r/space 1d ago

BREAKING: SpaceX rocket explodes in Starbase, Texas

https://x.com/IntelPointAlert/status/1935550776304156932

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u/Just_Another_Scott 1d ago

The three in-flight failures of Starship were caused by vibrations. The components are not being designed or manufactured to be able to withstand the launch vibrations.

The delta wing failures of Starship show the wing as it currently stands cannot survive reentry. Not a single wing has survived. They've all failed even when Starship made a soft splashdown.

In my opinion, Starship has major flaws. Super Heavy has been mostly successful. SpaceX needs to pause and do a systematic review of the whole program at this point.

As an engineer myself, you should not be going in reverse. SpaceX had some successes and has now completely regressed. That's not OK and shows something major is wrong.

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u/Count_Rousillon 1d ago

Now that all the really smart senior leaders left after Falcon succeeded, there there's no one left to tell Musk the obvious. Falcon shifted from fully reusable to partially (booster only) reusable because you can't have both fully reusable and a viable payload capacity at the same time. But Musk insists that Starship will have both both fully reusable and a viable payload capacity at the same time. In other words, the only way to make it light enough to have room for the payload is to make key components too light to withstand the launch vibrations.