Kerbal lives
Interestingly, KSP launch pad level 2 has flame diverters.
Super interesting stuff and well fleshed out, thank you !
Thank you! That was super informative and very interesting.
To me, it's mind-boggling how they are still not going with a diverter trench. Think about how much a little money spent here, now, could save big money and time in the future with not having to repair stage 0 after each launch. It doesn't have to have a huge footprint, only be tall enough to accommodate an adequate trench. Bite the bullet SpaceX and just build what you should have built in 2020.
They need to permits for this, and that is not likely to happen soon, or if at all.
try digging below sea level and let me know how it works out.
Your mind is boggled by alot of things right?
As the video said, a trench will take massive time and money they don't have, if they even get permission.
@@StevenAndrews Um, no one said anything about digging. They need a flame diverter trench. That can be built just like at KSC, or even higher above ground. And NO, there is no need for such a wide mound when retaining walls can be built. They made a HUGE mistake building at the Cape before even knowing how the Boca Chica pad would perform.
There's been talk of an off-shore launch facility once the system goes beyond the current 3 locations. This might solve a LOT of problems - including noise pollution from rapid re-launches. In the case of multiple pads, per platform there's the possibility of multiple flights per day. The shock wave off water from a recommissioned oil derrick would be negligible not to mention the height for all manner of flame mitigation.
Instant Fried fish Sticks , If over the ocean
Right now is at best talk of an off shore launch facility.
That degree of sound would be incredibly damaging to marine life, for an enormous radius. It would be orders of magnitude beyond the current concerns over protected wildlife around Boca Chica. I hope it never happens.
No one makes better videos than you.
Something about the way you speak just absolutely clicks with my brain. Thank you for the quality.
Having the rocket clear the tower is a super low bar for a definition of success, right? How can anyone be okay with that definition of success?
While the employees were jumping up and down with delight, Dear Leader looked pretty glum sitting in the control room.
When I lived in Waco Texas the test facility at McGregor was about 6 miles away. The seismic shock was strong enough from that distance to shatter the glass in the back door of the house.
I appreciate and prefer the ads towards the beginning of the video rather than the end. Leaves me feeling satisfied rather than sighing
Thanks for the amazing content!
As a person who has been watching this all go on for years. I believe that if they extend the tower a few more sections. And then take the stand. Chop the legs off of it and then build a flame diversion system and water deluge system. Up above ground level. I believe they will have successfully dealt with their issues. I'm just a random guy looking at a problem and thinking of a system that might help.
Chuck up a big steel high tension wire fence in front of of the tanks too
I think that this is what they will do, raising a steel tower is pretty simple, look at how construction cranes goes up, they could do the same, but at much larger scale.
@@worawatli8952 indeed, the chopsticks are raised and lowered by cable, doesn't seem like it should be problematic to stand it on something.
to launch 10x a day, they'd need better pads.. but they'd also need some kind of an actual reason to launch 10x a day
If you build it, they will come.
It's not building stuff here to go into space, it's going into space to build stuff there.
Curious Droid always makes so insightful videos. I think 1.07 M subs is underrating.
Wow! What you said was brilliant! That's just made my thoughs so much clearer. Thank you.
I know Starship's second stage is meant to land and take off from surfaces that aren't necessarily prepared for a launch, such as the lunar or martian surface. The booster, however, is meant to launch from fixed sites on Earth only, even returning to those points to land. It boggles my mind that SpaceX isn't taking every known and already well understood measure to protect those fixed sites from launch damage from that much more powerful rocket.
Do you want to pay for "every known measure"
It only took NASA 3 years and more money than has been spent on Starship to built the pad alone. Clearly doing the same thing is how progress is made.
@@zyeborm🙄🙄🙄 And that knowledge already exists now. Reinventing the wheel is pointless.
@@zyeborm If they can't do it safely, then they shouldn't do it at all.
@@ToaArcan European?
Surprised there was no mention of Elons tweet a month or so before the launch… He said something like “Ive decided to have no flame trench, but this could be a mistake”… So it was a calculated decision- maybe it would work, maybe not… Move fast, break things 😁
It was a Tweet 7. okt. 2020. Quote: "Aspiring to have no flame diverter in Boca, but this could turn out to be a mistake".
