That's essentially the question that the mission controllers got this morning when a problem surfaced in the final minutes of the countdown to this morning's Integrated Flight Test. It was a stuck pressurization valve. So while they had all the money and resources in place the company turned the launch attempt into a Wet Dress Rehearsal, testing the last few things they would test before lighting the engines.
While systems are in place to pump all of the liquid methane and oxygen back to their insulated storage tanks, during the process of scrubbing the launch SpaceX commentators said the minimum recycle time was 48 hours. Later in the day, we learned they've chosen Thursday the 20th (yeah... 4/20). The 62 minute launch window opens at 8:28 a.m. CT and closes at 9:30 a.m. CT.
Over the last few days a small flood of memories of watching the first test flight of the Saturn V has been coming back to me. I'm aware that I'm not remembering enough which then causes me to fret over whether or not what I'm remembering is true. The first flight of a Saturn V was called Apollo 4 and it took place on November 9th, 1967. Lift off was 7:00 AM ET. I would have been in 8th grade and 13 years old. I remember waiting for the launch and then hurrying to the school bus stop, and I remember watching the launch on our black and white Philco TV. I'd swear I remember watching a camera pointed at the base of the rocket that suddenly went blank as the engine bells came above the deck of the launch platform. I think I recall reading that the camera was found miles away from the launch pad.
The Saturn V was the most powerful rocket in the history of the world.
You can argue that in getting 14 men to the surface of the moon, the Saturn V
changed everything. Starship is taller and more powerful than the Saturn
V. It's arguable that Starship can change everything, too.
Looking at a collection of Apollo 4 launch videos on YouTube,
this video has the
closest to the view I think I remember, at exactly 6:00 minutes into the
video. The details of what happened to the camera are not mentioned, but
I think I recall reading that in the next couple of years.
A few weeks ago, we sweated through the multiple attempts to launch Relativity
1. I recall a few times when they counted down to the point of no
return, where a hold means a long countdown recycle, followed by going into a
hold. I shouldn't be surprised if the same thing happened with the
Starship IFT.
I'll count on Eric Berger at Ars Technica for some perspective.
Opinions are mixed about how successful this flight will be for Super Heavy and Starship. SpaceX founder Elon Musk has given the launch a 50 percent chance of succeeding, but I believe he is probably deliberately lowering expectations here. He has gotten better at that. On the eve of his first rocket launch, the Falcon 1, in March 2006, Musk told a reporter the rocket had a 90 percent chance of reaching orbit.
His first three Falcon 1 launches proceeded to fail.
But since then, SpaceX has gotten rather good at launching rockets. On its debut flight in 2010, the Falcon 9 reached orbit. In 2018, so did the Falcon Heavy. Then, three different versions of Starship prototypes, Starhopper, SN5, and SN8, all successfully launched. So by my count, the last six "new" rockets that SpaceX has debuted have all launched more or less successfully.
Now the hard part is waiting until Thursday morning for the second try.
B7-S24 stacked at sunrise. SpaceX photo
C'mon. It might actually take that long to actually fix the sticky valve... but he'll get the 4/20 launch after all!!
ReplyDeleteIt was going so well, too! :(
That beast looked just awesome sitting proud getting ready to roar.
ReplyDeleteEither way it soars into space or it detonates, it is a true spectacle. Worlds been terribly boring with these nasty overlords running things. May be this launch and the beginning of the human race seriously getting into space and actually creating a new way of life and science and garnering resources is going to change everything. As the sci-fi author Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelke said to all who would hear their message, "It is raining soup up there!"
Indeed. Those two wrote about mining the asteroids and what they talked about always struck me as just superb critical thinking, what all could be done out there, how to send asteroids in some kind of long free trajectory orbit at earth, (a Holman orbit?), shipping entire nickle iron asteroids where you had enough metal and rare earth and all the energy you could ever need for the planet, and earth could be made into a garden planet. Like the emerald of the solar system. They said all we needed was the first convlusive serious push into sustainable life in space snd with the unlimited energy and elements locked into various bodies orbiting the sun everything eventually needed to live large is out there.
They did mention a couple things which in the beginning earth would have to supply, think it was vitamins as a critical supply, of course oxygen, and a water source, mass/fuel, a fusion drive if some sort, or super ion type drive, dont need large amounts of thrust just a long periods of low G's like fractions there of, at least in the early stages, but with a concerted effort all the things could be accomplished to have sustainable way of life out there. Then it is self generating kind of thing.
They talked of taking a nickle iron asteroid, boring a hole thru the center of its mass, stuffing the core with water ice, plugging the ends, placing mirrors around it, setiint it to spin slowly and heat it up till the water ice began to boil, by that stage the metal in the asteroid would be hot enough to expand from the steam pressure creating this huge hollow sausage that could be terriformed, and provide spin gravity. Which is very critical to the body, it is suspected it may be needed for woman to come to term and make babies, certainly farming, how either fusion or a mirror system for sunlight inside, the only limits here in all this is imagination, will and focus.
May be we finally in outersoace get from out under the boot of the evil ones ruling earth currently who certainly have done all possible to crush and inhibit technology and advancement of humanity for their own evil purposes.
In that light i hold hopes Elon and SpaceX is not just another form of control, that by beating everyone into outerspace these evil ones set up a toehold and create a level of control over who and what gets off planet earth and their activities off this world. And I say that not because of pessimism or defeatism, my glass is always above half full, but looking at our world objectively, and how these oligarchs run things, its is horrid beyond all pales and their greed and hate and destruction is a darkness they are trying to pull over the world, and that once people get into outerspace, it is quite possible space is of such huge dimensions it can not all be held under their jackboot, and hopefully SpaceX is not their creation for establishing tyranny in space before humanity escapes their clutches.
Just had to write this. It realky is important that critical to our survival right now.
Minor thing. That is sunset in Boca Chica. If it were sunrise about all you would see is the Gulf of Mexico. Got to keep you on the up and up.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to watch it.
ReplyDelete