Space-X failure...

"The company identified a two-foot steel strut that was holding down the helium pressure vessels that snapped due to acceleration force. There was a mere 0.89 seconds between when a problem was noticed and when the explosion happened.

The part that failed was from a supplier, although Musk would not name the company. He did say that company would likely switch suppliers.

Musk also said that the software program, which was an older version, did not release the command to open its parachute during the incident.

"That's an unfortunate thing because we could have saved Dragon [supply ship] if we had the right software there," he said.

Musk said that going forward each strut will be individually tested to ensure its reliability and the software program will also be update to deploy parachutes more quickly to try to save the spacecrafts. The changes will push out flights only by a few months, he added. "

Quoted from: Musk: This is what caused the SpaceX launch failure

I still haven't figured out how it's OK for a private company to waste taxpayer money, but when NASA does it, it's the end of the world.

ewlsey said:

I still haven't figured out how it's OK for a private company to waste taxpayer money, but when NASA does it, it's the end of the world.

Click to expand...

The privit secter is cratin JOBZ!! NASAR DON'T CRATE JOBZ

What the f...?

I may be very ignorant here, but I don't see how Space-X is wasting tax payer money. They are doing a better job than NASA for less money. And when they get their booster design ironed out they will be doing an even better job, again, using less tax payer money.
Space-X is being paid by the .GOV to do a job, and they had an accident... Not a waste, just an accident, NASA has had more than a few of them... Using tax payer money to fly Obama and his dog on separate V-22 flights to go golfing? That's a waste of taxpayer money.

I also wouldn't call funding Space-X a waste of money, they trying to fill a legitimate need since someone canceled our shuttle program with no replacement. Now giving Solyindra half a billion dollars to not make anything, that's a waste of money. Or any of the other so called 'green' programs our idiot government has been dumping money into, including all of the billions we are forgiving GE in taxes because they make a few windmills that don't do anything most of the time. Hell, most of our government doesn't actually do anything but leech off our money and give themselves raises; at least Musk built something, regardless of how often he succeeded or failed. And he did it without a committee of politicians and bureaucrats dictating his every move.

1967marti said:

Space-X is being paid by the .GOV to do a job, and they had an accident... Not a waste, just an accident, NASA has had more than a few of them... Using tax payer money to fly Obama and his dog on separate V-22 flights to go golfing? That's a waste of taxpayer money.

Click to expand...

My goodness, you must have been really upset about Bush2's Iraq war (after the Afghanistan war bogged down with no sign of Bin Laden), where the US went in, destroyed a country, lost over 190 thousand lives (and untold wounded), and a few bucks too - 2.2 trillion as of 2013. Oh, and helped bring about ISIS/ISL/etc.

Study: Iraq War Cost 190K Lives, $2.2 Trillion | Military.com

I'm sure you must have posted hundreds of emails on that little fiasco, if the current President's (and his dog's) travel costs irk you so much. Fair and Balanced, eh?

We Wuz Gettin back ata Sadam Insane fur nokin down da twin tars on 911! Bush had git Sadams nookleeeaaar wepinz DUBYA M DEE.

Waitin' for another 13 pages...

No, I wasn't able to post too many emails, do to the fact that I was deployed there for close to 3 years, standards of conduct and such. I have also lost more than a few friends in the sandbox. I do not need you to try and tell me how big a waste of time and lives it was, I've seen it first hand.

The topic at hand was Space-X, not Bush.w. and the war that was started with no end-game planned. There is no limit to the amount of "wasting tax payers money", nor the list of names we all could come up with of people who have quite blatantly committed financial crimes and gotten away with it. But that's not what the topic was about.

Maybe the butt-hurt is because a private company is doing a better job than NASA has done in the past few years? Maybe some people feel it is disrespectful to the astronauts who lost their lives to say that a private company could have done a better job with the last few launches?

