SpaceX (out of main)

[KarenRei]

What the heck?

Jim Bridenstine on Twitter

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine is trolling SpaceX on Twitter? Are you kidding me? And hey, I don't see Boeing sending crew to orbit either, despite how much more money you're paying them. Speaking about wastes of taxpayer money of truly epic proportions, how's Ares... I'm sorry, I mean SLS... going?

 

[LJS22]

What the heck?

Jim Bridenstine on Twitter

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine is trolling SpaceX on Twitter? Are you kidding me? And hey, I don't see Boeing sending crew to orbit either, despite how much more money you're paying them. Speaking about wastes of taxpayer money of truly epic proportions, how's Ares... I'm sorry, I mean SLS... going?

NASA wasted enough time paying foreign governments to do what the US was the best at. That got us decades behind and now that the dream of multi planetary exploration is back in our hands he wants a timeline to be followed for commercial crew trips to the space station? I’m sure he’s aware of the opportunities that will open up when SpaceX begins exploring beyond our moon. But by all means publicly shame a company that has the world excited about space exploration.

 

[Fact Checking]

What the heck?

Jim Bridenstine on Twitter

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine is trolling SpaceX on Twitter? Are you kidding me? And hey, I don't see Boeing sending crew to orbit either, despite how much more money you're paying them. Speaking about wastes of taxpayer money of truly epic proportions, how's Ares... I'm sorry, I mean SLS... going?

Also note the timing: one day before Elon's Starship presentation.

It's petty and disgraceful, and it's an absolutely unfair and unprecedented interference of a NASA administrator with a space company he should be cheering on ...

His accusation is not just unfair but also false:

• The first Crew Dragon orbital test flight was already performed successfully, in March 2019
• The first orbital test flight of Boeing Starliner is NET October 2019
• The first crewed flight of both capsules is planned for roughly the same time.

I.e. Boeing and SpaceX are both late to a similar degree, but Boeing gets $4.2b while SpaceX $2.6b - for the same program ...

And SpaceX will also perform an additional in-flight abort test, which test Boeing got waived: first crewed Starliner flight will be with a capsule with an untested abort capability on a more dangerous to abort from launch system with solid fuel boosters ...

 

[Pras]

Also note the timing: one day before Elon's Starship presentation.

It's petty and disgraceful, and it's an absolutely unfair and unprecedented interference of a NASA administrator with a space company he should be cheering on ...

His accusation is not just unfair but also false:

• The first Crew Dragon orbital test flight was already performed successfully, in March 2019
• The first orbital test flight of Boeing Starliner is NET October 2019
• The first crewed flight of both capsules is planned for roughly the same time.

I.e. Boeing and SpaceX are both late to a similar degree, but Boeing gets $4.2b while SpaceX $2.6b - for the same program ...

And SpaceX will also perform an additional in-flight abort test, which test Boeing got "waived": first crewed Orion flight will be with a capsule with an untested abort capability on a more dangerous launch system with solid fuel boosters ...

For what it is worth.

 

[Fact Checking]

For what it is worth.
View attachment 459921

Where's Bridenstine's "reminder" to Boeing, who gets paid almost twice as much for the same capability, who is at least 7 months behind SpaceX's already completed orbital test flight milestone, and who won't perform an in-flight abort test?

Boeing would deserve such a tweet far more than SpaceX.

Crapping on SpaceX's big presentation tomorrow is petty and unprofessional in the extreme.

 

[Prunesquallor]

What the heck?

Jim Bridenstine on Twitter

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine is trolling SpaceX on Twitter? Are you kidding me? And hey, I don't see Boeing sending crew to orbit either, despite how much more money you're paying them. Speaking about wastes of taxpayer money of truly epic proportions, how's Ares... I'm sorry, I mean SLS... going?

No, in my mind this is fair. SpaceX blew their crew capsule to smithereens. Musk is spending resources building mammoth rockets to colonize a Mars, but after five years working Commercial Crew he has yet to send a single person into space. The perception is that SpaceX Commercial Crew is “Yeah, whatever. Starship is our real priority”.

 

[powertoold]

Commercial Crew is behind by years. But yes, you can infer a negative connotation towards SpaceX.

 

[HG Wells]

At some point, SpaceX will train their own crews.

 

[KarenRei]

No, in my mind this is fair. SpaceX blew their crew capsule to smithereens. Musk is spending resources building mammoth rockets to colonize a Mars, but after five years working Commercial Crew he has yet to send a single person into space. The perception is that SpaceX Commercial Crew is “Yeah, whatever. Starship is our real priority”.

