Scrappy or crappy? Critique by former SpaceX lead engineer

[edkyle99]

It's really easy to criticize from a recliner...

SpaceX is already bending the rebar back, making new forms, and refilling the hole in almost the time it takes the peanut gallery  to write their blog posts.

That's good, but the hole isn't the problem.

 - Ed Kyle

[matthewkantar]

It's really easy to criticize from a recliner...

SpaceX is already bending the rebar back, making new forms, and refilling the hole in almost the time it takes the peanut gallery  to write their blog posts.

That's good, but the hole isn't the problem.

 - Ed Kyle

Rendering the hole a not-a-hole is on the critical path to addressing the problem.

[meekGee]

It's really easy to criticize from a recliner...

SpaceX is already bending the rebar back, making new forms, and refilling the hole in almost the time it takes the peanut gallery  to write their blog posts.

That's good, but the hole isn't the problem.

 - Ed Kyle

What IS the problem then? Anyone doubting the program is moving forward? 
Anyone else claiming they could do SH/SS better, faster or cheaper? Or at all for that matter?

They got B7 out, caused some damage but didn't in any way impact the site to create a significant delay, got a lot of data to make the B9 flight better..  I don't get the doom and gloom.

[alugobi]

I don't get the doom and gloom.

It's the same enthusiasm shown for booster reuse.

[jongoff]

It's really easy to criticize from a recliner...

Ben isn't criticizing from a recliner. The guy's actively running a space startup, and used to work at SpaceX on their ASDS program. That's frankly doing more to move space forward than probably 90% of the people on this forum...

Or were you being ironic?

~Jon

[Robotbeat]

I do sense a bit of bitterness from him, but overall the point isn’t totally wrong, and he’s not a mere “armchair” engineer.

[edkyle99]

It's really easy to criticize from a recliner...

SpaceX is already bending the rebar back, making new forms, and refilling the hole in almost the time it takes the peanut gallery  to write their blog posts.

That's good, but the hole isn't the problem.

 - Ed Kyle

What IS the problem then?

Raptor.  Super Heavy itself (thermal, vibration, pogo maybe, TVC) which is a problem without full up ground testing.  Maybe Starship thermal protection. 

 - Ed Kyle

[meekGee]

It's really easy to criticize from a recliner...

SpaceX is already bending the rebar back, making new forms, and refilling the hole in almost the time it takes the peanut gallery  to write their blog posts.

That's good, but the hole isn't the problem.

 - Ed Kyle

What IS the problem then?

Raptor.  Super Heavy itself (thermal, vibration, pogo maybe, TVC) which is a problem without full up ground testing.  Maybe Starship thermal protection. 

 - Ed Kyle

You don't know much about SH itself. You saw a flight of an early testbed. Remember before B7 they were even thinking of launching B4.  Under different circumstances (B7 was damaged and repaired) they would have gone with B8 or B9 first.

None of these represents SH.

You said: "thermal, vibration, pogo maybe, TVC" - those are just words.

What does "vibration" mean?  That there was vibration?

What does "TVC" mean? That there's some general issue with the concept?  the algorithm?  the implementation?

What does "pogo maybe" mean?  (I know what pogo is, but how does that relate to SH? What evidence did you see for that?). 

"Thermal" - That there were temperatures?

What specific concerns are you highlighting? You're just throwing terms.


What we saw is 3 engines shut down intentionally on start-up, and then who knows how much damage from the concrete barrage and how it developed during flight.  B7 got off the pad, leaving some damage behind it, and got maybe half-way to staging.  Meh.  If B7/S24 was the Dear Moon stack, I'd see a cause for concern.  For for what B7 was, it was a great result.

[alugobi]

mG, you're not concerned enough. 

[JMS]

It's really easy to criticize from a recliner...

Ben isn't criticizing from a recliner. The guy's actively running a space startup, and used to work at SpaceX on their ASDS program. That's frankly doing more to move space forward than probably 90% of the people on this forum...

Or were you being ironic?

~Jon

Sorry I wasn't clear. I was reacting to DecoLV's criticisms and Coastal Ron's rebuttal to same.

[chopsticks]

Just going to put this out there. As a fan of SpaceX and spaceflight in general, I find it incredibly annoying how it is becoming increasingly more difficult to ever criticize ANYTHING that SpaceX does, in particular with the Starship program.

