Does SpaceX Need to Adjust its Priorities?
Op-ed: We love you SpaceX, and hope you reach Mars. But we need you to focus, Ars Technica
“I understand SpaceX has a master plan–the company wants to colonize Mars. It has been brilliant to watch the plan unfold as SpaceX has used NASA contracts to bootstrap up to the Falcon 9 rocket and used Falcon 9 flights to simultaneously test reusability and supersonic retropropulsion for the Martian environment. I mean, it’s genius. But at some point you have to focus on the here and now, and that is the Falcon 9 rocket. The Falcon 9 rocket lies at the core of everything SpaceX wants to do. It delivers commercial satellites and cargo. It will deliver astronauts into orbit. Three Falcon 9 boosters will power the Falcon Heavy. It is the basis of proving the reusability of orbital launch systems. So if there is no Falcon 9, there is no business. And now there have been two failures in 15 months. While the cause of the second failure is not known to outsiders, and it may have been caused by ground systems rather than the rocket itself, the company has nonetheless lost two of its rockets and associated payloads in 15 months. That is sobering.”
I’m afraid I don’t see the basis for Mr. Berger’s op-ed. While it’s true SpaceX needs to focus on the Falcon 9, I don’t see any evidence that they aren’t. The op-ed implies that the plans for Red Dragon and MCT are distracting SpaceX. How does Mr. Berger know that? As far as I know, SpaceX doesn’t give out their internal budgets or the number of people assigned to their projects. If SpaceX were underfunding or understaffing work on the Falcon, I might agree with the criticism about lack of focus. But the simple fact that they are talking about Mars is not evidence of this. Perhaps Mr. Berger is making an unstated assumption, that, since SpaceX Mars plans would require a huge effort if it were done by NASA, then it must take a huge effort for SpaceX. When it comes to developing launch vehicles, that assumption has been proven incorrect.
I also disagree with the op-ed’s statement that:
`Musk has famously contrasted his approach with that of NASA. “There’s a silly notion that failure’s not an option at NASA,” Musk said in 2005. “Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”
That is a laudable approach that works for risky efforts, such as landing rockets on a boat or trying to send a Dragon to the surface of Mars. But it does not work when it comes to winning the confidence of commercial satellite customers or flying NASA astronauts.’
This makes an assumption about what the commercial and NASA customers expect. Business as usual is that they expect high reliability regardless of the cost. But that may not be the case anymore (for commercial customers) and may not be true in the future for NASA. What if the commercial customers would be perfectly happy with a 10% failure rate in exchange for a 50% drop in launch costs? Especially for constellations with a large number of identical spacecraft, that’s a profitable option. For NASA and astronaut launches, crew safety is the highest priority. A survivable launch vehicle failure could be considered acceptable.
Inevitably, every company structure is hierarchical. Some are a lot flatter than others, but there are still key people near the top. With more stuff going on, they will be spread rhinner, there is no way around it.
If you say you have top ten priorities, then in reality you still have two or three
I don’t think I agree. A company has a finite number of people in the key positions you describe, as well as less senior but vital positions. But that number is not fixed. For all we know, SpaceX has maintained the same number of those people in positions worrying about Falcon launches, while hiring more to worry about Mars. Even at the highest levels, adding a Mars vice-president or member of the board would not unduly dilute a focus on flying the Falcon. I’m simply saying we don’t know enough about SpaceX internal management to say anything about their relative attention to Falcon flights versus longer-term Mars objectives.
SpaceX is not Pyongyang or NSA or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. One can cross paths with people that either work there or have worked there every now and then.
What they do is rocket science – well, rocket engineering, actually. How you manage a large group of people however is not.
I’m not sure what you mean. I’m talking about how much or how little we know about staffing levels for various projects. That information is necessary before someone can say the company is, or is not, focusing on one of those projects.
Most _employees_ at private companies (or NASA labs) don’t have that sort of information. They might have a vague feeling about it, by noticing people transferred from one project to another. But the actual number of FTE hours on each project? I don’t know about SpaceX but most companies don’t distribute that very widely. So I don’t understand your comment about crossing paths with people who work there.
Unless “lack of management oversight” comes out as a root cause of the failure…which no one can say unless it actually does.
Myself, I think the cause of the failure might have been…nope, not gonna say it. I’m not going to say it because it would be pointless and sound silly without actual evidence.
I do dig SpaceX, but you’ll see me in here criticizing then in the same tone as the author of this article…once the root cause is determined.
