This article is worth the read. Starliner was in an extremely precarious situation that we didn’t previously know about.

Petition to make all launch failures this pretty.

Berger suggests that “another launch before this summer seems unlikely”.

I think that’s speculation rather than reporting, but it’s nice to have a non-CEO reference point. Hopefully employees get a breather during this redesign, somehow.

I’m struggling to think of a reason that Starship shouldn’t be grounded for 6-12 months after this (I know they won’t be, but I’ll be mad about it). This is a consecutive uncontrolled failure during the “easy” part of the flight over a highly populated region. It seems like pure luck that the RUD didn’t happen early enough to impact land. They’re still doing a great job, but today was rough.

Maybe it’s time to rethink the Texas plans?

Edit: Upon reflection I’m less pessimistic now, as long as the FTS behaved reasonably. But I’ll still be mad if they’re flying again in a month.

QWERTY keyboards aren’t very accessible to non-humans. How should we order the keys instead?

Great points. I think my concern is that a failed catch has the potential to look very dramatic, even if nothing significant goes wrong. I worry that a lengthy investigation will be triggered. But admittedly I don’t know how that process works!

I wonder if a successful catch will be what accelerates the launch schedule.

I hope a failed catch doesn’t mean a six month pause…

They have, and that seems to be the industry standard. I don’t expect issues. But you can’t test everything in a full gravity vacuum chamber and SpaceX has never made an EVA suit before.

I’m sure the depressurization process includes tons of safety measures and tests, but I’m still creeped out by a tourist flight being this experimental!

As far as I know these EVA suits aren’t going to be tested sans people, and that gives me the creeps!

IT’S SO CUTE

Why do our brains work like this…

Can’t wait to see this team, but I don’t understand why they paid this much. Wow.

Wow, the “little” max has gotten big! Going to take a while to get used to these numbers.

Musk is gross and SpaceX has some questionable marketing claims that you’ve identified, but I don’t see how anyone could claim that anything about the company’s products are a shitshow.

Falcon 9 has radically changed the economics of the space industry, and has no competition to force lower prices.

Starship has had a very successful testing campaign, and operates within a different development paradigm than Saturn. They’ve shown more progress on more technology in the last year than almost any rocket ever. It won’t be long before Starship has demonstrated all the capabilities you mentioned. While the price tag is large in absolute terms, it will be very cheap relative to the competition.

Dear Moon was not canceled by SpaceX, and no one who follows the industry has ever believed Musk’s timelines.

I guess I’m confused, because everything I know about Starship points towards it being one of the most incredible engineering accomplishments ever. There are lots of other problems with SpaceX’s leadership, environmental impact, and work culture, but aren’t the products inspiring?

If it’s only the on-screen flap that had issues, hopefully that points to a minor fix instead of a major one. I wonder what sort of data they have on this. How many thermal tiles were lost on each flap? Where did the issues start? Are the other flaps alright? Hard things to track.

I’m sure it’s reasonable, but I’m deeply unsettled by the thought that someone is going to press a “depressurize our entire spacecraft” button.

Excited for more details though!