It's impossible to do so, because you will just be met with "well that's just how they operate, their mantra is fail fast and learn from it". I appreciate that this is how they operate and it's very refreshing to see how quickly they are able to move and achieve great results, but I just really dislike it when you point out an obvious oversight and people run to the defensive basically say that you aren't allowed to criticise anything they do because they know better, while totally forgetting that Elon Musk himself has admitted to making dumb mistakes at SpaceX.

For example, how in the world did they overlook that Texas regulation about LNG tanks while setting up the fuel farm? Or that they built a 12 metre wide water tank with no reinforcements. Or that they thought somehow that a ~50% thrust static fire was enough to extrapolate that the pad would hold up (once) to a full thrust launch? In the end, none of these things seem to have been showstoppers, but that's not the point nor the implication.

Look, as I said, I think was SpaceX is doing and has accomplished is incredible, and I don't want to take that away from them but anytime you say something with a negative connotation you get called a concern troll.

Perhaps personality has something to do with it. I find overly optimistic people annoying.

[Khadgars]

The really (S)crappy work will be if starship to Mars is successful, then the whole business of building a permanent presence on Mars will commence.

Talk about monster engineering problem...

Pretty certain Elon said SpaceX isn't in the business of building cities. 

[Malatrope]

(...snip...)
Perhaps personality has something to do with it. I find overly optimistic people annoying.

I will take an overly optimistic person over a cynic any day. An optimist's reach may exceed his grasp, but at least he is reaching. A pessimist never bothers.

A person should be aware of what came before, but in many cases why something was done is lost in the mists of time, and there's the real danger of "it's always been done this way because we tried this and it worked". It should be obvious that new ways to do things will not come from slavish adherence to what was done before. The old ways worked, yes, but other ways (that could have been found even then) might have worked better.

The cost of launching B7, and the cleanup, is offset by the cost avoidance of demolishing it or using up space in the rocket garden. We have no visibility into SpaceX's development process cost matrix, so harping about what they should have done is really just whining, to my ears.

[Coastal Ron]

Just going to put this out there. As a fan of SpaceX and spaceflight in general, I find it incredibly annoying how it is becoming increasingly more difficult to ever criticize ANYTHING that SpaceX does, in particular with the Starship program.

SpaceX fan from Falcon 1 days, so I've been defending SpaceX and their efforts for quite a while. Why? Because unlike bloated NASA programs we all know about, SpaceX has been doing most of their most innovate work without using any of my taxpayer money.

And I think this is an important point to remember, because ignoring the HLS program (i.e. because the 2024 date was NEVER close to being realistic) the Starship program is pure entertainment. Think about it, the vast majority of everyone that is currently expressing opinions about what SpaceX is or isn't doing right will NEVER ride on a Starship or pay to have something launched on a Starship. So it literally DOES NOT MATTER if the Starship program succeeds or not in our daily lives.

So why do SpaceX fans cheer them on, even when they have setbacks? Because SpaceX has an ambitious goal that we support.

It's impossible to do so, because you will just be met with "well that's just how they operate, their mantra is fail fast and learn from it". I appreciate that this is how they operate and it's very refreshing to see how quickly they are able to move and achieve great results, but I just really dislike it when you point out an obvious oversight and people run to the defensive basically say that you aren't allowed to criticise anything they do because they know better, while totally forgetting that Elon Musk himself has admitted to making dumb mistakes at SpaceX.

Good, Fast, Cheap, pick two. That pretty much explains what we see with SpaceX, and I think people keep forgetting how SpaceX trades "Good" for "Fast" and "Cheap".

Do I have to remind everyone that the SLS program has consumed over $20B, taken far longer, and is only slightly ahead of the progress the Starship program has made? In fact the SLS program is a good example of while you can only get a maximum of two choices from Good, Fast, Cheap, you can certainly get less than two... 

Perhaps personality has something to do with it. I find overly optimistic people annoying.

Elon Musk has never made it easy to root for him. He has personal idiosyncrasies that certainly detract from what SpaceX the organization are doing, yet it is hard to argue that he isn't good at extremely difficult hardware projects - somehow he keeps finding ways to succeed.

As for everybody else that is optimistic about what SpaceX is doing, remember what I said about the Starship program being pure entertainment? People LOVE to cheer on the underdogs, and yes SpaceX is an underdog regarding the Starship program.