Space-X is standing on the shoulders of giants... They never would have been able to get from ground zero to the record they have now if it wasn't for NASA and the military missile research that came before them. But we also need to note that Space-X is NOT like the huge, wasteful military industrial complex. They have a fresh outlook and a lean operating plan that seems to be kicking the chair out from under the big boys.

If anyone would take the time to watch a few of Elon's interviews or senate hearings you would see that he is quite frank in his criticism of the current governments spending and contract system.

Nobody ever seems to mention that if instead of rushing everything, if most companies took a few extra days or weeks to really extra check and test everything, and not over work suppliers/employees which increases chances of screw ups. Maybe a lot of failures and other issues wouldn't happen. Obviously what they're doing in this case isn't easy and will have failures regardless in the learning process, but it goes with so many companies. Setting delivery dates before they even know what they're building type deal, then rushing like mad for no damn reason. Then it all goes to sh*t and suddenly months to fix it got freed up.
Then again some people/companies get all the time and money in the world and still screw it up. I guess its how it goes...

1967marti said:

No, I wasn't able to post too many emails, do to the fact that I was deployed there for close to 3 years, standards of conduct and such. I have also lost more than a few friends in the sandbox. I do not need you to try and tell me how big a waste of time and lives it was, I've seen it first hand.

Click to expand...

Then I, for one, apologize to you and your fellow troops who had to go to Iraq for not doing enough to protest any incursion into that country. I was all for the Afghanistan invasion, I thought it was appropriate to get the instigators of 9/11 and their host. But using that as an excuse to get Daddy's old enemy was to me outrageous.

The topic at hand was Space-X, not Bush.w. and the war that was started with no end-game planned. There is no limit to the amount of "wasting tax payers money", nor the list of names we all could come up with of people who have quite blatantly committed financial crimes and gotten away with it. But that's not what the topic was about.

Click to expand...

Yes, I thought so too, not sure why you brought up Obama's travel, which by the way is vastly less than Bush2's (our most vacationing President ever).

Space-X is standing on the shoulders of giants... They never would have been able to get from ground zero to the record they have now if it wasn't for NASA and the military missile research that came before them. But we also need to note that Space-X is NOT like the huge, wasteful military industrial complex. They have a fresh outlook and a lean operating plan that seems to be kicking the chair out from under the big boys.

If anyone would take the time to watch a few of Elon's interviews or senate hearings you would see that he is quite frank in his criticism of the current governments spending and contract system.

Click to expand...

I toured one of the SpaceX manufacturing facilities in 2011, was very impressed with what I saw, having also been to Canaveral, Goddard, and other facilities. I've worked in space science as a tech and machinist (ad hoc designer too) for decades, and have always held the engineers, scientists, and astronauts in the program in high regard.

Musk is benefiting from the research that went on before, that's part of the standard arc of technical history. His posturing on "waste" is to be expected, after all his company will benefit from off-loading more of government backed work to the private sector.

I hope both private and public space sectors thrive, heading out into the "wild black yonder" is our future (if we can ever get past bashing each other with stones first), more resources and methodologies are better.

1967marti said:

Maybe the butt-hurt is because a private company is doing a better job than NASA has done in the past few years? Maybe some people feel it is disrespectful to the astronauts who lost their lives to say that a private company could have done a better job with the last few launches?

Space-X is standing on the shoulders of giants... They never would have been able to get from ground zero to the record they have now if it wasn't for NASA and the military missile research that came before them. But we also need to note that Space-X is NOT like the huge, wasteful military industrial complex. They have a fresh outlook and a lean operating plan that seems to be kicking the chair out from under the big boys.

If anyone would take the time to watch a few of Elon's interviews or senate hearings you would see that he is quite frank in his criticism of the current governments spending and contract system.

Click to expand...