The problem is breaking the rocket prototype is so much less disruptive than breaking the launch pad. They need to come up with a launch pad that withstands those forces several times a week.
He’s breaking other people’s things. That’s a problem.
@@grahamstrouse1165 LOL, yeah never thought of it like that. Technically you are right as SpaceX have recieved billions of dollars in subsidies.
Small error @ 3:57. While the rocket thrust definitely did do some direct damage to the launch pad, the actual damage to the pad was caused by vaporizing ground water below the fondag creating a massive pressure bubble that burst about 4-5 seconds after the engines started, about a second before liftoff. There are Nasa documents back to the 70s on launch pad design that explain the destruction process. While spalling is a concrete problem, the pad didn't blow up from spalling! Instead, the heat and noise exacerbated spalling and cracking from the test-launch which facilitated heat transfer and ostensibly exhaust from passing through the pad to the underlying water where it vaporized and started building up pressure like a pressure vessel. The longer it lasted, the greater the pressure. When the fondag let go under tension from below, the explosion occurred, sending shrapnel in every direction, including into the engines. The engine exhaust would have prevented a lot of that hypersonic debris from getting launched into the engines and up through the rocket, but a bunch did get through, destroying 3 of the engines while it was still on the pad and putting holes and dents into pipes so that some of them weren't flowing sufficiently and some were leaking. Basically, it was a giant cluster-F from about the 6 second mark and the launch should've been scrubbed rather than potentially launching the rocket like a V2, so that it landed on the pad, maybe not even clearing the launch tower. Readings from the launch profile show the engines underperforming by about 20% and a severe lack of trajectory control as a consequence. Of course, the debris damage to the gimbaling systems killed the attitude control completely at around the three minute mark. Oh, and the detonation system didn't work. So, all in all, the whole thing could've gone slightly worse, but not much. On the positive side, we got to see how SpaceX has zero organizational safety culture and zero concern for the environment. So, that's nice, right?
SpaceX telemetry should've shown that all the engines lit at the start and then three of them went out abruptly at the same time at about the 4 second mark. That was 2-3 seconds prior to liftoff and ample time for someone on the ground to scrub the mission, realizing that it was doomed.
Wow man, you can lay down the bullshit bro.. that was just a long diatribe of uninformed bullshit..
Is this all conjecture or do you have some source you didn't mention?
@@intrepidpursuit Nasa has numerous reports dating back to the 70s on the process by which rocket exhaust damages and undermines concrete as well as techniques to mitigate damage and I've read a couple of them. Google "Nasa flame trench report" for your reading pleasure. When it comes to rocketry, ignore Nasa findings at your own peril!
I'm an engineer who has studied strength of materials including steel and concrete and worked around legal pressure vessels. Spalling (another possible destructive means) isn't generally explosive and also not so simultaneous or widespread. What is seen in the video is the result of an instantaneous explosion with pressure from below the pad, ejecting material in every direction. The Nasa reports detail this process because the Cape Canaveral water table is similarly high, as at Boca Chica.
There's a remote possibility that the rocket exhaust got under the concrete through cracks in it, but that would have eroded the concrete over time rather than the instantaneous explosion seen in the footage at about the +4 second mark and that exhaust would've vaporized the ground water anyway, so either means of heat transfer results in water below the pad vaporizing and nowhere to go but detonating the fondag. That's also why there's a crater offset from the center of the pad. If the rocket had actually dug it out, it would've been at the middle.
Aside from someone having planted explosives below the pad, the only way you're going to get that sort of instantaneous explosion to blow the pad to bits is from water vapor building pressure below the pad until it literally exploded in every direction, damaging all the engines and removing at least one of them in the launch video. Bits of that engine should be either on the pad or in the massive debris field.
Yes, I wasn't standing under the rocket watching the pad explode, but I didn't need to be to readily recognize what happened and read about how it happened in those Nasa docs.
Great analysis. Love the videos.