Musk literally cannot do commercial crew any faster than NASA will certify their milestones. There's a mountain of paperwork and procedures to become man-rated by NASA. That's not saying that this is inherently a bad thing. Heck, SpaceX has gone above and beyond - technically there was no need for them to repeatedly retest (in increasingly hostile conditions) the SuperDraco thrusters, which led to said "blowing the crew capsule to smithereens" (they have no requirement to reuse returned capsules at all). But NASA's paperwork and procedures are not a barrier that SpaceX is placing in front of itself.

And hey, anyone remember back in 2017 when SLS launched its first flight around the moon? Anyone remember that? Bueller?

 

[Prunesquallor]

Musk literally cannot do commercial crew any faster than NASA will certify their milestones. There's a mountain of paperwork and procedures to become man-rated by NASA. That's not saying that this is inherently a bad thing. Heck, SpaceX has gone above and beyond - technically there was no need for them to repeatedly retest (in increasingly hostile conditions) the SuperDraco thrusters, which led to said "blowing the crew capsule to smithereens" (they have no requirement to reuse returned capsules at all). But NASA's paperwork and procedures are not a barrier that SpaceX is placing in front of itself.

And hey, anyone remember back in 2017 when SLS launched its first flight around the moon? Anyone remember that? Bueller?

They may have no requirement to reuse the capsule, but they clearly intend to. Therefore, the SuperDracos must operate after multiple flights. They didn’t - they would have killed the crew if they were used. From a *perception* standpoint, SpaceX should have been forthcoming about the root cause of the explosion and put all other internal priorities on hold until the issue was resolved. They did neither.

 

[mongo]

From a *perception* standpoint, SpaceX should have been forthcoming about the root cause of the explosion and put all other internal priorities on hold until the issue was resolved. They did neither.

That is just nonsensical. SpaceX has different groups working on different projects. Just like Tesla has AP people and infotainment people. Not releasing Carioke doesn't get you FSD any faster. Grounding Starship doesn't get you commercial crew any faster.
Conversely, Starship may just get you to the moon faster which will be bad for NASA from a *perception*, *budget*, and *what is it you say you do here?* point of view.

From Time interview:

Time: And when you say, “We,” do you mean the U.S. or you mean SpaceX?

Elon: I’m not sure. If it were to take longer to convince NASA and the authorities that we can do it versus just doing it, then we might just do it. It may literally be easier to just land Starship on the moon than try to convince NASA that we can.

Edit: and lest we forget. The capsule failed April 20th, the report on why came out July 15. Less than 3 months from event to root cause determination.
Better than many other anomaly investigations...

 

[MartinAustin]

Not sure why there is a SpaceX+NASA discussion happening in the Tesla stock investor's thread. This site has a SpaceX section

TSLA headed for $250+ best week as people finally start to realise Tesla is actually closer to implementing driverless cars than anyone else. IMO

 

[KarenRei]

They may have no requirement to reuse the capsule, but they clearly intend to. Therefore, the SuperDracos must operate after multiple flights. They didn’t - they would have killed the crew if they were used. From a *perception* standpoint, SpaceX should have been forthcoming about the root cause of the explosion and put all other internal priorities on hold until the issue was resolved. They did neither.

Be specific. What do you think they should have done?

• After the explosion, do you think NASA would have accepted any investigation by SpaceX that seemed rushed?
• Do you think SpaceX can just summon new Dragon capsules out of thin air? They're set up to produce them at a fixed rate. They're down one capsule. They have to wait for the next one (the capsule that was intended for crew is now being used for the abort test). Do you think they should rush it? Do you think NASA would accept them rushing it?
• Oh, so maybe they can't get this next capsule out faster, but they could at least work on increasing their production rate, right? Except that's exactly what they're doing.

What is it - specifically - that they're not doing that you think they should be doing?

SpaceX can walk and chew gum at the same time. They raised more money this year specifically to build Starlink and Starship. They're not taking resources away from commercial crew. What do you want them to do, look at their investors and say, "Psych! I know you invested in Starlink and Starship, but Prunesquallor wants us to instead put that money into Commercial Crew - not that there's any actual way we could realistically accelerate the testing schedule much no matter how much money we dumped into it!"

And seriously, NASA is the last entity who has grounds to complain about projects not getting done. Ares? SLS? James Webb? Virtually every major project they touch comes in way late, if at all, and way over budget. It's a case of a vantablack pot calling a shiny copper kettle black.

 

[Singuy]

It's total BS.

A friend of mine is an inspection engineer working for Nasa and assigned to the SpaceX crew program. He and his team requires spaceX to triple check every little thing due to safety. His complaint is that SpaceX has a culture of moving too fast, wanting to skip triple checking and gives my friend the run around because his team demands too much(or too much in the opinion of SpaceX).

So it's literally NASA that's holding this the crew program up. SpaceX would love to go balls to the walls.