BTW, several launch companies lost rockets in 2014-2015. What were their comparative effectiveness as to the incident investigations and return to flight time tables? I already know the answer, just throwing the question out there.
Orbital rocketry is hard. Launch mishaps pretty much mostly just impact short-term timetables and cost six digits (about twice the cost of a successful Atlas V launch). Poor investigations impact consumer confidence.
NASA might be satisfied by a 10% failure rate for inexpensive payloads like some commercial resupply missions. They won’t be satisfied by it for commercial crew (for obvious reasons), and they won’t be satisfied by it for satellites that take a lot of time and money to make like Webb. It is possible for the insurance costs of those to go above the launch costs, and in addition if they blow up that could be a decade wasted for the scientists that made the probe.
More launches means more opportunity for things to go wrong. How does the Falcon 9 launch rate compare with other boosters lately?
Poorly; they have launched 29 times in 6 years with two failures; Atlas has launched 46 times with zero failures – of coursed they haven’t claimed they will send people to Mars in six years.
Yes, but lets not forget everything that came before Atlas. I still haven’t forgotten about the slough of rockets from LM and Boeing that exploded in the late 90’s. It seemed like every month a rocket was blowing up. I imagine in 20 years whatever rocket SpaceX may be launching will be substantially safer after that many years of experience.
Well its true that there was a Delta II failure in the late ’90’s and a couple of Delta IIIs and an Atlas II or III. But in over 100 launches, neither Atlas V or Delta IV have ever had a catastrophic failure and note also that ALL of these are LAUNCH failures; this was a TEST! SpaceX just had a problem which the other rockets haven’t experienced since the 1960’s.
Actually, there was an on-pad rocket explosion in Brazil in 2003, similarly the rocket was undergoing fuel loading tests.
Fun fact: The Falcon 9 has a better track record right now (2 failures, 1 partial failure, 26 fully successful launches) than the Ariane 5 did at the same point in its launch history (2 failures, 2 partial failures, 25 fully successful launches).
And how much time & money did ESA have to invest to fix it? Good catch on the Brazil failure – I was really thinking of the spacefaring world not aspirants.
In reality it matters not since ESA and it’s parent agencies regard independent space access as a strategic, not commercial necessity. So for them it is simply a threshold of pain process just as it is with ULA and the DoD. Ask yourself this; prior to SpaceX why would you not launch DoD assets on the A5 since it was so much cheaper than any ULA offering and if we are operating in a market paradigm then coin is king?
The first Ariane 5 launch attempt and failure was carrying the Cluster four-spacecraft scientific mission. ESA decided to rebuild and refly it. They also decided to launch Cluster II on two Russian Soyuz/Fregat rockets. I’ve never heard the basis for that launch vehicle decision, but it wasn’t a ringing vote of confidence in the Ariane 5 or evidence of favoring European rockets for strategic reasons.
Not sure what your point is there. Risk profile management and mission level launcher selection have nothing to do with strategic national policies. Nor does the confidence in a particular launch system. That would be a perversion of political reality. Those issues all remain firmly in the realms of market forces. As I pointed out in the previous post, a quixotic position to advance on a geopolitical stage.
BTW Soyuz decision was made for two reasons: Cost and risk. Cluster got 501 for free. They had to pay for the next launches. By then the design flaw of multiple satellites per single launch was firmly dawning on the space and particularly the insurance communities (Yes I know ESA don’t insure their birds but the program managers still address risk in a comparable way). Soyuz was cheap. Still multiple platform per launch but not a total mission wrecking event. Ironic isn’t it? “Socialist” Europe went with the cheapest launcher while “Capitalist” America persisted with the most expensive. Market forces are king eh?
A total lack of logic in this statement. Think about it a bit more before posting Bob.
Cheers
I can arguably make the point that SpaceX ground ops are one of their best strengths. How many WDRs have their been in McGreggor, Cape Canaveral, and Vandenberg? SpaceX drills the hell out of this and actually has a very good understanding of their vehicle.
I respect Mr. Berger but this is premature. However, Mr. Berger is right when he says:
…the cause of the second failure is not known…
Some people, who need to know, have a pretty good idea of what happened. Everyone who is on the outside can be the Monday Morning QB and say what they think SpaceX should do but that would just be an under-informed opinion and pure speculation.
We need to let SpaceX do their investigation. You will have the answers soon after SpaceX does. Work continues on 39A and Vandenberg and we will know more next week.
