Clark Lindsey has lots of links and thoughts about yesterday’s loss (not a permalink–just keep scrolling). I agree in particular with this:

As Elon Musk has said, expecting a rocket to work perfectly the first time is like expecting a huge, elaborate software program to run bug-free the first time it is run. (Fortunately for programmers, a computer usually doesn’t burst into flames if there is a fatal bug.)

This is why I and many other alt.spacers prefer space transports that can be tested incrementally rather than requiring “full up” performance the first time out. While the Falcon is partially reusable, it doesn’t offer the “fly a little, test a little” capability of vehicles with flyback stages. The SpaceShipOne test flights, for example, revealed several significant design problems but the increments in the system’s envelope expansion were always small enough that the flaws did not destroy the SS1. Instead the pilots were always able to return the craft safely and the particular problems found during a test were fixed before the next flight.

Yes. That’s the one thing that’s remained “old school” in SpaceX’s approach. You can test subsystems until the end of time, and still not know if the entire beast will work together perfectly, all singing, all dancing, the first time. NASA took this approach with the Shuttle, and got away with it, but they spent a hell of a lot of money on it. This is why it’s nice to have vehicle that’s not only recoverable, but one that lands the same way it takes off, so that it can be incrementally tested. Now that some other companies are starting to take that approach (both horizontal and vertical) it will be interesting to see how much more of an incident-free (or at least vehicle-loss-free) test program they have.

In the meantime, good luck to SpaceX. There’s no reason to think at this point that they can’t be as successful, ultimately, as their predecessors that cost much, much more to develop, but still had early failures.

[Update in the late afternoon]

Other people are having similar thoughts:

I guess that when you have an incredibly complicated system like Falcon or like other existing orbital vehicles, where everything has to work just right, there are almost no margins, and nothing can be flight tested beforehand, risks and sucky days like these are inevitable.

I’m glad that for our suborbital vehicles we will be able to do things like cutting our teeth on takeoffs and landings hanging under a tether. While we’ll still probably have our ulcer-inducing moments where we have to push the envelope into some new regime that we haven’t tried before, and where something could go wrong, those will be fewer and farther between. Trying to get every part of a rocket vehicle like that, with all the subsystems working perfectly from the start is a real challenge. SpaceX has a phenomenal crew, and I’m sure they’ll get this figured out, and probably make a whole bunch of money on this, but I’m glad that the approach they’re taking is not the only way to solve this problem.

[Note: I’ve moved this post to the top until 6 PM Eastern, so scroll down for potential new content]

Here’s a link for a live webcast of the SpaceX launch in less than two hours (via Tom Merkle).

[Update at 2:42 PM EST]

They’re picking up the pace on the launch sequence now. They have a pretty long checklist, it sounds like.

[Update at 3:16 PM EST]

Uh oh. They’re currently fourteen minutes into an unplanned hold (no explanation yet as to why). I wonder how much slack they have, or if this intrinsically delays the launch?

[Update at 3:26 PM EST]

A recovery boat has wandered into an area in the drop zone that’s off limits. They’re moving it and will be back into the count shortly. Good to hear that it’s not a technical problem.

[Update at 2:37 PM EST]

Aaaarrrgghhh.

Not a problem with the launch, but the cabinet people just arrived to unload them into the garage, so I may miss the launch while supervising them. Good luck, if so.

[Update at 4:08 PM EST]

Picking up the count, with a new scheduled launch of 5:30 PM EST

[Update about 4:30 PM EST]

I’ve moved this thread to the top until 6 PM, so if you see it, you can scroll down for newer material. Also, there’s a live discussion going on over at Free Republic.

[Update at 5 PM]

Starting to see what looks like LOX boiloff vapor from the top of the vehicle.

[Update at about T-10 minutes]

They just finished the poll. “Clear to launch.”

[Update a minute or so before]

I’m noticing a couple-minute delay on the webcast, so it may launch before we actually see it.

[A little after 5:30 EST]

It seems to have gotten off the pad, but my image is frozen on one of the on-board cameras. It seems to have dropped the webcast.

