The SpaceX Youtubers Coverage of the Starship SN8 Flight and Explosion

The consensus of the SpaceX YouTubers is that this was the best test flight ever as the flight was groundbreaking and then having a crash on the landing for an early test flight was more enjoyable than a good landing.

Everyday Astronaut- “that was the coolest thing ever”.

Elon says fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn.

SOURCES- Everyday Astronaut, What About It?, SpaceXcentric
Written by Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com

37 thoughts on “The SpaceX Youtubers Coverage of the Starship SN8 Flight and Explosion”

  1. Original post was probably one of Lucca's burner accounts talking about how the Mullahs have vanquished the evil fascist USA for the unpteenth billion time.

    You can tell that Lucca is a bad guy based on his love of the triumphant monologue. (its a movie reference)

  2. Looks like SN9 had a booboo, and partially damaged her fins when the stand she was on partially collapsed, causing her to lean into the wall of the high bay. They got the "tankzilla" mobile crane to roll over and pick her up, but the fins got pranged. Can't tell if the body took any damage, and allegedly 3 raptors were already installed so hope those didn't hit the ground…

  3. Here is a thought.

    Have a test article with fins but also with the nose mount Lunar Starship engines.
    It could help test those and save the airframe for later tests.

    Landing turbojets anyone?

  4. I can see why you might mention the CCP as a major player when it comes to Space Race II. But Iran? What do they have to do with it?

  5. Musk and his companies both sell products to the general public and have publicly listed shares. (Not SpaceX, but other companies that are linked in the public mind.)
    And even SpaceX sells products and services to other organisations that are subject to public opinion.
    Hence, he is obliged to take account of publicity and public opinion.
    Now public opinion is not the same as journalist opinion, and increasingly is the opposite, but it's certainly affected by news reports.

  6. Sure, price it out of my range. A 6" SN8 model I *might* be able to afford.

    No, seriously, running that scrap through a mill again to make it into sheet metal for the Cybertruck would be outrageously expensive, they'd lose money on that proposition, not make money. The commemorative models, OTOH, would be quite affordable to produce through any small foundry.

  7. Scott Manley brought this up. They use that in F9, which is what causes the green flame there. Raptor doesn't use it though.

  8. why not just go down there? You can watch from the beaches or one of the islands or even just get a hotel room.

  9. That would be awesome.
    Or better yet- Make it into a commemorative Tesla Cybertruck since it's made of the same basic stainless steel.

  10. If you mean going back to vertical near the end, that was with two engines, and as far as I could tell, the main controls for that were the flaps. They flattened the nose flaps to increase the air resistance on the nose, and pulled back the rear flaps to let the rear drop more quickly. The engines weren't gimballed enough to make much of a difference at that point.

    Strangely, they brought the flaps to the same position when going to horizontal. I think that worked because they were going sideways just before that. So more air resistance on the nose gave more braking force on it. Once they got to about 60 deg, they added some help from the nose RCS. The main engines were off for that maneuver.

  11. Raptor doesn’t use Hypergolics for engine start it has a spark plug + torch system. The green was “Engine Rich” combustion
    as the ox rich conditions started burning the chamber hotwall and lower injector plate. Let’s just say the turbo pumps were trying their absolute hardest going beyond spec by a good margin to try and produce more thrust, but just couldn’t get there.

  12. Losing the 3 Raptor engines would make that fairly expensive news coverage, though; That was $6 million in engines destroyed in that crash.

    I've heard a suggestion that they collect the scrap metal and cast it into commemorative SN8 models, and sell them to recoup the cost of the test…

  13. Mush could not give a pfuck what the media clowns have to say. If anyone on this board has listened to Brian they would be up over 10 times on money invested in Tesla.

  14. IMO some media coverage was too harsh and negative. It doesnt look good if future human rated starship blows up and media likes click bait news. But blowing up and learning from failure can be fun as Musk points out. In future they could test multiple launcheshops and landings without refueling. That would simulate moon landing and take off to some degree.

  15. I think the green is from the copper chamber of the engine burning up, which was caused by excessive heat from running O2 rich.

  16. I would be *shocked* to hear that Musk told them to hit the spot at x meters per second to provide more news coverage.

  17. Indeed. I got strong vibes of a sci-fi movie.

    Plenty of times we have seen phony spaceships doing hover maneuvers. But for once, we are seeing a real one.

  18. Funny how many people reacted as if this was a failure.

    Apparently the concept of "test" isn't very widely known.

  19. I think we have to get rid of this Covid thing so I can get down there and see one of these tests. That was awesome and one huge rocket.

  20. Imo there is some unfair coverage from some media, they just speak about the crash. It is a big ship, larger than people could imagine. They should soon try 2 launches in a row without refuelling or similar to demonstrate they could fly, land and then launch again without refuelling or even 3 times so it would look similar as moon mission.

  21. The green flame at the end is supposed to indicate excess O2 in the exhaust, so it was likely insufficient pressure in the CH4 header tank. There would have been CH4 remaining in it's tank, if there was O2 remaining.

  22. No one expected it to be 100% perfect the first time. They exceeded expectations by passing all the milestones except coming in to hot on the landing. It unmanned. They'll learn and refine for the next time. Elon Mush has money to burn so no biggie. I look forward to the next attempt.

  23. Good chance for SN9 to pull it off perfectly in a month or so and end up in a museum. SpaceX still on track for first orbital flight in 2021. Mars in 2024.

  24. Very impressive. I was almost expecting RUD. This was a very pleasant surprise! Not only was the bellyflop successful with just a single engine, it landed pretty much where it was supposed to AND we got to see big-fall-down-go-boom!

  25. I have often complained about 4 decades of lost time in Space development not starting O'Neill plans. Musk just gave one back!

  26. My exact thoughts about three seconds before touchdown were "that looks a bit fast…". Overall an impressive test and step forward. A perfect landing would have been preferable but I think we can all admit we were entertained 🙂

  27. Yeah we all know SpaceX can land rockets. Most critically the transition to/from horizontal/vertical and the gentle descent worked out well.

    Overall 9/10- most impressive.

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