I wonder how much thought was given to the erosive effect of the rocket exhaust in the original design of the launch pad. Obviously the principal problem is how to deflect the exhaust through 90 deg while keeping the deflecting material in one piece. Next, the main exhaust stream needs to be broken into many separate streams so as to render each stream more manageable. I don't think concrete is suitable: without the use of any water, all surfaces have to be coated with an ablative material. I'll be interested to see how the designers tackle this!
Zero. Zero thought given. This is SpaceX.
I love the pragmatism of 20th century NASA engineers" just make it strong enough for nuclear engines". also did space x not understand they are building the next generation of space travel pad included, although if I was elon I'd let them blast a crater in Florida as well
Possibly his engineers advised against. But Musk wanted this and his hubris likely forced it through.
Billionaires like Musk at some point develop an oversized ego. They think they know best even when the evidence clearly indicates otherwise. NASA engineers figured out a solution to this problems decades ago. It was foolhardy of that muppet Musk to not apply the lessons learned by those NASA engineers.
I work construction part time. Concrete is not made to resist the extreme heat and pressure expelled by a massive rocket like Spaceship. It was completely clear from the beginning that this would happen. It also likely led to the damage of some of those engines which in turn led to the loss of the vessel
Nicely done, thanks.
The difference in Nasas layout of the launchpad is striking compared to Spacex´s. Instead of the silos being close to the rocket in Nasas layout they are as far away from the rocket as possible. My guess as to why Elon chose this particular site for the launch was that it was cheap to buy despite not probably being optimal for launching rockets this big.
I think an extremely deep flame trench is the best option. Water cooling some kind of steel surface sounds like it could be explosive. Water cannot carry away that concentrated power quickly enough. I know the water table is low, but a flame trench, or tunnel, could still be built. It just needs pumping out for the launch. Raising the whole launch system, as mentioned in this video, would be another good option. Anyway, whatever is done, it needs to be something with extreme improvement.
You might be the only smart comment in a sea of dumb comments.
That infrastructure could be built, but the problem is those projects require extensive permits for which SpaceX already showed no interest for because it would take too long for everything to be complete. They already applied for a trench permit in 2019 then abandoned it later.
@@FrankyPi Yes. I had heard of that. I think it could be done in another way, mainly above ground, but the launch tower and ring (the whole system really) would need to be a couple of frames higher. The trench and launch ring probably needs carbon heat tile protection in places. Some of the steel parts in this launch were eroding at nearly an inch per second, I heard.
@J Adams The only thing they can do without any permit is a surface structure below the mount, like a steel diverter (see Saturn 1B for example), but that would still be an inadequate solution for a vehicle of this size and power, they're stuck with only making inadequate solutions. Also, they already indicated they don't want any structure like that as they need space for engine inspection and replacement if needed. A flame trench would be incredibly difficult to dig and build on this land anyway, they would need to make a whole raised pad structure first, then dig to ground level, just like NASA did back in the 60s, but again that's a significant project and requires a permit. It took NASA 3 years to build those with Apollo budget, while SpaceX would need another 2 or so years just for the permit, they don't have 5 years to spare, should've thought about this way earlier when they knew they were aiming for this site here, it could've been done by now. Their approach to this whole project was completely skewed from the start. Shot themseleves in the foot and I don't see a promising future for it at all.
👍👍 nice video. CommonSenseSkeptic (another YT channel) did a nice video on that launch too. very questionable
Great report - Very important points raised...
You are my favorite science engineering channel. You kind are dying off and as a 35 year old who had great science professors who forced us to think to solve real world problems. I respect your point of view so much and I always wish you would upload more but I’m not complaining. You and thunderfoot are incredible
It's like watching a bunch of school kids making all the rookie mistakes and learning why it's called 'Rocket Science' and not 'Bi-carb Volcano'.
Except the school kids have been doing this for the better part of a decade now, and should know better.
@@86pp73 Get back to me when they get to Mars, hang on wasn't that supposed to be two years ago according your leader L Ron Musk?
@@marklatimer7333 Oh Mark,, I hear your Mommy calling you in for dinner.. do your homework and grow up son...
@@francom6230 Seek help Man, You've been indoctrinated into L. Ron Musk's evil cult - get out while you still can.
@@francom6230 I stand by my original comments, it's obvious to me that you have absolutely no clue what you are talking about.