So for me, yep, I'll keep defending their choices regarding Good, Fast, Cheap, because it's not costing me anything... 

[chopsticks]

(...snip...)
Perhaps personality has something to do with it. I find overly optimistic people annoying.

I will take an overly optimistic person over a cynic any day. An optimist's reach may exceed his grasp, but at least he is reaching. A pessimist never bothers.

A person should be aware of what came before, but in many cases why something was done is lost in the mists of time, and there's the real danger of "it's always been done this way because we tried this and it worked". It should be obvious that new ways to do things will not come from slavish adherence to what was done before. The old ways worked, yes, but other ways (that could have been found even then) might have worked better.

The cost of launching B7, and the cleanup, is offset by the cost avoidance of demolishing it or using up space in the rocket garden. We have no visibility into SpaceX's development process cost matrix, so harping about what they should have done is really just whining, to my ears.

The overly optimistic comment was just a reference about personality in general, not specific to SpaceX. I'm tended to be more of a pessimist by nature.

I don't think I'm a cynic (I'm much more positive than negative about Starship anyway), but I wish some people would take a more balanced approach, that's all. Is brushing mistakes under the rug a good thing? Anyway, for the last test flight, I find it intriguing to figure out what went wrong, what could have been avoided, etc. I know it doesn't change anything, but for me it's interesting.

I think it's great that SpaceX executes on first principles! But sometimes you can go too far in that direction as well.

[john smith 19]

I disagree about this - Pythom endangered people's lives (yes, just their own, but still) for basically no reason whatsoever, and in a manner that is likely to teach them nothing and result in nothing.  There's basically nothing good to say about them except that some of them might learn they're being fools and stop, hopefully before someone dies.  Seriously - that's how bad they are.

I think he's also right in how the coverage between their launch and SX was different.  Having seen the state of the pad post takeoff, and given the fact the last test didn't achieve all engine ignition at 1/2 thrust you have to wonder how much was down to the pad debris and how much to the state of the vehicle itself.

[EDIT. A good question would be what shape was the pad in after their static fire at 50%?  If it was pristine I could see why they'd feel fairly comfortable going full thrust but if was starting to look a bit "nibbled" you'd have to wonder what's going to happen when they crank it to 100% ]

[chopsticks]

SpaceX fan from Falcon 1 days, so I've been defending SpaceX and their efforts for quite a while. Why? Because unlike bloated NASA programs we all know about, SpaceX has been doing most of their most innovate work without using any of my taxpayer money.

And I think this is an important point to remember, because ignoring the HLS program (i.e. because the 2024 date was NEVER close to being realistic) the Starship program is pure entertainment. Think about it, the vast majority of everyone that is currently expressing opinions about what SpaceX is or isn't doing right will NEVER ride on a Starship or pay to have something launched on a Starship. So it literally DOES NOT MATTER if the Starship program succeeds or not in our daily lives.

So why do SpaceX fans cheer them on, even when they have setbacks? Because SpaceX has an ambitious goal that we support.

As I said, I consider myself to be a SpaceX fan as well, and cheer them on despite their setbacks too. I just find it a little bit annoying that some people get all defensive if you point out any mistakes. You can be positive about something whilst acknowledging mistakes too you know.

Good, Fast, Cheap, pick two. That pretty much explains what we see with SpaceX, and I think people keep forgetting how SpaceX trades "Good" for "Fast" and "Cheap".

Do I have to remind everyone that the SLS program has consumed over $20B, taken far longer, and is only slightly ahead of the progress the Starship program has made? In fact the SLS program is a good example of while you can only get a maximum of two choices from Good, Fast, Cheap, you can certainly get less than two... 

Yeah, I've seen that triangle before. However, I think that there is actually an argument to be made that SpaceX may have pulled off all three in regards to Falcon 9. And SLS may not have ticked any of those boxes! Definitely not fast, not cheap, and as far as "good" , well that's your call I guess.

Elon Musk has never made it easy to root for him. He has personal idiosyncrasies that certainly detract from what SpaceX the organization are doing, yet it is hard to argue that he isn't good at extremely difficult hardware projects - somehow he keeps finding ways to succeed.

As for everybody else that is optimistic about what SpaceX is doing, remember what I said about the Starship program being pure entertainment? People LOVE to cheer on the underdogs, and yes SpaceX is an underdog regarding the Starship program.