What is sobering to me personally is how much all of us took for granted the regularity of SpaceX. SpaceX is pushing the envelope and failures will happen. This is a failure none of us ever expected. We will figure it out, learn from our mistake, take corrective action(s), and fly again.
Hang in there.
It’s a precarious balance. Too much here and now, and you lose the momentum and will never get where you want to go. Too much reaching for the horizon and you’ll hit every bump and trip over often.
Well, if SpaceX can investigate and take action on their accidents in a few days compared to the 6 months it takes NASA then everyone should probably stand out of the way and let SpaceX plow ahead.
I’d say if they investigate and take action in a few days, they aren’t being thorough enough.
So you know how much about this issue exactly? Oh
I see, nothing. Therefore you are posting from a position of total ignorance and what you have to say on this issue is … worthless. Thanks so much for posting.
Cheers
If NASA, SpaceX’ biggest customer – which has contracted to fly astronauts on Falcon 9 – and the USAF which has responsibility for the range and public safety were to allow SpaceX to fix their problem “in a few days and plow ahead”, both would be guilty of incredible negligence with taxpayer dollars and I suspect that the insurance companies would have some concerns to be addressed too. If Bean Counter is defending that statement, it’s not Guest who is posting from a position of total ignorance.
I agree that a few days is unrealistic, but perhaps not a few weeks. If the data show a clear cause, and there is a simple remedy, a few weeks would not be impossible. A NASA investigation would probably not stop there. They might feel that, if the problem were that simple and obviously, they should make sure there aren’t and other, simple and obvious problems. That can take as much time as you care to spend. You have to draw the line at some point; SpaceX may draw that line sooner that NASA would.
In reality it ended up taking them several months to start flying again and they still haven’t repaired the pad yet.
Space X is doing an excellent job – indeed the best job – in pushing the boundaries and making real progress. Blind criticism such as this is mere speculation. Space X will continue to make mistakes, quickly identify them, remedy the situation, and then move forward. Contrast to Boeing and NASA. (I am not picking on NASA which we need and has occasionally done very well, but it is stuck in sending humans beyond low earth orbit. NASA has been stuck on progress 20 -30 years in the future since 1973.)
NASA didn’t “choose to subsidize” Boeing with more $; its what each company bid for commercial crew – SpaceX did the same thing on CRS – they bid less than Orbital ATK probably because, given Musks’ hubris, they assumed they could do all these things without failures because they have Silicon Valley pixie dust and ignoring the caution brought thatby decades of experience that companies like Boeing and Orbital ATK have.
“Silicon Valley pixie dust”
That’s cute. No really. LOL.
If by that you mean an “an innovate, price compete or die business culture” then you are correct.
Trouble is, I and probably more than a few others here that have decades of experience in the computer industry have to strain to see a downside to that…for anyone except companies like Boeing and Orbital ATK.
Price compete or die business cultures have indeed led to great successes in many industries – so why not with aircraft carriers? Or nuclear subs? How about Air Force One (or which there are 2)?
This is not a mass market, consumer driven business with a rapid product turnover and fast technology evolution nor will it be – ever. The barriers – especially cost – of entry, the capital requirements and the development times – not to mention the aversion to failure, especially when human lives are involved – is simply too great to use a business model developed for an industry with a huge market, multiple suppliers and many companies – not to mention no risk of instant death if a cellphone or lap top develops a glitch.
In the best scenario, it will develop like the airliner industry into a duopoly or maybe several duopolies in different segments. That doesn’t mean it won’t be a competitive market – Airbus & Boeing aggressively compete. But making schedule promises and expecting things to work in space like they do in the IT industry makes about as much sense as sprinkling pixie dust and expecting magic to happen.
Aircraft carriers, subs, air force one…those are built on the military procurement model. So we’re Apollo, the Space Shuttle, SLS and Orion. They depend on Congressional initiative and funding. Somehow, ULA has transplanted the military procurement pricing and growth model to the private sector, which keeps it out of reach for individual entrepreneurs and investors and keeps the tech largely static.
The airline industry model seems to be the goal of those who have been pushing this industry disruption. We haven’t gotten there on $200M, throw-away rockets to LEO…and we’re not going to. Human Space flight cannot continue to be an exclusive club for governments or the next 50 years will look like the last. Billionaires like Bezos and Musk have to crash the party to get involved as launch service providers. Millionaires have to be able to be their customers. I self-fund my seat on airliners occasionally. Usually millionaires (actually millionaires-sized companies) have funded them. There are thousands of airliners in the air over the U.S. constantly. Imagine LEO with hundreds of orbiting, crewed spacecraft. It’s all about the number of customers who can afford to participate.
