Elon Musk’s Wild Ride!

Summary: The potential military applications of SpaceX’s Starship have always been on the table. However, new developments in the far reaches of the Pacific show how far along the planning for the Pentagon’s “Vanguard” program really is. Expect to see some interesting developments, including a possible third Mechazilla site, in the near future.

Transcript:

Welcome to the Edge of Space.

I’m your host, Randall C. Kennedy.

What a month March has been for SpaceX. First, they lose a Falcon 9 booster to yet another engine fire-fueled leg collapse incident. Then Starship Flight 8 does its best impression of Flight 7, with the second stage vehicle exploding part way into its suborbital burn.

And then just yesterday, SpaceX is forced to scrub the Crew 10 launch because of a hydraulic issue with the “strongback” erector – it literally wouldn’t let go of the rocket – leaving the longsuffering astronaut duo of Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore stranded in space for a while longer.

Now, if I were in charge of PR at SpaceX, I would have turned in my resignation letter by now. I mean, how much bad luck can one firm experience? Their media relations folks must feel like they’re playing whack-a-mole with the bad news bears.

But it gets worse. Viewed in isolation, any one of these events could be written off as a fluke. However, when you zoom out a bit, a pattern starts to emerge.

An exploding Falcon booster here. A misfiring second stage there. Starships blowing up again and again in successive failures under eerily similar circumstances.

And now the Crew 10 scrub. As I noted in a previous video, this is more than just bad luck. It points to a precipitous decline in the once unassailable engineering culture at SpaceX.

Simply put, there’s stuff breaking that shouldn’t be, especially given the maturity of the systems in question – for example, Falcon 9.

Some have pointed to the “brain drain” being experienced by the program as SpaceX’s top engineering talent is shifted from Falcon to Starship.

Others posit that the insane cadence of Falcon launches is pushing the envelope of what the company can effectively handle before quality controls begin to slip.

But no matter how you slice it, the dismal narrative around SpaceX’s “month of woe” is gaining momentum, especially as the stakes continue to get higher and higher.

For example, the political circus surrounding the Crew 10 mission – which was to supposed to facilitate the final return, ON Crew 9’s Dragon spacecraft, of the world’s most famous “abandoned” astronauts, Butch and Suni.

As sequels go, this one is a real flop!

Of course, an opportunistic Trump White House has turned this latest rotation flight into an indictment of the Biden administration and its failure to get the stranded crew home after their defective STARLINER spacecraft crapped out in orbit.

And while questions remain about the actual timeline of those controversial events, the pressure to finally “bring them home” undoubtedly had everyone at the Commercial Crew Program on edge in the runup to Wednesday’s launch window.

Yet, outside of the political ramifications, SpaceX’s improbable losing streak has even darker implications for a core aspect of the human-rated Falcon and Dragon vehicle program:

Namely, Flight Safety.

With SpaceX suffering so many seemingly random failures across otherwise unrelated systems, you can’t help but worry that the next miscue will put at risk more than just another commercial payload.

Case in point, the aforementioned Falcon 9 booster failure. Though the dramatic video of it toppling over and exploding upon landing stole the headlines, the problems actually began during the rocket’s ascent phase when a fuel leak developed, spraying pressurized kerosene throughout the engine compartment and leading to the fire at landing.

This vehicle was ultimately able to reach orbit without losing any of its nine Merlin engines. However, a different flight early in Falcon’s career experienced just such a loss during ascent.

The rocket was ultimately able compensate for the failure of thrust by running the remaining eight engines for longer than had been planned, helping it to reach the designated release point for its upper stage.

And though risky – anytime part of a rocket fails mid-flight is suboptimal – the maneuver was ultimately only possible because the vehicle was carrying a payload that, while valuable, wasn’t irreplaceable.

Swap that group of satellites with a Crew Dragon capsule and the stakes – and calculations – get much more serious.

Would NASA risk the lives of up to four astronauts by sticking with a malfunctioning rocket and “punching through” such a failure scenario?

Probably not. In fact, I’m guessing the folks at mission control would be reaching for the in-flight abort button the moment the rocket reported the catastrophic loss of an engine.

Now, the next sequence of events would be a real nail biter. Not only would they be forced to activate a continency scenario that had never been tested with human passengers before, they’d also be relying on a propulsion system – the series of Super Draco thrusters arrayed around the sides of the Dragon capsule – that had famously experienced its own spate of “energetic events” during flight qualification testing.

But let’s assume for the moment that the system works as designed, and the Crew 10 astronauts go on a high-G roller coaster ride as the capsule blasts away from its crippled companion. Now, it becomes a question of WHERE the wayward capsule will be splashing down.

If they’ve only just left the launch pad, they’ll likely be swimming with the dolphins off the East coast of Florida.

However, if they were well on their way to space when the mission went pear shaped, they could find themselves bobbing in the North Atlantic, somewhere between Newfoundland and the Irish coast.

Isn’t that where the Titanic went down?

Of course, the mad scramble to recover the capsule would make for some gripping news coverage. However, the damage to the Commercial Crew program – and SpaceX’s sterling reputation for crew safety – would be catastrophic.

There would likely be congressional hearings on the matter, especially if any of the astronauts were injured or, God forbid, lost during the escape maneuver and subsequent recovery operation.

In other words, SpaceX would be royally screwed. Which is why the company needs to take seriously the criticisms being levelled against it. Because, in engineering circles, there’s no such thing as bad luck – only lax or defective oversight and quality control.

Bottom Line: SpaceX needs to get its act together, and fast. There’s no question that pulling the metaphorical emergency brake, by stopping flight operations until a thorough review of their QC processes can be completed, will be painful. However, that temporary discomfort will pale in comparison to the brutal fallout should a tragic incident occur during a Commercial Crew mission.

Let’s hope SpaceX is listening and that we never have to find out if they really fixed the burst valve problem at the heart of those wonky, splodey Super Dracos.

Anyway, if you liked this content, please let the world know by hitting the like button and subscribing to the channel. And don’t forget the notification bell so you’re alerted when our next space-related rant drops.

And in the meantime, remember: Don’t look up! Because you never know when a wayward Dragon might be coming for a visit!