So for me, yep, I'll keep defending their choices regarding Good, Fast, Cheap, because it's not costing me anything... 

I try to forget about the CEO as much as possible when thinking about SpaceX, it's not good for my mental health. Lol. Totally agree about the pure entertainment part! It's fun to watch. I'm not sure I totally agree about the underdog part though, I don't think that there are any other private space companies who could afford to invest into a similar Starship program. Blue Origin I guess, but they seem so slow and unmotivated that it's hard to stay excited about them. It seems like this may hopefully be changing though, based on the recent activity at the Cape.

[john smith 19]

It's really easy to criticize from a recliner...

Ben isn't criticizing from a recliner. The guy's actively running a space startup, and used to work at SpaceX on their ASDS program. That's frankly doing more to move space forward than probably 90% of the people on this forum...

Or were you being ironic?

~Jon

Indeed.

In fact his career path looks (superficially) quite a lot like yours, but about a decade behind you.

[john smith 19]

I will take an overly optimistic person over a cynic any day. An optimist's reach may exceed his grasp, but at least he is reaching. A pessimist never bothers.

Cynicsm is the simplest political doctrine. It asks nothing and offers nothing.

And actually some pessimists do bother. They just don't think what you'll get all that you hope for out of it. But they'll do it anyway. 

A person should be aware of what came before, but in many cases why something was done is lost in the mists of time, and there's the real danger of "it's always been done this way because we tried this and it worked". It should be obvious that new ways to do things will not come from slavish adherence to what was done before. The old ways worked, yes, but other ways (that could have been found even then) might have worked better.

More common in this industry than many, with so much of the basic work done in the Cold War where if it didn't work within a month of starting to try out an idea it was deemed a failure and scrapped. 

The ongoing terror at the idea of using LOX cooling on combustion chambers despite a)Other propellant combos using the oxidizer as the coolant (HTP and NTO) as SOP and b)Successful demonstrations by both NASA and Rotary Rocket going back decades c)Rocketdyne using LOX cooling as part of its dual-expander cycle for a plug nozzle in the mid 70's suggests there is a significant part of the industry that's driven by folklore and old-wives tales. 

Many of which are long past time they should die.

[meekGee]

Just going to put this out there. As a fan of SpaceX and spaceflight in general, I find it incredibly annoying how it is becoming increasingly more difficult to ever criticize ANYTHING that SpaceX does, in particular with the Starship program.

It's impossible to do so, because you will just be met with "well that's just how they operate, their mantra is fail fast and learn from it". I appreciate that this is how they operate and it's very refreshing to see how quickly they are able to move and achieve great results, but I just really dislike it when you point out an obvious oversight and people run to the defensive basically say that you aren't allowed to criticise anything they do because they know better, while totally forgetting that Elon Musk himself has admitted to making dumb mistakes at SpaceX.

For example, how in the world did they overlook that Texas regulation about LNG tanks while setting up the fuel farm? Or that they built a 12 metre wide water tank with no reinforcements. Or that they thought somehow that a ~50% thrust static fire was enough to extrapolate that the pad would hold up (once) to a full thrust launch? In the end, none of these things seem to have been showstoppers, but that's not the point nor the implication.

Look, as I said, I think was SpaceX is doing and has accomplished is incredible, and I don't want to take that away from them but anytime you say something with a negative connotation you get called a concern troll.

Perhaps personality has something to do with it. I find overly optimistic people annoying.

You have a point, but there's also a flaw in the way you see things.

For sure, some of SpaceX's missteps were obvious to some outside observers.

The problem is that some of the more outrageous things they've done and succeeded in also seemed obviously dumb when they first started doing them.

I thought flying B7 with its field repairs was not a good idea, given that B8 exists  and OMG the risks to infrastructure if it RUDs.

I thought building a rocket prototype from flat sheets of metal was obviously wrong.

Turned out that the first decision was validated in retrospect, and the second simply had larger goals in mind than anyone imagined.

So most of the "defense" is simply the observation that while you may have foresaw a certain problem, but until you can show that you can also un-forsee non-problems, you don't have an actionable contribution to make.  You're just Monday morning quarterbacking.

All anyone can ever do is judge the entire program based on results, or offer meaningful commentary about individual decisions - but you can't judge the program based on cherry-picked failures.