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[MetalSlimeHunt]

It's just swamp gas reflecting off the ice bullet that killed JFK.

[Starver]

It was just yesterday that I heard that a SpaceX rocket would actually be reused and now news comes in that I see they have suffered a launchpad failure during fuelling (with, I presume, a 'virgin' booster), and have lost the payload.

I presume insurance will be claimed on, but even if this helps replace the satellite it'll not help future premiums or momentum of the planned future developments (c.f. Spaceship One and Virgin Galactic).

[Dutrius]

Apparently, the problem occurred in the upper stage's Oxygen tank, which I don't believe can be reused.

[Starver]

Apparently, the problem occurred in the upper stage's Oxygen tank, which I don't believe can be reused.

It certainly can't now...

It doesn't invalidate the reusability paradigm (being neither a re-used part nor a reusable part), but it demonstrates fallibility of manufafture and/or handling processes and thus the demonstrable fragility of the thread that we currently hoist things up to space with, still.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I really don't like how the media latches onto this every time. Launchpad explosions happen. They've been happening since the beginning, and they were a lot more common then. It's just the cost of doing business.

Until defunding and regulatory obstruction get the same kind of controversial attention, we do not have our priorities in order.

[mainiac]

It is an event with info. Failures are more rare than successes so are more probabilistically significant.

[Starver]

I would have also said that if a possible failure did not occur on one occasion, then the actuality of the failure could not be recognised and used to mitigate a future failure of the same type. Because the first failure happens, though, the potentiality of the future failure goes down due to the information gleaned from the original one. Or, if it doesn't, it indicates a failure to learn from the failures (potentially recursively) which is itself ultimately beneficial. At worst, an unresolved and unlearned-from failure-cycle results in the failing agency failing as a going concern and halts all further attempts, thus also reduces future failures to zero. But also zero future successes, naturally...

Or, to be more pithy: Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It is an event with info. Failures are more rare than successes so are more probabilistically significant.

Unless you are genuinely defending the predatory media fear cycle, that's kind of irrelevant. This isn't about a probabilistic risk assessment, this is about public perception. Our daily reader isn't doing true costs estimates, but they are being manipulated into disapproving of space expansion by the nature of reporting on it. Even worse, launches will always be vulnerable to this due to HUGE EXPLOSIONS 5 NASA FAILURES YOU WON'T BELIEVE. It's a very low bait threshold.

Not that anybody pays attention when launches are canceled thanks to non-catastrophic failures or bad weather.

For a myriad of reasons, we should assign a high value and enthusiasm to all things space, but as evidenced by and because of things like this do not. Until people collectively value it in such a way that NASA getting budget cuts or the FAA not cooperating with private rocketry is front page news and starts protests, our priorities are fucked. Fortunately we're a lot closer these days than we've ever been to that since before Columbia, but support has proven fragile in the past.

[Grimlocke]

Or, to be more pithy: Those who fail to learn from history are boomed to repeat it.

Fixed that for you!

[Rose]

Does Israel still have to pay?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I mean, they already paid. They bought the satellite.

[SirQuiamus]

It was just yesterday that I heard that a SpaceX rocket would actually be reused and now news comes in that I see they have suffered a launchpad failure during fuelling (with, I presume, a 'virgin' booster), and have lost the payload.

I presume insurance will be claimed on, but even if this helps replace the satellite it'll not help future premiums or momentum of the planned future developments (c.f. Spaceship One and Virgin Galactic).

Don't cry, Elon – it's all just a hyper-realistic videogame run by your future descendants to demonstrate your historic greatness! If at first you don't succeed, load the savegame and try again!

[Starver]

Don't cry, Elon – it's all just a hyper-realistic videogame run by your future descendants to demonstrate your historic greatness! If at first you don't succeed, load the savegame and try again!

It's not hyper-realistic. Adding tonnes of random struts does nothing to help, unlike real life...

[Egan_BW]

More strut! More booster!

[SirQuiamus]

Don't cry, Elon – it's all just a hyper-realistic videogame run by your future descendants to demonstrate your historic greatness! If at first you don't succeed, load the savegame and try again!

It's not hyper-realistic. Adding tonnes of random struts does nothing to help, unlike real life...

Elon Musk is so superhumanly perfect that any game starring him has to be hyper-realistic.

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