Two SpaceX Starships have exploded across our screens in recent months, leading to mixed opinions about the company’s star prototype, and its ability to eventually bring humans to Mars.
With the FAA examining the latest Starship explosion – the second in a row for the company – nostalgia awaits for the days when space missions fell within the realm of public bodies only, instead private aerospace companies.
However, NASA ‘s origins were equally complex – as several prototype rocket vehicles exploded in the 1960s and beyond before they could achieve their mission objectives – just like Starship SpaceX, and earlier prototypes.
The question, therefore, is raised: Who will make a better space, NASA, or SpaceX?
SpaceX’s Starship SN9 explodes under scrutiny by FAA
The FAA announced it would monitor the landing investigation of the SpaceX prototype rocket Starship SN9 on Tuesday, according to an initial report from CNN. This came on the heels of a previous survey of the last Starship of the aerospace company, SN8 – which also exploded when they landed.
The SN9 Starship was an early prototype for SpaceX, which was launched in a high-altitude flight test Tuesday. In particular, the prototype of the spacecraft traveled about 6 miles (10 km) into the air, detected in the instant, and then succeeded in the “belly-flop” movement before it hit and exploded. into the Earth.
“The FAA’s top priority in regulating commercial space transportation is to ensure safe operations, even if there is an anomaly,” a U.S. agency spokesman said, speaking euphemistically about the crash. landing.
“The FAA will oversee the investigation into a mishap landing today involving the prototype SNX Starship SN9 in Boca Chica, Texas,” the statement continued, CNN reports. “While this was an unrelated test flight, the study will identify the root causes of today’s inequality and potential opportunities to increase safety as the program develops. “
Part of the success of rocket testing is still in progress
The next Wednesday morning – after the explosion at Starship SN9 – SpaceX reported that the rocket ‘s three Raptor engines had ignited and gone, but at the time of recovery, only one of the two Raptor engines recovered, which left Starship SN9 without enough effort to slow its speed to land soft.
“We showed the ability to move the engines to the landing propellant tanks, the subsonic reentry looked very good and stable,” SpaceX Engineer John Insprucker said during the company’s live stream of the release. “We need to work on that entrance a little bit.”
While some may find Insprucker’s reflective tone quite heavy, it may come with a measured sense of how prototype experiments have historically exploded.
NASA’s early days were just as explosive
The early months of NASA’s Mercury program – the first U.S. rocket program that took humans into orbit – were wildly explosive. The first attempt to launch a Mercury capsule was launched on 29 July 1960 – at the top of an Atlas rocket, a structural vehicle crashed into the Mercury-Atlas 1 58 seconds after its construction, at about 30,000 ft (9.1 km).
The weather was too harsh and wet to see an explosion, but instrument data suggested violent movements after telemetry ceased, before debris entered the sea.
Months later, on September 26, 1960, the Atlas Able 5-A slate failed to launch a lunar probe into space – which led to a “wholesale overhaul of the Atlas as a launch vehicle.”
NASA’s Mercury-Atlas series
Regarding finding explanations for re-launch failures, an engineer told a reporter: “We’ve answered all the questions we asked ourselves – but did we ask the questions? right? We can’t be sure. That’s one of the reasons. we’re repeating the test, “according to the NASA archive.
It was not until the launch of Mercury-Atlas 2 on February 21, 1961, that the first all-purpose test was successful. But there were many, many other failed auditions to follow – the best drama in a piece from the movie “The Right Stuff.”
SpaceX and the road to reuse rockets
SpaceX’s startup was much smaller than today’s Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Starship launches. One pandemic and two administrations back in 2008, Falcon 1 became the first launch vehicle and privately developed to take it into space – powered by a single Merlin engine in the first rocket , and a Kestrel engine in the second stage.
Of course, this came after a few early attempts, but SpaceX ‘s contribution to the idea of space flight does not deliver commercial payloads to space, or even lift humans to a low orbit on Earth. What is important to SpaceX ‘s application is the availability of reusable rockets.
Raptor Starship engines are better for rationality
Instead of using disposable boosters at the first level, SpaceX’s ability to reclaim Falcon 9 land boosters could help recoup construction and refurbishment costs one increase after three times -air.
“I don’t want to be more cavered, but there’s no obvious limit to the number of trips each Falcon 9 will make,” Musk added. tweet in August last year. “Clears all 9 Merlin [Falcon 9 engine] turbines are tricky. Birds of prey [the engine now used for Starship] it’s easier in this regard, despite being a much more complex engine. “
And – once successfully landed – Starship will be the first spacecraft to offer full reuse.
NASA vs. SpaceX: who can make a better space?
NASA and SpaceX are committed to working together in space missions – with the first one awarding the final three contracts for Starship missions to the moon last year – to go ahead by 2024. When it comes profitably, SpaceX seems to be the long-term winner, as as a private company funded by government grants and payments from payroll companies – it only needs to run a business as usual to continue firing rockets floating.
However, until SpaceX Elon Musk returns humans to the moon and puts the first humans on Mars – NASA seems to be holding onto the minds of humans as the prestigious director of space exploration, not only because it has launched missions with more in memory than money, but because – with spaceships like the Voyagers 1 and 2 still active in an intergalactic space and much more from exploring the inner and outer planets of our solar system – SpaceX has not gone so far.