The timing of the Flight 8 failure was similar to Flight 7 in January, which also featured several engine shutdowns and a loss of communications about eight and a half minutes after liftoff. However, SpaceX says the two failures had different causes.
“While the failure manifested at a similar point in the flight timeline as Starship’s seventh flight test, it is worth noting that the failures are distinctly different,” the company stated.
In the case of Flight 8, SpaceX said one of the center Raptor engines in Starship suffered a hardware failure, details of which the company did not disclose. That failure enabled “inadvertent propellant mixing and ignition” that caused the loss of the Raptor. Immediately thereafter, the other two center Raptor engines shut down, along with one of the three outer vacuum-optimized engines with larger nozzles. The vehicle then lost control authority.
The company said it made changes to the Raptors in the Starship upper stage, with “additional preload” on key joints and a new nitrogen purge system as well as improvements to the propellant drain system. A future version of Raptor in development will also have reliability improvements to address the problem seen on Flight 8.
On Flight 7 in January, SpaceX, said the vehicle suffered a harmonic response several times stronger than expected, creating additional stress on the vehicle’s propulsion system. That caused leaks that triggered a fire in the engine bay.
“The mitigations put in place after Starship’s seventh flight test to address harmonic response and flammability of the ship’s attic section worked as designed prior to the failure on Flight 8,” SpaceX said.
People think SpaceX is this big success but if you compare them to space travel in the 60's they really aren't.
Test flight 8 didn't make it to orbit.
In the 60's the Saturn 5 went into orbit on its first test flight.
On its 3rd test flight it took humans around the moon.
All of this with less computing power than some egg timers of today.
You're overlooking the fact that this development is a side project for them. While they're designing this rocket, their other rocket is in operational use and has the best success rate of any rocket of its scale in history, and they'd already be considered hugely successful if they never did anything innovative ever again.
They're also trying to do something far more difficult than the Saturn 5, in at least two ways. Nobody has ever tried to land a rocket anywhere near as large as either of the stages of this system, and on top of that they're trying to come up with a design which is cheap to operate, which wasn't remotely on the cards during the Apollo program.
Thunderfoot did a deep dive into this https://youtu.be/75a49S4RTRU
What they are trying to do is impressive, but far more impressive things were done with 60's technology
The guy who had a whole video about how Falcon 9 reusability would never work, and then quietly deleted it when proved badly wrong?
I'd stick with Destin if I were you ...
I've been following him closely, the Internet never forgets. What video did he delete?
I'm asking you. If you're a follower of his, I suggest you ask him to reupload any deleted videos to a second channel, for the sake of transparency.
This would have been a long time ago, obviously. Reusability is widely accepted these days.
If it's true he deleted a video he's obviously not going to reUpload.
You made a claim, the burden of proof is on you
You could at least find out what his response might be. If he outright lies, someone might come forward and 'testify' to that fact.
No, I asked a question.
I'm increasingly confident that Thunderfoot is indeed the guy about whom I've heard that allegation, but since I don't have proof, it has to remain as a question
You're asking me to pop a message to someone with over a million subscribers, and ask him what I think is a stupid question.
I've been following him closely for years, and he doesn't release many videos, I don't remember the video you're talking about.
You can check the way back machine or Internet archives.
Where do you get the information from that he deleted videos?
Well here's one example of the accusation ("deleted videos where he said spacex would never be able to re-fly a 1st stage"). Two replies seem to endorse it (e.g. "I recall him saying something like that") and another seems to be fairly familiar with his output and to endorse the general point ("later tried to delete and cover up"). One of the replies links to a different video, which I haven't looked at.
Note that the first ever booster re-use was around March 2017 so we're probably talking about a deletion that happened no later than April 2017. And I'd expect he'd not be so stupid as to wait that long; he'd have probably deleted any such videos as soon as SpaceX announced that they'd found a willing customer (and insurance company), at the latest. So probably by late 2016 or early 2017.
Other stuff I just found ...
Seems he had some argument with another unreliable You Tube 'personality' called Sargon who made a response video back in May 2017. That video is unavailable now but apparently it was still available in 2022 and convinced one person who had until then been unconvinced, that Thunder Foot "apparently just made up shit about someone which was completely false".
I've just looked at one of his more recent "BUSTED!!" videos (July 2021, about Starlink) and I didn't notice any outright falsehoods, so perhaps he's being more circumspect these days. Also, he hasn't deleted that one, even though it's pretty embarrassing for him. So credit where it's due.
That said, the simplest example I've come across of an apparently uncorrected falsehood from him is also from 2021: https://x.com/thunderf00t/status/1364020482572492801 It's hardly a big deal, but he clearly knew that his followers believed the claim to be false, so it seems that at best he was lazy in not bothering to go back and read the 3 replies that proved they were correct.
Some general "debunkings" of more of his SpaceX claims:
https://old.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/lrhwxq/i_fact_checked_thunderf00ts_spacex_busted_part_1/
https://old.reddit.com/r/thunderf00t/comments/lthowt/some_fundamental_errors_in_thunderf00ts_spacex/ and https://old.reddit.com/r/thunderf00t/comments/lu6evm/a_more_casual_fact_check_on_thunderf00ts_spacex/
https://x.com/kedarus/status/1398785312567054336
Saturn V was done with the resources of a nation behind it, because they had to beat the Soviets. That rocket also only went up, and was not reusable, with a tiny fraction of the Apollo mission hardware returning to Earth.
There was considerable computing power on the ground supporting the missions.
The biggest challenges of Apollo was they had to invent so many new technologies that didn't exist yet to solve problems, that's why they needed a nation.
The advances in computer science alone during that era is rediculous. (listen to the podcast 13 Minutes to the Moon, it's mind blowing)
Still they only used 74kb of Memory, that's smaller than most image files these days.
SpaceX have 55 years newer and proven tech to work with.
Apollo took humans around the moon on their 3rd test flight.
SpaceX is on flight 8 and haven't reached orbit yet.
I get they have other goals, but their goals seem easy in comparison, especially if you consider the tech we have now vs the 60's
Destin did a video on how flawed the starship is.
https://youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU
tl:dr you'd need 9 starships if not more to take a crew to the moon because its payload to orbit sucks.
I'd say their goals seem much harder in an absolute sense, but perhaps roughly the same in comparison to the technology level.
They really do seem to be trying to create a Mars colonisation ship. Capable of transporting large amounts of mass for less money than it costs to transport small amounts of mass with existing rockets.
My response to Destin is that Starship is clearly not optimal for another 'flags and footprints' mission to the Moon, but is such a paradigm shift that even if doing such a mission as a 'side project', it could still very easily be better than all the alternatives. And if, like me, you care more about a permanent presence on the Moon, the case for Starship becomes even stronger.
Space X, through corrupt and nefarious means, receives tens of billions of dollars in government contracts. We should not pretend that the resources of a Nation aren't behind them as well. Course unlike with NASA the results are not for our benefit.