I can't help notice how close all those facilities are to the launch pad.
(Yeah, I know, that's a large part of the what the video is about. I typed this comment at 30sec in)
Yeah, I know right. Those tanks better not be fuel!
@@mrdan2898 um, where do you think they keep the fuel? It can't be too far away, otherwise it wouldn't feed the system effectively. Those tanks aren't decorations...
Elon is not a responsible guy but he does keep a death grip on his companies.
totally irresponsible engineering if you ask me
@@ChristopherSadlowski The fact that they were severely dented means we almost witnessed an amazing fuel explosion.
great content thanks very much
After seeing so much damage from the Starship landing, you'd think they'd realize how ineffective that flat surface of concrete is. And of course the part where virtually every commonly used launch site has some kind of flame trench...
If you believe the well circulated and reasonably founded rumour mill - they did know. Or at least spaceX team did. Musk forced it through because 'he knows best'.
Well researched credible quality content as usual.
check out Common Sense Skeptic, curious droid is a child compared to him.
Paul, Thank you for the in-depth analysis of the Boca Chica launch site. That video on the "camera car" taking a direct hit from a piece of concrete was terrific and showed how lucky Space X was that they did not detonate their tank farm. Keep up the excellent work, CD.
Great video Paul
Very nice work
Even with a steel plate and water deluge system, there will still be a lot of overpressure blasting against the bottom of the booster.
The new system will help regarding erosion of the base but will it be enough to solve the blast problem-?
There's no way that acoustics aren't worse like that, I wouldn't be surprised at all if it ends up like N1 on its second launch. The thing is, they still don't have a deluge, they'll just be water cooling the plates. For a proper deluge system they would need a permit for which they don't have time to wait for, same is for a flame trench they applied for in 2019 then abandoned the process.
@@FrankyPi the temperatures that those rockets put out, that water will get vaporised instantly, it's a terrible "solution" to have it on *metal plates*
@Cat King It's also a question whether those plates and welds will even hold up under that 6000+ tons of thrust, we will see I guess. Worst possible scenario would set them back for a long time and would only help the ongoing lawsuit against FAA.
@@FrankyPi worst case scenario (for them) i think would them being grounded permanently from that site. It's really unbelievable that the OLM was put together with a 'this will do' mentality when it's like...well we see what that attitude brought them lol
If you look with attention to the close up footage from the Everyday Astronaut, the Booster lost around ten engines during the flight, as a failure in the flight termination system to destroy the rocket instantaneous.
Visual evidence shows it lost 8 engines. I saw Angry's vid and don't agree with his take on the destruct system. Scott Manley did one shortly after the flight, plus a vid specifically about FTS in the last day or so. The FTS is not designed to and is not capable of instantly destroying a rocket.
@@RechargeableLithium I didn't used the Angry Astronaut channel as reference. Check all the explosions in the engine area, as the greenish colours with engines probably going out.
@@RogerM88 The greenish fire normally means that the engine is burning bits of itself, rather than just the fuel.
@@ToaArcan so it means engine failure.
CSS had it at 10/11 with the possibility of one or two more right before the ship blew itself apart (also pointed out that it looks like the FTS was triggered and failed twice). How anyone is spinning this as a positive because 'at least it left the launchpad/think of all the data!' when you know they'll be perched on launches by non-SpaceX entities ready to tear apart the smallest issues. The entire thing was a failure and it's grounded them for the rest of the year - forget what Musk says about when they'll be ready again, it's not up to him, it's the FAA
I just wanted to say, I am happy that you appear well. Another great video!
Great presentation.
Casual observation: the vintage NASA pads clearly work, and scaling the facilities and systems up is fairly straightforward. Seems like SpaceX wants to find a smaller, cheaper, more clever solution that wouldn't tie them or anyone so tightly to a specific location.
yeah and I want to find a winning powerball ticket
I agree! and yet SpaceX is too cheap to even copy another design already tested.
@@mrdan2898 Why copy it? They know it works and is annoying to bother with. They want to design a better launch platform, not just a better rocket.
Or is it a case of those who know a bit about how previous diversion approaches have been successful, are not speaking up, or they are sharing there knowledge and it’s being ignored.