 

[Prunesquallor]

That is just nonsensical. SpaceX has different groups working on different projects. Just like Tesla has AP people and infotainment people. Not releasing Carioke doesn't get you FSD any faster. Grounding Starship doesn't get you commercial crew any faster.
Conversely, Starship may just get you to the moon faster which will be bad for NASA from a *perception*, *budget*, and *what is it you say you do here?* point of view.

From Time interview:

Time: And when you say, “We,” do you mean the U.S. or you mean SpaceX?

Elon: I’m not sure. If it were to take longer to convince NASA and the authorities that we can do it versus just doing it, then we might just do it. It may literally be easier to just land Starship on the moon than try to convince NASA that we can.

Edit: and lest we forget. The capsule failed April 20th, the report on why came out July 15. Less than 3 months from event to root cause determination.
Better than many other anomaly investigations...

This is going too far off-topic so I’ll just say you are conflating Commercial Crew (ISS crew transportation contracted with the US Government partially funded with taxpayer money) with an internally funded SpaceX project with no current paying customer. The acceptable risk posture of these two types of efforts are totally different.

I’ll drop off this topic now.

Edit: correction, one known paying customer

 

[Artful Dodger]

What the heck?

Jim Bridenstine on Twitter

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine is trolling SpaceX on Twitter? Are you kidding me? And hey, I don't see Boeing sending crew to orbit either, despite how much more money you're paying them. Speaking about wastes of taxpayer money of truly epic proportions, how's Ares... I'm sorry, I mean SLS... going?

Hmm, I think I'm begining to see the common element here Jimbo...

 

[Green Pete]

What the heck?

Jim Bridenstine on Twitter

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine is trolling SpaceX on Twitter? Are you kidding me? And hey, I don't see Boeing sending crew to orbit either, despite how much more money you're paying them. Speaking about wastes of taxpayer money of truly epic proportions, how's Ares... I'm sorry, I mean SLS... going?

could just me, but I think he was lighting a fire under nasa to match spacex innovation.

 

[Artful Dodger]

It's petty and disgraceful, and it's an absolutely unfair and unprecedented interference of a NASA administrator with a space company he should be cheering on ...

*sugar* rolls down hill. I think he's still getting flak that he didn't move that hurricane to Alabama as ordered.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Therefore, the SuperDracos must operate after multiple flights. They didn’t - they would have killed the crew if they were used

This accident wouldn't necessarily have occurred outside the static firing test program. The cause of the SuperDraco explosion was icing in an oxidizer NTO valve, which might not have occured in the very different 2.9g / 125hz vibration environment of an actual boost phase emergency abort.

Note also that no oxidizer valve icing incident has never killed a crew in NASA'S program history. It's not just rare; it's never happened.

This event is the reason for the SpaceX test program, to identify situations that could put a crew at risk, and remedy them. SpaceX has already replaced these check valves (which can leak) with burst discs that remain sealed until the abort system is activated.

Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, called the accident a “huge gift” for the agency and for SpaceX, since it discovered the flaw in a ground test:

“We had the ability to find an issue with the hardware and be able to find the hardware and be able to assess the hardware. We will continue to learn things to help us fly safer.”​

As usual, competitors and detractors of SpaceX's rocket technology have focused on the problem, while ignoring the solution.

We'll just make sure to wave as we fly by.

TL;dr - when a slug of frozen NTO hits your titanium check valve, its "Well-Howdy"

 

[mongo]

This accident wouldn't necessarily have occurred outside the static firing test program. The cause of the SuperDraco explosion was icing in an oxidizer NTO valve, which might not have occured in the very different 2.9g / 125hz vibration environment of an actual boost phase emergency abort.

Note also that no oxidizer valve icing incident has never killed a crew in NASA'S program history. It's not just rare; it's never happened.

This event is the reason for the SpaceX test program, to identify situations that could put a crew at risk, and remedy them. SpaceX has already replaced these check valves (which can leak) with burst discs that remain sealed until the abort system is activated.

Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, called the accident a “huge gift” for the agency and for SpaceX, since it discovered the flaw in a ground test:

“We had the ability to find an issue with the hardware and be able to find the hardware and be able to assess the hardware. We will continue to learn things to help us fly safer.”​

As usual, competitors and detractors of SpaceX's rocket technology have focused on the problem, while ignoring the solution.

We'll just make sure to wave as we fly by.

TL;dr - when a slug of frozen NTO hits your titanium check valve, its "Well-Howdy"

Where did you get icing/ frozen NTO from?
My understanding (which matches the details in two of your links) is the one way valve leaked allowing liquid NTO to collect on the wrong side. When the high pressure Helium was released, this slug of liquid accelerated into the Titanium value and an explosion resulted.