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Hell of an explosion yesterday on the Space X test flight. I knew there were going to be issues after the scrubbed the launch yesterday to an unforeseen issue. Then yesterday on the launch pad they paused the count down at 2 min and vented gas out of the thing for like 40 min before the launch.
Good news...vertical test was good, bad news the landing went BOOM
Good news...vertical test was good, bad news the landing went BOOM
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The belly flop is a cool idea, but is also probably the cause of the failure. Flipping back to vertical that close to the ground means your fuel is sloshing like mad as you fire the engines to stop the descent. I think they said they lost pressure in one or more of the pumps, so engines cut out, and they didn't have enough thrust to avoid a relatively high velocity impact. Not surprising, really. More surprising that they tried to flip to vertical that close to the ground. But Elon likes explosions, so there you go. I would guess the next attempt will flip earlier (with just the attitude thrusters?), but that requires more fuel since the reduced profile in the vertical position will cause some acceleration relative to the belly flop.
The whole issue with this vehicle is how to land safely with minimal fuel when returning from orbital velocity. Lots of success in this test to be sure, but with a hop like this they are just trying to land from a velocity of roughly zero at an altitude of 12 km. The real goal is to be able to land starting at an altitude of >100 km and velocity of ~7 km/s. Or perhaps reentry velocity from Mars of 11 km/s. Still a long ways to go.
The whole issue with this vehicle is how to land safely with minimal fuel when returning from orbital velocity. Lots of success in this test to be sure, but with a hop like this they are just trying to land from a velocity of roughly zero at an altitude of 12 km. The real goal is to be able to land starting at an altitude of >100 km and velocity of ~7 km/s. Or perhaps reentry velocity from Mars of 11 km/s. Still a long ways to go.
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Billionaire tech mogul Musk’s high-profile relocation is the latest of more than 687,000 Californians who’ve made the move to the Lone Star State over the last decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data from 2010-2019.
https://www.seattletimes.com/busine...fornians-whove-moved-to-texas-in-last-decade/
https://www.seattletimes.com/busine...fornians-whove-moved-to-texas-in-last-decade/
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Well the population of California is 40 million...and that's just legal Californians. My point was the 175k is a tiny fraction of 40 million (.4375% to be exact) and it's likely replaced by more than that annually in state. However, I did look at they are losing about 700K people annually to other states while only gaining about 600K at this point in time...which isn't a bad thing because it's overcrowded.
No matter our opinion of him, he's an innovator and California in the past 80 years has been the land that welcomed innovators...but it seems like taxes and regulations need to be kept at least somewhat in check in order for the state to thrive in that spotlight once again. I'm rooting for them to get some of that balance back in their governance that you and I spoke about in the fall or late summer. Bottom line, we both agree that it would help all Californians if they would demand better from their government, R's, D's and I's, to support all the people and not just some. Could solve lots of problems I would think.
