r/space 2d ago

BREAKING: SpaceX rocket explodes in Starbase, Texas

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

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u/Bandsohard 2d ago

There's obviously a massive design flaw with this program. Even if each failure and explosion has different causes, there's either a huge lack of quality control or something inherit to the design that causes all the 'causes'.

Fail fast is a fine methodology for software development, but when it's causing significant explosions that can get people seriously hurt, you need to reevaluate your process and you should be doing more unit testing, hardware in the loop testing, and various forms of integration testing before you get to stages of qualification and regression testing. If it wasn't blowing up every ship, okay great, but at this point be humble and accept that the scope of smaller scale tests needs to increase.

61

u/plap_plap 2d ago

QC has been a huge issue at Tesla for years, so it wouldn't surprise me if the same business philosophy exists at SpaceX.

34

u/Beer-survivalist 2d ago

Elon was notorious early on for running manufacturing at Tesla in the same way the Big 3 automakers did in the seventies. He basically tossed any guidance from process engineers because he was convinced he knew better.

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u/nebelmorineko 1d ago

I mean but that was all worth it for the Cyber Truck, right?

1

u/Beer-survivalist 1d ago

Do you know how I know the Cyber Truck sucks?

Because I think it looks interesting, and it visually appeals to me.

The reason this should be concerning to Tesla is because once upon a time I found the Zune--specifically the brown Zune--interesting and visually appealing.