The notion that “compete or die” is universally applicable is troubling although it does drive certain segments.
It is a vicious paradigm, but it drives growth and innovation. I once asked a rep for Ashton-Tate if the then upcoming dBaseV would come with a native code compiler (my appologies to those here to whom what I just said is Greek). His answer sums up the need for competition to drive innovation. He said one word…”Why?”. At the time, such things were important, but they were the market leader and didn’t think they needed to advance the tech. Their new version failed to gain lasting foothold on the old model because of various problems, and they had opted out of embracing the then new model and their market share shriveled and died when they started out as the king of a ruling standard in desktop datamining.
Forward thinking development drives innovation and advances market share, but it also expands that market. Lower prices do the same. Once those things are introduced in an industry, everyone has to do it or they fall behind and are swept aside.
Competition in the market place is absolutely what drives growth and innovation – both technical and financial. My point on pixie dust is that this is not a mass market that enables the rapid product improvement cycle the same way as the IT industry does. look at Apple; it’s annual iPhone update announcements are driven by the potential for new sales every refresh cycle. Will that happen with Orion capsules or space stations – perhaps someday but not for a very very long time.
NASA and DOD DO compete contracts at the front end and future awards and profits are tied to performance. The “military procurement model” leads to high costs because of the funding and contracting mechanisms as well as the complex and unique challenges that are being faced by the companies making these products. Its what got us to the moon and its what defeated the Soviet war machine – just ask the Israelis who flew against the best MiGs the Soviets produced in the hands of the Egyptians and Syrians in the 1970s or the Iraqis in the Gulf War or after 9/11.
BTW, in fairness, “compete or die” does exist in the aircraft carrier or submarine market – only there again it’s the competitive pressure of foreign militaries and the potential for actual death.
“BTW, in fairness, “compete or die” does exist in the aircraft carrier or submarine market – only there again it’s the competitive pressure of foreign militaries and the potential for actual death.”….
Hmmm. Bit of a stretch that. Commodification of everything is a shibboleth of late 20th century anglo culture that I find difficult to embrace. To take the road you started down there: what possible market principle can induce someone, as an individual, to put their life at hazard in the service of their country? Market principle mind…
BTW US has 10 aircraft carriers their nearest competitor has 2 (Italy)… and I doubt the old salts would even classify those as carriers. I can’t see where “compete or die” paradigm is coming into it there.. Probably even worse on the Boomers. In that arena such argumentation just looks quixotic.
Your correct that the market isn’t as consumer-direct as the products that silicone Valley built. Also that the cycle isn’t nearly as frequent as it is with things like smartphones, it might however be similar to some products within the computer tech industry.
Still, it is a growing mass market of another flavor. GSO Communications satellite companies are using the better launch pricing to cover longitudes that weren’t profitable before, providing service to people they couldn’t market in the past.
LEO Communications is in a tech growth phase at the moment, with the next generation of Iridium satellites offering expanded capabilities that could present them with an opportunity to expand their customer base in direct proportion to pricing over the next decade.
Then there are cube sats, who’s pricing and availability seems to have improved with price-driven increases in overall launch cadence, since they usually fly as piggy-back payloads.
What goes without saying are the products that aren’t there yet, but that might come onto the scene with $50M and lower access to LEO, more providers, higher launch rates, and lower contract to launch periods.
What happened to the PC industry at the end of the last century impacted all of our lives forever, stuck fingers into almost every other industry, and drove an economic growth spurt in the U.S. Market protectionism was shunned by consumers as new features triggered expanded markets and more new features. The growth moved so fast that there was sometimes even room in there for old dogs, young dogs, big dogs, little dogs, slow dogs and fast dogs all fighting it out together. After 5 or 6 decades of same-ol’ same-ol’, the launch services industry could use a decade or two of that.
What will it take for the SpaceX fan boys on this site to realize that, impressive as what SpaceX has accomplished is, they are stretched thin by all of their simultaneous grandiose projects and they need to be more realistic in their schedules and announcements. I bet the Blue Origin tortoise will wind up beating the Spacex hare in the end.
