SpaceX no longer reliable.

[Ranb]

Elon Musk says SpaceX could begin 'decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft' after Trump threat to cancel contracts
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/elon-musks-says-spacex-could-begin-decommissioning-its-dragon-spacecraft-after-trump-threat-to-cancel-contracts

"In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately," Musk posted on X, which he bought back in 2022, when it was still called Twitter.

[Jason Thompson]

Gosh, who'd have thought a pair of raving egotistical narcissists could fail to get along when they have so much in common....

[JayUtah]

Indeed, two very stable geniuses.

[raven]

Two households, both alike in dignity.
In fair America do we lay our scene.
That is to say, none at all.
My first inkling of what a twit  Musk was how he reacted when the Chilean government declined his assistance in a mining disaster, and the guy had just the worst hissy fit about. He didn't actually care about the miners.
It saddens me how much space exploration has been poisoned by this rampaging man child. Also, Starship is feeling more and more like the N1 rather than something that will be functional.

[Peter B]

Two households, both alike in dignity.
In fair America do we lay our scene.
That is to say, none at all.
My first inkling of what a twit  Musk was how he reacted when the Chilean government declined his assistance in a mining disaster, and the guy had just the worst hissy fit about. He didn't actually care about the miners.
It saddens me how much space exploration has been poisoned by this rampaging man child. Also, Starship is feeling more and more like the N1 rather than something that will be functional.

Just a thought, but do you mean the Thai children stuck in the cave?

But I take your point about Starship. I wonder whether SpaceX needs to trim its ambition and split the upper stage into an expendable second stage and a capsule - like a Falcon 9 on steroids.

[jfb]

How much of this is real and how much is kayfabe?  "Oh, we haven't been in the news for 10 whole minutes, let's stage a slap fight."

Or for all I know this is absolutely genuine, all remaining NASA flights to the ISS are cancelled, all military projects relying on SpaceX are cancelled, the ISS deorbit plan is cancelled and we're just gonna let the thing fall where it falls, and decades of American leadership just get flushed down the toilet.  Again.  Some more.

extended rant incoming

Make America Great Again by trashing the institutions and culture that made it great and replace it with a slow child's crayon drawing of Stalinist Russia, just with more crypto. 

Both the MAGA right and Progressive left are appropriating Soviet culture; MAGAts want the authoritarianism, the Progressives get hot over thoughtcrime (and authoritarianism), both want to throw everyone who doesn't agree with them down to the dot over the "i" in jail (or worse). 

The Democrats had two years to deal with the threat.  2020-2022 was the window to make sure Trump wouldn't get back in the big chair.  And after months of playing up how much of an existential threat Trump was?  They blew it off and started arguing over what to call someone with a vagina, because erasing the very concept of womanhood was the real issue that had to be dealt with.  All that guff about Trump was just empty campaign rhetoric.  Yeah, sure, January 6 commission.  Awesome, great work, valuable service.  Accomplished dick-all.  Did not have enough support from party leaders, especially Biden, who was slowly turning into a rutabaga.  He promised he would be one-and-done, then reneged (well, his people reneged, I doubt he had much say in the matter), and just completely torpedoed everything. 

AND THEY STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY THEY LOST.

But this is what the majority of people who bothered to show up wanted.  That's what has me so damned angry and depressed.  Trump's a clown and a narcissist and a con artist, that's his nature, and I can deal with that.  The problem is all the people who looked at that and said, "yep, that's the man I want in charge."  Those are the people I want to throttle on a daily basis. 

Yeah, I'm not in a good place.  I do not know how I'm going to get through the next four years. 

[raven]

Two households, both alike in dignity.
In fair America do we lay our scene.
That is to say, none at all.
My first inkling of what a twit  Musk was how he reacted when the Chilean government declined his assistance in a mining disaster, and the guy had just the worst hissy fit about. He didn't actually care about the miners.
It saddens me how much space exploration has been poisoned by this rampaging man child. Also, Starship is feeling more and more like the N1 rather than something that will be functional.

Just a thought, but do you mean the Thai children stuck in the cave?

But I take your point about Starship. I wonder whether SpaceX needs to trim its ambition and split the upper stage into an expendable second stage and a capsule - like a Falcon 9 on steroids.

My bad, it was a mini-sub, but, yeah, I can see that working better than this stainless steel boondoggle the upper stage is becoming.

[Dalhousie]

My disillusionment with Musk started pretty early in the early teens.  I always found his jingoism and xenophobia distasteful, and found the enthusiasm of his admirers increasingly cult like from about 2010.  His 2016 IAC announcement of the MCT I found interesting, but flawed, But his reaction to the Thai cave rescue was the end for me of any personal respect, and the risible saga of SS to date of any professional respect.  Now I see him as extremely dangerous.  Which is a shame for all the hardworking engineers at SpaceX, who deserve better leadership.

[Jason Thompson]

Oh dear....

I'm no expert in rocketry by any means, and most of what I do know I picked up from here, but surely we've generally got past the problem of rockets just blowing up on the pad, haven't we?

[PDI]

Brings new meaning to the phrase "let's light this candle". 

[Zakalwe]

Oh dear....

I'm no expert in rocketry by any means, and most of what I do know I picked up from here, but surely we've generally got past the problem of rockets just blowing up on the pad, haven't we?

They've found a new way to drive efficiency. Just blow 'em up on the ground without all that lifting into the upper atmosphere nonsense. Musk is a genius!!!

[grmcdorman]

Scott Manley also reports on it, with the title tag "Not Nominal" :-)

[Peter B]

They've found a new way to drive efficiency. Just blow 'em up on the ground without all that lifting into the upper atmosphere nonsense. Musk is a genius!!!

I understand Musk isn't an engineer, but he seems to like to play at being one. Like the story I've read of him getting onto some part of a Tesla production line and asking the workers why they use that many bolts in that stage of manufacture. Or his interview with Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut) which ended up in some change in the design of Starship.

I wonder whether the problems Starship has been experiencing over the last few months are anything to do with other tinkering by him. Or is it simply that the SpaceX engineers have pushed Starship beyond current technological limits?

[bknight]

It has been reported that the likely culprit was a COPV exploding.  It seems to me that a few years ago a F9 suffered a similar incident that was identified as a COPV. COPVs are lighter but are not as reliable as steel, IMO.