The SpaceX Starhopper 150 meter launch was minutes away.
The countdown was 2 minutes from launch and they have a hold on the test.
Hold is released. Seconds away. (16:04 PM PST)
Test aborted just after T-0.
Next launch opportunity is being assessed by the SpaceX team.
Live views of Starhopper test https://t.co/8ZFFFwErJF
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 26, 2019
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I agree with you! It’s only the brutalism of that machine that makes me crying!.. not only, also the sensation that this complicate and precarious plumbing may really explode!! 🙂
“Conan what is best in life?”
“To crush your enemies — See them driven before you, and to collect their debris!”
The wrinkled appearance was from the shiny foil they tacked onto the outside of the hopper vehicle. Check out this photo of Starhopper while it was being built, before they tacked on the shiny foil. The actual hull is thick unpolished steel plate and it’s not wrinkled.
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=47070.msg1898020#msg1898020
True, I’m just impressed by how wrinkled it is.
With all respect to you, it seems you are not aware the Starhopper is just a test device for the engine and some other systems.
It will be retired after this 200 m hop.
Then they will start testings with the Starship prototypes. There are two of them.
Both of these are more “nicey” than the Starhopper, but still are ONLY prototypes for several testings.
The final devices obviously will much more refined look. Exactly because they will be final designs.
Look how often they are changing little things here and there on the Starhopper and Starship Prototypes.
It wouldn´t even make sense creating them perfect, if they are built to allow such iterations on the fly!
That’s a good description of the engine, and some other parts. Not the rocket as a whole.
*No* rockets are built in a clean room. Google the SpaceX Hawthorne, ULA, or SLS factories. They are all industrial factory-type buildings. By their nature, rockets are tested and launch outdoors, usually on ocean-front property. So there isn’t any point to building them in a very clean environment.
Satellites are a different matter. They typically are full of electronics, optics, and other delicate equipment. So they are assembled in clean rooms
With all the respect i have for SX and Elon I think that this steel coffeepot is really a mess..
I know.. the poetry of Heinlein about buid a rocket into the dirt is really romantic.. but a rocket is a very complicate machine that requires precision, low tolerances, and a lot of attentions..
A clean room would be better controllable..
Always better to be collecting data rather than debris. They undoubtedly will learn something from the reason for that abort.
It needs a giant Oscar the Grouch on top. Petition Elon.
Better late, than blown up!
As mythbusters put it: “Failure is always an option.”
Scrub til tomorrow it seems
X $M, Y Megajoules, 0 seconds: Engineering.