"Space X suffers "rapid unscheduled disassembly."" Topic

Well, at least they haven't lost their sense of humour.

It blew up a few minutes after launch.

I'm ready to sign up for Mars! 🙄

Refer to an thread in the Messages about using this vehicle to deploy our troops worldwide. It may be difficult to get the Ist Cav Div. to get aboard after this.

I'm disappointed, but they're doing the high-iteration, move-fast-and-break-things development scheme. So it's not as big a setback as it would be for the folks who test their rockets by launching one every 2-3 years. I just hope they can get Starship 9 up next month and learn more from a different RUD.

But no, I am not riding one of those things, nor investing money. Just watching.

but they're doing the high-iteration, move-fast-and-break-things development scheme…

Yeah, just the same guy churning out Teslas that burn and can't be extinguished, and running DOGE with a chainsaw.
Oh, and shutting down any agencies investigating him.
What? Me worry? 🙄

burn and can't be extinguished

Did he get a Nobel prize for creating a fire that can't be extinguished? That would solve all the world's energy problems! And probably exacerbate the overpopulation problem.

Perhaps he should get a Nobel for time travel, too, if you think he came up with the term and it hasn't been in common use for decades.

Extinguish – "cause (a fire or light) to cease to burn". This implies an ACTION being used to dampen the flames.

This of course precludes said conflagration burning itself out. So I think John has the better grasp on the language.

Yes, but if it can't be extinguished, the fire is happening by physics unknown to anyone, except apparently Tesla. Such new physics would really help.

Okay. YOU put out the fire, with current fire extinguishing apparatus.
Sheesh.

Oh. Excuse me. Musk is a saint. Forgive me.

Extinguishing is active, letting it die out is passive.
So you can be cute with your physics but the language doesn't support you.

And John's actual meaning was clear.

🙄

YOU put out the fire, with current fire extinguishing apparatus.

Actually, I have. And I have tested better ways to do it for first responders. The current best one on the market, IMPO, is:

link

Oh. Excuse me. Musk is a saint. Forgive me.

And this is why people can't have actual dicussions on topics. I say something that upsets your uniformed orthodoxy, and you associate me with everything you don't like.

And John's actual meaning was clear.

It absolutely is clear. And it is absolultely wrong. It is absolutely possible to extinguish that type of battery fire. Has been for decades. You do not have to let them die out.

And his recent implication that you can't do it with current technology is equally wrong.

Going back to the OP – truly, truly, truly folks I just thought it was a prime example of amusing "business speak" – why be direct when you can obscure a meaning…?

I can see that. While the term has been used for decades in the aerospace and other engineering industries, it is a tongue-in-cheek jargon term. You would have to be steeped in those environments to have been familiar with it. You would run into it occasionally if you read trade magazines, too.

It is not often used outside tech circles. It's humorous, but it has a function. RUD acts as general class for multiple different types of catastrophic failure. I have seen it most often used early in investigation of such events when you don't want to say "explosion" or "structural failure" or "ICS bug" because you don't know.

The other common use in my experience is an event that happened in an outside organization, especially one where you are unlikely to get more details. North Korean missile explosions come to mind, though sometimes they respond with "Nope. Test complete. We meant to do that."

You would have to be open and transparent early in causal analysis to use the term in public. For example, I have never seen the term written in an FAA report. The timbre of their mission is not compatible with specualtion, so they are very conservative and don't make official statements until they are highly confident of the facts.

Both approaches have their benefits and drawbacks.

Oh yeah, they can probably claim 80% successful or something.

Booster ignition – tick
Booster separation – tick
Booster recovery – tick
Transition to main engines – tick
Following planned trajectory – partial success

I have dealt with the difference between mission success and technical performance metrics often.

An appropriate a priori metric for this would be % desired tests (since this was a test flight) with usable results (which might make this 2 or 3 DOF instead of a straight percent) compared to actual-to-expected cost ratio.

The base a posteriori metric would be the importance of the failure to future activity compared to the ratio of the cost of the event (ameliorated by any completed tests) to an estimate of the cost of finding the problem by the most likely next means. A posteriori metrics are often way more tricky than a priori ones.

The timbre of the mission of NASA, like the FAA, is hard over on the conservative side. "Fail early, fail often." would have probably killed the fledgling US space program early on from popular reaction to "wasted" cost by people who don't understand the trade-space for different approaches.