@@lx-mw1cc they did a great job designing a new one, didn’t they? They only risked their pad, the tower, the rocket and the tank farm all on the same launch. The dumbasses could have blown the rocket up right on the pad because they decided not to do anything about it. It was a stupid decision and I look forward to them reaping what they’re sowing.
It's as if they said the rocket is an out dated version and why bother making the pad good if it all blows up, let's launch and see what happens 😮🚀
Was cool to see tho
It was irresponsible for SpaceX to take the attitude of "see what happens" with a rocket that big. It could have caused considerably more damage to the surrounding area than it did, and the damage that it did cause wasn't trivial.
Love your Videos paul
Fantastic as expected. Also love that shirt.
It is mind-boggling that Space X did not expect this will happen. Or they did, but decided to proceed anyway. This isn't a little detail they missed.
And you ?
The end of this video states that SpaceX did anticipate the launch pad issue, applied for federal permits to essentially copy the NASA style pads, but did not receive permission from the federal government due to environmental concerns.
Odd, since the federal government OK'ed SpaceX's use of thst beach for launch operations. Federal government screw ups at their finest, the most common scenario as usual.
There was a high chance the whole thing would blow up on the launchpad anyway...
They proceeded anyway. All Powerfull Rockets need such things. But it would have been expensive. I bet it was better to proove to the investors that an expensive Pad is nessesery in a way they understand it. I begin to think thats Musks secret, he knows the investors need cool stories not facts. I dont like Musk.
That's what happens when you work 60 hour weeks for an egomanaic boss who fires 10% of his employees every year.
I'm surprised the launch tower could handle the forces
The tower doesn't actually carry any load during launch. The rocket sits on the pad. The segments get lifted onto the pad empty by the tower.
The upgraded OLP at the Boca Chica launch site will in fact have a much stronger foundation on top of which will be laid the water cooled steel sandwich which will also provide a powerful upwardvpointing shower to counter the wrath of 33 raptors firing. Add to that is the plan to raise starship off the launch pad in half the time as happened on launch one. All of these changes should make a big difference.
Boca Chica will never ever host actual launches to the moon and mars. The initial license was for up to two Falcon Heavy launches per year. SpaceX requested a modification and said that the site will be used mostly for building and testing Starship prototypes. So the launchpad there was never designed to support frequent launches, let alone be human rated.
Hopefully the Moon pad on which Starship will land and take off again will be better built...
Oh wait, it's just a flat field of regolite.
There's talk of using a laser on Earth to bake moon dust into glass. But frankly it'd be easier and cheaper to use a nuke
you need way less thrust to take off from moon, so it should be less of a problem there :)
@@J-IFWBR Except that your engines will be much closer to the ground, and the oversized lander will still need massive thrust to launch.
I mean, "flat" isn't accurate. And regolith is soft. They won't have to worry about taking off from the surface since it's just going to fall over once it touches down anyway.
No. The lunar engines for landing and departing are high on the Starship, not on the bottom.
It was Musk himself who kept going on about the importance of 'stage zero'. I've always wondered if the old adage about Americans not understanding irony was true. Apparently, at least in Musk's case, it is.
What sort of 'brilliant engineer' thinks that a short duration, half power test is the same as a launch??
I guess the answer is the same sort of brilliant engineer that dismisses 50+ years of experience and decides that a water filled metal plate will do as well as a deluge system and a flame trench.
Even if the metal plate had been in place and had worked (anyone wanting to bet on that?), it would only have dealt with the heat problem. It wouldn't have redirected the exhaust, and, more importantly, it wouldn't have reduced the sonic shock waves. In fact it would probably just have reflected them straight up, back at the engines.
The idea of launching the largest rocket ever built in the middle of a nature reserve was always one of Musk's crazier schemes. And now he is going to reap the (possibly fatal) consequences of that idiot idea.
I can't see NASA stumping up the money to build a Starship-proof launch faculty, and even Musk doesn't have that sort of cash - especially post-Twitter.
And, anyway, what for? To launch a rocket that will never be human-rated and that is based on a pot head's sci-fi dream of colonising Mars.
Is this going to go down in history as 'Musk's Folly'? I suspect it is.
