A key theme that seems to exist in the mind of every member of the “Cult of SpaceX” is this presumption that SpaceX is somehow perfect – that nothing ever goes wrong when SpaceX is involved! Even if this isn’t literally what is thought, the attitude presented exudes such an idea.
SpaceX isn’t perfect. No company or its products are, or ever can be.. Not by a longshot. They have had their own set of failures including payload losses – including the first on-the-pad explosion at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in 51 years!
Granted, some of the problems they have had are minimal, but when they announce that they are canceling propulsive landings on Dragon V2, or that Elon Musk thinks Falcon Heavy could well fail on its first launch you realize even they know not everything they do, or wish to do, will work out. I would say it makes you question why they push so hard on so many end goals, but that’s the nature of “trendy science“, the whole “cart before the horse” mentality.
Let’s cover just a few things that have happened that certainly weren’t what SpaceX had planned, shall we?
No, I won’t stop sharing this photo, because it so perfectly encompasses the very point I make constantly.
The First Falcon 9 Flight
While the first Falcon 9 flight, back in 2010, was a success, it started with something very odd – a complete 180 degree roll at liftoff. The second stage also experienced a slight roll at the end of its burn. Neither of these were planned. It’s also worth noting the original Falcon 9 first stage was intended to be recovered and re-flown, but a parachute failure meant the stage crashed into the Atlantic Ocean and was destroyed. Not exactly perfect, but for a first flight, still fine – the payload made its way into orbit. Still, not “perfect” at all.
SpaceX CRS-7
CRS-7 was a re-supply mission to the International Space Station launched on June 28th, 2015. A little over 2 minutes into its flight, the booster disintegrated resulting in a loss of payload and thus mission failure. The cause was determined to be the failure of a support strut holding down a helium tank – helium is used to pressurize fuel tanks in rockets during flight and when the strut failed, a tank broke free and over pressurized the second stage liquid oxygen tank, resulting in the breakup of the stage and thus the whole vehicle.
Incidentally SpaceX stated that the Dragon capsule probably survived the breakup and could have been recovered had the parachute system been designed, software wise, to open in such an event, rather than just in the landing sequence.
There have been no more in-flight failures since this one, which is good, but still, having a total mission failure is far from perfect.
1st Stage Landing Failures
If SpaceX were perfect, as some fans say they are, would they not have succeeded in landing the 1st stage every time it was attempted? This, of course, is not the case.
Now, I’m not giving SpaceX flack for their failures – far from it, I think it’s cool that they did devise a landing system that actually did work and while that point has become the single most annoying thing every Cult of SpaceX member brings up day in, day out, it is impressive and when they did successfully land a stage, I celebrated as much as anyone – especially when I saw the December 2015 landing, that was absolutely amazing to see – and I am fully aware that in testing you will lose vehicles.
Sure, SpaceX has pretty much worked it out and only had a 3 failures in 2016, and none in 2017 landing attempts (to a point where the landings are boring to me now) that still doesn’t mean they are perfect – landings could, can, and probably will fail in the future, and all of those successful landings come at the cost of those drone ship failures, and those “ocean-target” landings.
It’s interesting to note that December 2015 landing was the first mission following the loss of CRS-7. Certainly a morale boost to most fans, including me at that time.
The below video shows a few landing failures, as well as some other clips – take it for what it is, this was the best video I could find quickly to show failures, as well as success.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McnOr6vxRbE
The AMOS-6 Explosion
1 year ago today, on September 1st 2016, a Falcon 9 rocket exploded on the pad at LC-40, destroying both the payload and the launch complex itself. This happened during an engine test, not during an actual flight.
Now, this is almost a comedy of errors. First off, SpaceX destoryed their launch pad in this incident – thankfully (for them), they have Launch Complex 39A available, and they increased their efforts to prepare it for Falcon 9 launches, which began earlier in 2017 at a rather rapid rate.
Back to the explosion, though, it took this event for SpaceX to realize they shouldn’t test-fire rocket engines with a payload attached. To be fair, though, the engines were not the cause of the issue – it was actually another problem with the second stage oxygen tank. Incidentally, quickly following the explosion YouTuber and scientist Thunderf00t figured this was the issue well before SpaceX announced it.
Still though, in the interest of not having to pull the rocket down, install the payload, and then re-position it for launch, SpaceX felt that testing the engines with the payload on top was a safe option – clearly, it wasn’t.
This was an event I cared about as well, as can be seen in this article about the explosion. This would actually be one of the last times I would find myself as heavily concerned about SpaceX before I discovered just how, and I have to use this word here, toxic, the fan base can be.
SpaceX is working to rebuild LC-40, but that is taking time. From what I can see on satellite views, it looks as though they are very well leveling most of the launch hardware and building anew. This would make since, as this was the first on the pad explosion since 1965, and such pretty much always result in the destruction of the complex infrastructure and require major rebuilding efforts.
The Future
SpaceX will have failures in the future. That is certain. The attitude with which people comment about them, with an optimism like they are flawless, is simply wrong to do. I feel being honest with reality is the best way to be, especially when regarding rocketry, and to accept that things can possibly go wrong is necessary in fully appreciating when things go correctly.
This is the key issue I have with the “Cult of SpaceX” is that they feel nothing can go wrong. This was made clear to me when SpaceX announced their Interplanetary plans and became incredibly hostile to even the prospect that one of the 40+ engines in their proposed booster could fail: such was anathema to them, and is actually a key reason that my original love of SpaceX was ruined – the fan-base created a terrible association in my mind, one that only continues to grow with each passing day as more and more fans treat the company as infallible, missing the point completely.
SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System
United Launch Alliance
I feel it also worth noting here that, by comparison, United Launch Alliance and it’s 2 primary boosters, the Delta IV and the Atlas V, have had only 2 partial launch failures between them: Atlas V has only had 1 partial failure ever, with the customer still declaring the launch a success, with Delta IV having a similar failure which wasn’t declared a success.
These figures come from a total of over 100 launches between the two boosters, 73 for Atlas V and 35 for Delta IV. I’d have to say if any company is close to “perfect” it’s ULA, not SpaceX. This doesn’t account for the Delta II, but that legacy booster is only used in special cases, and as such I feel is not worth discussing here, just as previous Falcon rockets were not discussed regarding SpaceX.
Again, I should remind you, I don’t hate SpaceX. I simply hate how the more obsessed fans behave regarding the company and its work. That’s that.