Most senior NASA officials in the Apollo program that I have read acknowledge that getting to the moon cost more and took longer with the conservative approach. This was balanced by low adverse public reaction to doing something the world had never seen before (something people didn't understand the risk space for) and a very low casualty count. Three, during a (aligned to this discussion) test event prior to the Apollo I mission.

The Starship is intended to eventually reach Mars with a manned crew. You think that's easy? Tell me, who else is actually developing or capable of developing such a ship beyond SpaceX? I'd wait for a response, but I'd never get one.

I'm curious. How many of y'all have ever done ANYTHING involving developing rockets— even small ones?

*crickets*

How many of you know anything about aeronautics or the aerospace industry?

*crickets*

How about the space program?

*crickets*

Well, though I do not claim to be an actual rocket scientist or engineer, I actually HAVE contributed to the development of space rocketry, in a small but significant way. I call it my lucky brainstorm. Wish I held the patent, but that was given to NASA. (So not so lucky for me.) In any case, I know how rockets work, and how hard it is to do actual spaceflight.

RUD is, as others have said, intentionally humorous jargon for rocket explosions (among other things), long used in the field. The explosions can be accidental or in fact planned. Interestingly, in SpaceX's case the explosion has, on many occasions, actually been deliberate— when a 5,000-ton spacecraft loses stability and control the LAST thing you want it to do is remain intact for when it strikes the ground in an unpredictable (and possibly populated) area. So you press the "abort" button (metaphorically speaking) and the thing goes kablooey into small parts that more readily burn up in the atmosphere… this is especially important when the actual spacecraft itself is designed NOT to burn up in the atmosphere if intact. (Y'all do know that's one of the primary requirements for a reusable spacecraft— that it not burn up due to the friction on re-entry? Challenger? Ring a bell?)

So, yes, they're testing Starship. It's a very complicated machine, with lots of parts that could go wrong. And they'll keep testing it (and RUD-ing it, if necessary) until they get it right. And only then will they put actual people on board.

Which, interestingly, is pretty much how NASA did it all the first time around… although they managed to kill some people in the process because they DIDN'T do some of the unmanned testing they should have done.

So Musk is actually doing it right, indeed the only way it can be done. And on every test, SpaceX gets better at doing it.

And rest easy— there is no way Musk (or anyone else) wants any of y'all to be on one of his rockets.

AND AS FOR THE CARS:

*ALL* EVs and hybrids had the exact same risk and danger of fires as the Tesla, because they are electric vehicles that, when sufficiently damaged, start electrical fires. Guess what— as you should have learned in grade school, electrical fires CANNOT be put out in the same manner as most fires because YOU CAN'T USE WATER ON THEM. Water+electricity=Sparks.

DUH.

Sooo if an EV or a hybrid (which y'all probably drive) catches on fire, the fire has to be put out with other methods than the convenient water-based fireplug.
And the batteries are also unique chemical fires (with hazardous chemicals, too), which have to be considered as well— again, no water. And that battery in the Tesla? Well, that happens to be pretty much identical to the battery in every other EV made by any manufacturer, and also every hybrid vehicle made by every manufacturer. It ain't Tesla's fault— it's the technology that EVERY manufacturer uses. You know why you hear about the Tesla burning up and not the Nissan Leaf or Toyota Prius? Because it's sexier to have a story about Tesla on the evening news than a boring run-of-the-mill Prius (for the record, I own a Prius, and I like it. But I don't park it in my garage, which is under my bedroom, because I know what would happen if God forbid it caught fire).

they managed to kill some people in the process because they DIDN'T do some of the unmanned testing they should have done.

I also pointed that out, but I think your statement is a little harsh. The Apollo I event does, however, point out that no matter how slow and cautious you are, risk does not go down to zero, especially in an inherently difficult undertaking.

t's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.

EVs and hybrids had the exact same risk and danger of fires as the Tesla,

Concur and support. I was going to go into this, but after multiple falsehoods about the fires not being able to be extinguished, the people commenting seemed to run away from the discussion.

The real question is why did governments use taxpayers' dollars to encourage the purchase of such vehicles without in parallel supporting first responders to get sufficient amounts of the gear needed to respond to incidents?

Truth in advertising, I own a hybrid. (Thanks to all the taxpayers that subsidized my cost; without you I would not be able to save money on the deal, and likely wouldn't have done it.) I also got an extended nozzle PKP extinguisher for my car safety kit out of pocket. (When subracted from the subsidized savings, I probably still come out ahead.)