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OT - SpaceX Starship SN4 goes "boom"

Milland

Diamond
Joined
Jul 6, 2006
Location
Hillsboro, New Hampshire
I'm sure some of you are following SpaceX's progress with their big f'n rocket, the Starship. The test section SN4 with one Raptor engine was on a test stand, and had just completed a ~1 second static fire (its fifth), when a minute or so later it went bang.

Seems a leak of methane gas got ignited, no word yet on how the leak occurred.

Here's a video with a few versions of the blast: Starship SN4 explodes during a static fire test - YouTube

It's around two hours ago this happened, doubt a definitive cause has been determined yet. Bummer, but Musk is good with "break it and try again."
 
It was definitely a pretty energetic explosion! I like that they seems to be ready and willing to 'break stuff for the cause' at this stage of development... I'm sure it wasn't really what they'd like to see but hopefully SN5 will do better!
 
It was definitely a pretty energetic explosion! I like that they seems to be ready and willing to 'break stuff for the cause' at this stage of development... I'm sure it wasn't really what they'd like to see but hopefully SN5 will do better!

Good running shoes are rocket engineers most important gear or what was it? :D
 
Good running shoes are rocket engineers most important gear or what was it? :D

I thought that was "In case of bear..." [and slower friend]

As for Crude Dragon (sorry, Crewed Dragon), the last I heard was weather was about 50/50 for a Saturday launch, but there was a better chance for Sunday. That's a little old, but I'll be keeping an ear to updates.

I'm Scott Milland, explode safe!
 
Na. Branson and Sugar are basically con men Financier type folk. Number and concept manipulators both. Suck the money out of real businesses that ought to go into building the next good thing and the next million or so jobs for the next generation of kids and recyclce it into fluff.

Say what you like about Musk he puts the hours in and gets real world stuff done.

Love the way he blows his top occasioanlly and puctures the ambitions of the do-nothing, know nothing, stock manipulators. The Woodford cronies basically.

Clive
 
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I thought that was "In case of bear..." [and slower friend]

As for Crude Dragon (sorry, Crewed Dragon), the last I heard was weather was about 50/50 for a Saturday launch, but there was a better chance for Sunday. That's a little old, but I'll be keeping an ear to updates.

I'm Scott Milland, explode safe!

Quote from ”ignition” on some bat-crazy Fluorine based rocket propellant:
”It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that’s the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, aluminium, etc.-because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.”
John Drury Clark, Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants
 
had a balloon filled with oxygen and acetylene soccer ball size in bench vise and popped with lite torch figuring it fireball, no it exploded, blast wave almost knock me down and left ear, noise so loud I lost hearing permanently left ear and noise I heard in right ear was echo of explosion bouncing off wall, blast went up to ceiling 20ft up and knocked dust off beams, boss heard in office about 100ft away.
.
that was soccer ball size, if larger gas amount obviously vastly more dangerous. I can see need for double (or triple) valves and check valves as safety devices to prevents leaks. if one valve not 100% closed it can be very bad
 
For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.”
John Drury Clark, Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants

Scott Manley (a Ytuber I referenced above) did a video of that book, but I've not read it myself. Having been around for much of the Space Race (if very young at the beginning), I'm a "fan" of rocket engineering and history.

I'm really curious how far Musk gets with his oversized "man in a shed" operation.
 
Scott Manley (a Ytuber I referenced above) did a video of that book, but I've not read it myself. Having been around for much of the Space Race (if very young at the beginning), I'm a "fan" of rocket engineering and history.

I'm really curious how far Musk gets with his oversized "man in a shed" operation.
I highly recommend the book. Its both informative and entertaining in the same time and gives insight to the rocket developement from interesting standpoint.

Book is also available free of charge in pdf format, author has published it as some sort of ”freeware”
 
Having been around for much of the Space Race (if very young at the beginning), I'm a "fan" of rocket engineering and history.
As a SciFi fan since the mid 40s and a member of the Moon Watch team during the IGY who was out with the team for the first Sputnick launch, I am also a "fan" of this attempt at space utilization. Guess we have to put-up with the Egos etc. :-)
...lewie...
 
As a SciFi fan since the mid 40s and a member of the Moon Watch team during the IGY who was out with the team for the first Sputnick launch, I am also a "fan" of this attempt at space utilization. Guess we have to put-up with the Egos etc. :-)
...lewie...

Well, that makes you a little younger than my folks, who were SF readers. Pops became an aeronautical engineer who got seduced by computers, so never really practiced in his field. Amusingly, it was his son (me) who wound up making satellite packages and Space Station hardware.
 
had a balloon filled with oxygen and acetylene soccer ball size in bench vise and popped with lite torch figuring it fireball, no it exploded, blast wave almost knock me down and left ear, noise so loud I lost hearing permanently left ear and noise I heard in right ear was echo of explosion bouncing off wall, blast went up to ceiling 20ft up and knocked dust off beams, boss heard in office about 100ft away.
.
that was soccer ball size, if larger gas amount obviously vastly more dangerous. I can see need for double (or triple) valves and check valves as safety devices to prevents leaks. if one valve not 100% closed it can be very bad

Is that where you learned to use run-on sentences?? :crazy:
 








 
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