This:

SpaceX Crash Costs NASA $110 Million | Los Angeles Business Journal

And this:

SpaceX Faces Second Lawsuit Over Pay and Working Conditions at Parabolic Arc

I guess the only part of this I find informative is that NASA was basically gutted and they were the only government entity that was actually doing something the least bit interesting or forward looking. If the plan was/is to rely on the rooskies for space travel......that seems like a bad plan on many fronts.

It's all bullshit politics. I like how the republicans keep cutting funding for NASA climate research because the bastards just keep finding proof of this thing called "global warming". We only fund research that proves we're right...

Anyone here ever play Kerbal Space Program? I have, and I couldn't help but laugh about the strut failure, along with a few other friends of mine who play(ed). NEED MORE STRUTS!

I'm a-ok with failures. Sounds like he has a corrective action all planned out, learning has occurred, and progress continues. Space is hard. Really hard. It will never stop reminding us about that.

1967marti said:

I Using tax payer money to fly Obama and his dog on separate V-22 flights to go golfing? That's a waste of taxpayer money.

Click to expand...

Some things never change.....

"In 1944, Fala was with the President on a sea trip to the Aleutian Islands. Someone started a rumor that Fala was accidentally left on one of the islands, and that the Navy had to send a ship back to retrieve him. During the 1944 presidential campaign, the Republicans accused the President of spending millions of taxpayers' dollars in the effort to get Fala back. The President answered the attack in his famous 'Fala speech' while talking to the Teamsters Union. Roosevelt defended his little dog Fala saying:

"These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don't resent attacks, and my family doesn't resent attacks, but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I had left him behind on the Aleutian Islands and had sent a destroyer back to find him - at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars- his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself - such as that old, worm-eaten chestnut that I have represented myself as indispensable. But I think I have a right to resent, to object to libelous statements about my dog."

"Well, I think we all recognize the old technique. The people of this country know the past too well to be deceived into forgetting. Too much is at stake to forget. There are tasks ahead of us which we must now complete with the same will and the same skill and intelligence and devotion that have already led us so far along the road to victory."


The whole speech is well worth reading:
https://www.wyzant.com/resources/lessons/history/hpol/fdr/fala

Plenty of failures with the Titan rockets in over 40 years of launches:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Titan_launches

Also, anyone that claims SpaceX is "better than" or shaming NASA is disingenuous at best.

NASA is best at bleeding edge technology and pushing the boundaries of human endeavors beyond historical limits (and sometimes even our imagined limits)

NASA was never set up to be a "production transport" division. To put it in machine shop verbiage... how many tool & die shops could ramp up for 100,000 piece runs and be competitive? How many prototype / job shops could compete with the high volume manufacturers? It won't happen. Just like the high volume guys wouldn't be able to handle truly creative tool & die or prototype work, most of the time.

SpaceX is only doing what NASA has already managed to do many decades ago. SpaceX is trying to turn LEO transportation into a cab service. Which we absolutely need someone to do. They're doing a great job, IMO, and are well on their way. NASA was never a cab service and never will be. They should never be. SpaceX has aspiration for Mars but that's quite far off, and frankly, NASA already has done it... several times.

SpaceX is a boon to our country/world. It's fantastic to have another big player in Space that can throw more of us apes beyond the throws of this green rock. There's plenty of room for everyone. The more, the better. Every agency has their own 'specialty' they're better at. NASA is the best at, and has the best track record for, taking us further than anyone else, doing things no one has ever done, and expanding the very knowledge of the human race.

It's despicable for anyone to see the triumphs and tribulations of SpaceX and demean NASA for it. Disgusting. You shame the organization and the men and women who give everything; mind, body and soul, to the various programs. Anyone making quips at NASA is a tick on a very large dog. Likely ignorant of all the benefits, comforts, and technology that makes their everyday life so much better only because of the accomplishments of NASA.

They work hand-in-hand and are on the same team, in the end.

Orange Vise said:

Plenty of failures with the Titan rockets in over 40 years of launches:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Titan_launches

Click to expand...

Please, Sol, don't cloud the argument with facts. :-)