I’ll just repeat myself. We know SpaceX has many ambitious projects. Given the nature of the company, we do not have much information on their resources. As such, we are not in a position to say how thinly stretched those resources are. Since we do know they only have about 5000 employees, I think it is safe to say the resources are stretched. But not how stretched, or stretched to a harmful degree. We just don’t know enough to say that with confidence.
Here’s a test to see if they are financially stretched – will Musk do what Orbital ATK did after its Antares failure and contract with ULA for a launch service to make certain that they meet their CRS commitment with minimal delay?
Probably not. I doubt that a Dragon can even be put on the top of an Atlas V, since it doesn’t ride within a fairing. The work necessary to ensure a Dragon could be put on an Atlas V, wind tunnel studies, etc. would likely take longer than just letting SpaceX fix whatever the problem was and then return to flight.
Umm… actually I think it does ride inside a fairing. But I agree with you that it might still take more work since its other stuff might not have been designed for that. Also, risk (for uncrewed missions) is a comparison exercise that gets turned on its ear when you talk about the cost of Atlas vs Falcon.
The Dragon cargo capsule does not go in a fairing, it sits on top of the Falcon 9 rocket by itself.
http://www.space.com/images…
Right. Silly me. Seen so many of the Falcons go up with non-NASA satellites with fairings that I got confused.
If they aren’t stretched too thin, and it’s easier and faster to fix their own problem, why would they contract to ULA? That could either show that they are not stretched thin (and have the money to buy a solution) or that they are stretched too thin (and lack resources to internally solve the problem in a timely manner.)
I’ll answer your question with a question…How far down the timetable was the SpaceX return to flight for Dragon vs Cygnus? For Falcon vs Antares? And remember that neither of those investigations was done in a closet.
Hard to compare since et Orbital decided to make a new rocket booster with a different engine not just fix the problem with that specific failure. Still, it showed real commitment to the customer for Orbital ATK to buy a competitor’s rocket to do the launch service.
As to whether it needs a big fairing around it to launch on the Atlas or lots of work to fly on it without one, I don’t know but you’d hope Musjk would have some people looking at it.
He’s not likely to since the Falcon seems to be the development target more than the application. He’s not thinking ahead to the next ISS contract but to the next generation of applications. NASA doesn’t seem to mind that focus, since they are doing the same thing and moving away from application-targeted development.
I guess what I’m saying is that the above article, and some of the folks in this thread, seem concerned about customer concerns that this particular customer doesn’t seem quite so concerned about and almost even seems to expect and accept as a price of doing the things that they want to do in the long-term.
Speaking from the future, it looks like SpaceX did not do that and ended up taking about twice as long as orbital atk to do another resupply mission,
Nothing wrong with long-term goals. The rumors seem to say that they are stretched, not because of their end objectives but because of Elon’s management style. His expectations of his people seem to be very high.
As for your bet, I think I’ll take it. Quite a few finish lines have already been drawn by the industry and crossed by the hare…some by the tortoise. The hare drew a couple of finish lines, and crossed them. Where will you draw it…Luna? Mars? I guess Mars doesn’t really count though, since the hare drew that finish line themselves.
The Tortoise and Hare metaphor is actually a lesson on sitting back on ones laurals and under-estimating one’s competition. Whatever their flaws, I’m not sure that SpaceX looks much like the Hare from that frame of reference.
If your finish line is long-term solvency…I think paying customers could be considered a good measuring stick for progress on that. So here too you might have the roles on your metaphor backwards.
They can still make money if they partner with O-ATK. When Crew started SpaceX said they would have about 50 good flights before anyone rode in Dragon. Not. A Shuttle SRB with the fuel made for the needed thrust and burn time. A Castor 30XL as used on Antares. Right now the Burn time is 2 min. F-9 is down to 2.5min. The Castor thrust and weight are equal. But the burn time is 4 min. Shuttle SRB has 3millionlbs of thrust so cut the thrust to inrease burn time if needed or reduce segments if not. Those videos of SRB exploding? That was caused by a destruct explosive. SRBs can’t explode. The fuel is like concrete. Instead of putting the destruct up the side, put it in a belt at the bottom. About the only thing that can go wrong with SRB is steering failure. If right after launch steering fails, fire the belt. The bottom is ejected, lowering the internal pressure so not enough thrust to fly. Since it was going straight up, it will go straight down falling on the pad and burn. No burning chunks of fuel to burn the parachutes. If failure occurs after the turn out to sea, destruct the same and everything, because of inertia will fall to the sea and the capsule will be above and in the clear. I have written the House Science Comittee for the 2nd time suggesting this and Sen. Bill Nelson and Pres. Obama today. Also NASA but they do not learn through their mistakes.
