“SpaceX's Texas Rocket Caused a Big Mess – What's Next?”
blog.esghound.comObvious Quip: "What's next? You're gonna clean up your big mess." -Every Parent, Ever
SpaceX, and CEO Elon Musk, immediately declared the mission a success since the incredibly low bar of not blowing up on the pad had been surpassed. NASA administrator Bill Nelson Tweeted approvingly, and several bloggers declared the mission a successful first try, yielding great data.
I’m not a rocket scientist, so I’ll save the commentary on the value of iterative development for others.
But the immediate claims of “MISSION SUCCESS” rang hollow nearly immediately as it was abundantly clear that not all was well on the ground.
The cleansheet new rocket engine design took off in 33x quantity from the production line and reached supersonic speed. That is SUCCESS the competing new rocket engine manufacturers haven't achieved, yet. Maybe they'll do one or two but not 33x. The highly expensive to ride SLS museum piece doesn't even register on this new SUCCESS scale.
That it flew for 4 minutes before blowing up is pretty impressive for the first flight of something this massively complicated. No one has really tried anything comparable since the 60s (U.S. Saturn project and Soviet N-1 project (all 4 flights of which were failures)). So...yeah, IMO they can claim a success without too much handwaving.
Now, the fact they didn't understand it was going to destroy the pad taking off and the debris field was nothing like what they predicted is pretty troubling. That speaks to cutting corners and taking risks they shouldn't be allowed to take.