It looked like a good launch, as far as I could see, before we lost the feed, but that was only for a few seconds, and what looked like a couple hundred feet of altitude at most. I guess we’ll have to wait for word from SpaceX as to what happened during the remainder of the trajectory. I have to say that it’s a little unnerving to lose contact like that. I’m wondering if SpaceX cut it off because it was showing something untoward. Here’s hoping for the best, though.

[Update a couple minutes later]

The people at Free Republic who retained the stream longer than me reported blue sky and clouds, but also rolling before the webcast cut off. That could be part of the normal trajectory, but I can’t think of any reason for a symmetric vehicle to do a deliberate roll maneuver during ascent, so it remains unsettling.

[Update at 5:43 PM EST]

Vehicle lost, according to Gwynne Shotwell. Probably range safety destruct.

I’ll post more when I know more.

Schade.

Scheisse.

[Update shortly after 6 PM EST]

Word travels fast these days. The BBC already has the story.

…over four decades later. Via Jim Oberg, here’s an interesting article about the first woman in space.

This part I found a little puzzling, though:

Astronaut Mary Ellen Weber , who went up twice on the space shuttle, was also in attendance at the dinner, as was Lori Garver, whose plans to go into space were shelved in 2003 after the Columbia tragedy.

Huh?

What did Columbia have to do with Lori shelving her plans to go into space? She was going to go on Soyuz. I thought she shelved her plans because she couldn’t find a sponsor to pay for it. Of course, it doesn’t say she did it because of Columbia, but that’s certainly the obvious inference to me, else why mention it?

Joe Betcher, Lake Superior State, email interviews Sam Dinkin (reprinted with permission):

Betcher: In what areas has current space program failed to live up to expectations?

Dinkin: Settlement. Cheap access.

Betcher: What aspects of human spaceflight have been successful?

Dinkin: Dead end jobs. Glory among non space cognoscenti.

Betcher: What changes to human spaceflight can we expect in the future?

Dinkin: Business-like led by Russia.

Betcher: Do you believe the Vision for Space Exploration will be successful and if any changes are necessary to make it better?

Dinkin: Yes. Yes.

Betcher:What are some of the benefits of a trip to the moon or Mars?

Dinkin: Make it one-way and we are a bi-planet species.

Betcher: Do you believe the risks of sending people into space are worth it? Is there any way to make it safer?

Dinkin: Are the risks of pregnancy worth it? Practice makes perfect.

Betcher: In what ways can robots replace humans in space?

Dinkin: We can send a 77-year old robot around the planet a few times to do geriatrics research.

Betcher: What do you believe is in store for the future of human spaceflight?

Dinkin: Going to a store and buying a human spaceflight.

…of the SpaceX launch, over at Out of the Cradle. Just a little over three hours to go, if all goes well.

Or, at least a missile engineer gap:

Not only are fewer American engineers and scientists choosing to work on missile technology, there are fewer of them altogether, the report says. Each year, about 70,000 Americans receive undergraduate and graduate science and engineering degrees that are defense related, compared with a combined 200,000 in China and India, the report says.

The government should pay higher salaries and offer other incentives to attract more experts into the strategic missile field, the report says.

As always, I find it irritating that reporters think that it takes “scientists” to design and operate missiles. I guess they think that someone with a physics degree is a “scientist,” even if they’re actually doing engineering (perhaps because they think that getting a journalism degree makes one a journalist, regardless of how much journalistic malpractice is committed).

The SpaceX launch attempt has reportedly been delayed until tomorrow, same time.

Maybe. If all goes well, SpaceX may finally get off their first launch to orbit, at 4 PM EST. Clark Lindsey has a roundup of links with which to follow proceedings.

Maybe. If all goes well, SpaceX may finally get off their first launch to orbit, at 4 PM EST. Clark Lindsey has a roundup of links with which to follow proceedings.

Maybe. If all goes well, SpaceX may finally get off their first launch to orbit, at 4 PM EST. Clark Lindsey has a roundup of links with which to follow proceedings.