“SRBs can’t explode.” This is a quite misleading statement. An SRB case rupture is a failure mode we’ve seen repeatedly, even with large segmented solids (admittedly not with shuttle SRBs). When a solid’s case ruptures, the failure is immediate, and extremely violent. Far more violent than when a liquid fueled rocket engine’s combustion chamber fails.
You are correct to say a rupture would be like an explosion. I should have mentioned that. That is what happened when they destructed 2. I have never heard of one. It has to have happened. Production ones should be rare. I have considered and mentioned this in other posts. I do not see how a segment with a 5′ throat could stop up for 700psi could blow it up. It would take the fuel to fall apart and stop it up. Any fuel chunks should blow right through. Double the # of Shuttle flights + tests+ Ares1X. 300 and no failures? ATK says they have had 500 launches of there SRBs and 5 failures. Not bad.
One of the most spectacular happened to a Titan 34D (large, segmented) solid. Smaller solids have also ruptured causing launch failures.
OK. You got me. I checked. Investigation quickly provided an anatomy of the failure. The right solid rocket motor ruptured starting at T+6 seconds and the resulting torque on the launch vehicle caused the left SRM to break away, triggering its automatic destruct system, blowing the first stage to pieces and rupturing the second stage N2O2 tank. The upper stages were ejected and launched through the air until a manual destruct command was sent by the range safety officer at T+20 seconds. It did not blow up. It leaked and provided sideways thrust assuming torque means roll. Same thing with the cracked solid must of happened. Maybe they saw it leaking and destruct. These 2 the rupture are not violent. They leak.There is Streppi. It failed last year and they said the first stage ruptured. I recently read that they were using spin and the case could not take the centrifugal force and failed. They did not make it strong enough.
Not violent? It ripped the SRB off of the rocket. A ruptured casing = failed SRB = big explosion.
Delta II case rupture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
Not a launch vehicle loss, but a Titan IV SRMU exploded during a test on April 1, 1991. http://www.globalsecurity.o…
Even when they don’t fail spectacularly, the thrust termination system on a solid results in quite significant “challenges” to a launch escape system. http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archiv…
It is likely SpaceX knows the cause of the failure at this point and the logical corrective action. A number of other design or procedural problems that did not cause LOM but were serious enough to need an immediate solution were analyzed and dealt with. The fact the the type had eight prior successful launches suggests it was a procedural rather than a design problem, but a design change may be implemented to prevent future failures.
The long and complex review process typical for NASA is unlikely to provide any additional value in this case and would delay return to flight.
I think that’s being a bit optimistic. At this point, four days after the event, there are two possibilities.
First, the telemetry showed something obvious, and that would give them a good theory. That is fairly common (e.g. the puff of smoke and later flames from an SRB joint during the Shuttle 51-L event.) But chasing down the details and identifying the specific cause, as well as contributing factors usually takes more than a few days (e.g. getting from the 51-L SRB breach to a bad mechanical design which took pressure off an O ring which should never been used at the ambient temperature of the launch.) If there are clear indications in the telemetry, I suspect they have a very good guess by now, but firming that up and ruling out other possibilities could take more than a month.
The second possibility is that there is no smoking gun in the data. From what has been reported (such as the time interval they are looking at, which implies few ms sampling in the telemetry, and the number of telemetry channels) I would expect a smoking gun. But if they don’t have that, they are facing a long and potentially inconclusive investigation.
I guess I’m saying that the most likely result after four days is either, “Damn, I can’t believe it was that,” or, “what the hell, none of this makes sense.” I hope this is the former, but you never know.
Or a smoking gun that looks like a cop-out or scape-goat. I can think of at least one that, if true, would lack credibility if it isn’t backed up by an over-exhaustive and very, very public look at all other possibilities.
Recent Musk tweets suggest it’s the latter. “Still working on the Falcon fireball investigation. Turning out to be
the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years.”
I suspect that the one issue that might impact SpaceX eventually, even if not the cause of this accident, is the same one Tesla owners must deal with, namely the constant update mentality of the software industry. The Tesla you parked last night might be a different vehicle this morning as the software updated on it overnight. In terms of rockets such constant upgrades may ripple out causing unexpected issues.
As a Tesla owner I’m not sure that finding my car upgraded with new features in the morning is something I must “deal with”. It’s cool.