The reason for not launching with a flame diverter is because the goal was to build a craft that could take off and land vertically on Mars or the Moon. That requires launching w/o a fancy pad.
As for funding further development, that's not a problem. The capabilities demonstrated so far are obviously super valuable (ppl, including NASA, pay alot for heavy lift to orbit). All he has to do is issue stock in the company and people will buy it.
Now he might find that unpleasant since at some point those stockholders are going to demand he give up on this crap about landing on Mars and just focus on launching to earth orbit where all the money is but this isn't Paul Allen's stratolaunch...it's got a ton of commercial value.
@@petergerdes1094 the whole Mars thing is pure fantasy. I won't rehearse all the reasons why again, I'm sure you know all that. But no one is going to Mars. Possibly the Moon, but, even there, I don't really see the point of the Starship.
Musk didn't do (or not do) all these things because of Mars or the Moon, he did it because he thinks he knows best. Just like he did with Twitter.
And they both worked out about as well.
It’s almost as if Elon Musk is an idiot
He's not as smart as we hoped he was.. anyone who manufacturers that many boosters with out having a working prototype is a fool... the wrecking crew will be busy for awhile..if I was a astronaut scheduled for the first starship flight to the moon I'd be thinking about changing jobs!!.🚀💥☠️😪
@@paulhaynes8045 He did it because he has a fuckton of money and when you are a billionaire you get to make companies to cater to your fantasies of exploring the solar system.
Ultimately, it's mostly his money and there isn't anything irrational about him using it to cosplay explorer if that's what makes him happy.
Not how I'd build a rocket to make life better on earth but probably a better use of resources than just buying up private islands and building giant yachts or whatever rich ppl waste money on.
Love your videos!
Thank you for saying what needed to be said.
1 note to add is that SpaceX is already building a crew access tower to SLC 40 at the cape to help with the tight schedules and possible complications from LC39a launches
Good point about the static fire weakening things before the main event.
Great vid. Bearing in mind the size of starship how large were the two large pieces of concrete that you could see in the vid? They must be several meters in diameter at least.
AMAZING POWER of these Rockets....Thanks Paul for showing the power of this Rocket and your excellent research to make this video👍
Old Navy Flying Shoe🇺🇸
It looks like SpaceX was under pressure to show results. They had to known that launch pad was woefully inadequate. In the end, they had a good show and hopefully investors will keep shoveling $$$ into SpaceX.
Plausible explanation…
After that amateur hour sh--show I wouln't invest any $ in spacex
My tax money was in that launch. I would prefer to scrap the unrealistic Starship.
Could you elaborate why Elon said they do not think they need to do funding round this year then? Was he just lying?
They just wanted this off the pad so they can move on to more advanced versions. Fairly straight forward I think?
They did. Elon Tweeted multiple times that the engineers said hsi pad was inadequate and they needed a flame trench. He felt differently and tried to be cheap. It's litterally all Elon.
In the aftermath of this first test it seems that the launch cadence necessary to complete Lunar Starship testing and to establish orbital refueling by 2025 may well be unrealistic. Refueling will take multiple launches of this giant rocket with very short intervals in between.
Musk promised cargo missions to Mars by 2022 ,lol.
Lunar starship 2030 is no way unrealistic
I'm going to make the prediction right now that China will beat the US (back) to the moon.
@@hippomormor yeah they should have asked ula to do it. How's their progress on Vulcan going? They have only been working on it for a decade and they still don't have the new upper stage for it yet.
@@zyeborm I’m not sure what your point is and how it relates to me just giving a very realistic timeline. That’s just whataboutism
Loved the video ❤
Def new Subscriber here!! GREAT CONTENT
Such informative and interesting video.
Absolutely Great job!
Tbh, I never even knew that the launch pad could be of such importance and such a huge issue
I don't understand why SpaceX even did this launch at this time when the launch pad in its current state was pretty much inevitably going to get wrecked. I'm sure these engineers had to know this, and know that debris form the pad hitting the engines was a real possibility, and that's what ended up happening, and that was the direct cause of the eventual end of the launch. So, why even do this launch with this totally unprepared launch pad? I don't get it. Regardless of schedule, and regardless of what system they go with in then future to protect against this sort of thing (cooled steel plates vs flame diversion trench system vs whatever else), almost guaranteeing a failure seems dumb. What did they learn that they couldn't have learned if they just waited a bit until the pad was ready with whatever system?
