Comment on Honda successfully launched and landed its own reusable rocket

• buddascrayon@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  That is not why starship fails. Starship fails because like everything that Elon does lately it emphasizes style over practicality. Starship is a very badly designed rocket that looks cool to Elon. Not unlike the Cyber truck which has been an abject failure in every way possible.

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  • NewSocialWhoDis@lemm.ee ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    My personal opinion is that it fails because SpaceX, like a lot of space startups, embrace a silicon valley coding mindset of ‘move fast and break things’, which results on them spending much more of their time and effort on testing than on design. Make a change, test, make a subsequent change, test. There’s no emphasis on modeling or design, which is problematic for for complex problems that haven’t been solved for 50 years.

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  • Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    You are missing the point that size makes a difference. Obviously SpaceX has the technology to do what Honda did, but SpaceX can do ti with a real rocket.
    But they can’t do it with the bigger Starship rocket. Scale matters.

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    • buddascrayon@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      And when SpaceX does it with real full size rockets and they explode scattering debris and chemicals everywhere, the nearby towns pay the price.

      I don’t see any towns being decimated by Honda’s approach.

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      • Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        I am ABSOLUTELY not praising SpaceX, I’m just using them as an example of how scale makes all the difference at least for some of the components. And being able to launch a small rocket is evidence they can launch a big one too.

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    • dustyData@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Size is only a proof of logistics. Not tech. Physics don’t change fundamentally between 6 meters and 120 meters. You learn a lot from scale modeling without the added costs. Starship’s real challenge is actually the logistics necessary to fulfill the desired specifications and experimenting with engineering to reach the scale. The most innovative aspect of Starship would be orbital refueling, and they aren’t there since the thing hasn’t reached orbit yet. SpaceX problem right now is insisting on high turnover engineering, which doesn’t work at scale without heavy costs, because it is a logistic problem, not a engineering problem.

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      • GamingChairModel@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Physics don’t change fundamentally between 6 meters and 120 meters

        Yes it does. Mass to strength ratio of structural components changes with scale. So does the thrust to mass ratio of a rocket and its fuel. So does heat dissipation (affected by ratio of surface area to mass).

        And I don’t know shit about fluid dynamics, but I’m skeptical that things scale cleanly, either.

        Scaling upward will encounter challenges not apparent at small sizes. That goes for everything from engineering bridges to buildings to cars to boats to aircraft to spacecraft.

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