They are building several iterations at the same time. They needed the test flight info to improve those iterations being built. The 6 weeks it takes to rebuild the pad was a price worth paying to get the test flight data so they can implement improvements right now on the starships being built.
I think it was pretty clear from the Twitter space that they really wanted to get rid of the current super heavy booster so they can move on to a better one. It was eiter blasting it off, seeing that happed and learning from that or manually disassembling it
Everything Elon does and says is to attract attention. Everyone pays attention to an explosion. Why wait until you have designed everything properly when you can get away with a big bang for the first flight and get some lovely media attention? Get the attention now, get an explosion and destroy the pad, say that it was mostly a success and you will be ready to go again in a few weeks, no problem. Because you know full well the regulators will not allow them to go again so soon due to the devastation caused. Then complain that the regulators are the ones holding everything back, not your excellent design team and implementation.
It's to replicate conditions on Mars... They can't just dig massive trenches or lay tonnes of concrete on Mars. They want to launch as minimalist as possible as it would be more accurate to the launch on other planets/objects.
@@jam99 THIS
Spacex and the FAA will be foolish to attempt another launch without a Flame trench in place! Starship Superheavy was inches away from blowing up on the pad due to massive chunks of Fondag! they have Nasa and even the Soviets' N-1 Rocket design the Launch Complex 110) which hardly gets mentioned was a tri-flame trench.
I agree however they already have hardware onsite for the next launch. Lots of steel plate and high volume water piping. Parts have been pictured on LabPadres channel.
I really like your commentary, I just came across the channel. 👍
That was not actually a water deluge system, they use nitrogen and water mist to suppress detonation that could happen during spinup if too much methane builds up under the skirt.
Astonishing, really, that the engineers thought the damage was going to be acceptable. I assume that Musk was warned and he chose to put the risk to one side.
Pay cheep pay twice in operation
@neoanderson6128It was catastrophic.
he wanted to launch on 4/20 cause he thought it was funny. thats the real reason
I'd think they'd have the capability on site to freeze the ground around the tower and dig a flame diverter trench to any depth they'd like -and then seal it up like a bathtub. They use that technique in high rise building foundations that go below the water table.
Cool, you get the EPA and army core of engineers to sign off on it and let me know when you're done.
@@zyeborm k. Should be just a matter of boring a network of holes around the pad and running closed loop coolant lines down and up. Or possibly just fill the holes from the bottom with liquid nitrogen and let it boil off... is non toxic and they probably burn through more every time they do a pressure test. I'll get right on it.
Space x ultimately plans to launch these rockets on platforms out a sea so a flame diverting trench will not be suitable in this application at Starbase they are not just developing the rocket but also the manufacturing and launch processes. you could say that they should have put in a flame diverter but honestly I'm surprised at how little damage was done to the launch pad considering there is no water deluge system or flame diverters.
It completely obliterated the thing, smashed up the rocket site and covered the surrounding nature reserve with bit concrete boulders, and you call that 'little damage'?
😂 right
@@sandran17 Compared to the damage that could have been caused yes there is little damage. It could have caused way more damage by taking out the tower, launch mount, quick disconnect arms and the tank farm. Considering all of this infrastructure survived the damage is quite minor.
@@adamflohr5166 its still a shit tonne of damage compared to how NASA does its launches. Its like comparing an A result on an exam and a C result. The C result could have completely failed, but they still did pretty shite, and need severe improvement.
@@sandran17guess what, SpaceX isn't NASA.
It only has to justify its methods to a small number of sophisticated investors, not Congress and their constituents.
Good call!
A tremendous presentation, as always. One point of correction: there were 13 Saturn V launches when you count Skylab.
We can get to one of the ten launches a day using the hyperloop system :-)
This is slowly becoming one of my favorite space content channels seemingly out of nowhere
100% Steals videos from smaller guys!! Including clips script the lot! Reported this channel.
Excellent Analysis!!!!