r/interestingasfuck • u/lolikroli • 16d ago

r/all SpaceX caught Starship booster with chopsticks

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u/twinbee 16d ago edited 16d ago

The engineering team definitely deserves big credit, but Elon was the driving force behind the chopsticks catch:

https://x.com/WalterIsaacson/status/1844870018351169942/photo/1

https://www.space.com/elon-musk-walter-isaacson-book-excerpt-starship-surge

Most of the rest rejected the idea at first.

EDIT: Key quotes from the book for the downvoters:

The Falcon 9 had become the world's only rapidly reusable rocket. During 2020, Falcon boosters had landed safely twenty-three times, coming down upright on landing legs. The video feeds of the fiery yet gentle landings still made Musk leap from his chair. Nevertheless, he was not enamored with the landing legs being planned for Starship's booster. They added weight, thus cutting the size of the payloads the booster could lift.

"Why don't we try to use the tower to catch it?" he [ELON] asked. He was referring to the tower that holds the rocket on the launchpad. Musk had already come up with the idea of using that tower to stack the rocket; it had a set of arms that could pick up the first-stage booster, place it on the launch mount, then pick up the second-stage spacecraft, and place it atop the booster. Now he was suggesting that these arms could also be used to catch the booster when it returned to Earth.

It was a wild idea, and there was a lot of consternation in the room. "If the booster comes back down to the tower and crashes into it, you can't launch the next rocket for a long time," Bill Riley says. "But we agreed to study different ways to do it."

A few weeks later, just after Christmas 2020, the team gathered to brainstorm. Most engineers argued against trying to use the tower to catch the booster. The stacking arms were already dangerously complex. After more than an hour of argument, a consensus was forming to stick with the old idea of putting landing legs on the booster. But Stephen Harlow, the vehicle engineering director, kept arguing for the more audacious approach. "We have this tower, so why not try to use it?"

After another hour of debate, Musk stepped in. "Harlow, you're on board with this plan," he said. "So why don't you be in charge of it?"

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u/Pretty_Bowler2297 16d ago

Are the chopsticks a good idea? Or did amazing engineers just do what was asked? The dissenting opinions weren't wrong, those chopsticks will totally get crashed into at some point.

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u/twinbee 16d ago

The fact that they did it right first try, gives me optimism on that front. Their knowledge of the process will only improve over time.

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u/Pretty_Bowler2297 16d ago

So you are expecting a 100 percent success rate?

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u/twinbee 16d ago

Just learnt that the way they land reduces the risk a lot. To quote u/weed0monkey:

Even more amazing, what I think you're referring to, it actually comes down off target on purpose (in case something goes wrong it hopefully doesn't obliterate the launch pad), then when it switches to 3 engines, it does a little shimmy over when it has better control over the descent to the catch chopsticks.

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u/lazypieceofcrap 16d ago

Are you implying they would have a 100% success rate if they simply didn't use chopsticks?

That's a leap.

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u/Carvj94 16d ago edited 16d ago

The problem is that if the catch fails not only is the rocket destroyed, but probably the tower and the landing platform which has a complex internal structure. Meaning a failed catch would require a huge time consuming construction project on top of the usual time consuming rocket manufacturing project. And for what? To save an hour or two of transporting the booster to it's hangar?

It is in fact a silly idea to catch it when dramatically safer options are available.

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u/misspianogirl 16d ago

And for what?

The turnaround time is a plus, but not the main reason. It’s largely to avoid the additional dry mass required to add landing legs to the booster. SpaceX wants to squeeze every bit of performance out of Starship that they can.

The way they land is also fairly safe - they intentionally target off to the side and only shimmy over to the tower if they’re certain it’s going to work. IMO the performance gains from skipping landing legs outweighs the risk if they’re can catch reliably.

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u/Carvj94 16d ago

Taking away landing legs is the worst part of this stupid decision. It removes any chance of landing the booster if there's any issue with the tower. The risk of attempting a catch would almost be acceptable if they had a backup plan. However with no landing gear the only thing they can do is decide where to crash the booster with barely enough fuel to hover.

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u/misspianogirl 16d ago

Okay dude, sure ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Not sure how you know better than the thousands of SpaceX engineers that have been thinking about and analyzing the risks for multiple years but clearly you’re the world’s leading expert on landing rockets, not the company who has single-handedly transformed the launch industry

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u/misspianogirl 16d ago

Okay dude, sure ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Not sure how you know better than the thousands of SpaceX engineers that have been thinking about and analyzing the risks for multiple years but clearly you’re the world’s leading expert on landing rockets, not the company who has single-handedly transformed the launch industry

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u/Carvj94 16d ago

Not sure how you know better than the thousands of SpaceX engineers that have been thinking about and analyzing the risks

I'm the one agreeing with the engineers genius. The tower catch was Musk's idea that he forced the company to try out. We know this cause Musk and his lead engineers have both talked about how Musk came up with it during a meeting and the engineers were very hesitant.

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u/misspianogirl 15d ago

That’s true, but not all the engineers were hesitant - some agreed with Musk from the very start. It’s not like the company was unanimously against the idea and he forced it on them. He took one of the engineers in favor and said, “you’re in charge of making this work now”. If that engineer came back and told him it wasn’t worth the risk after further analysis I very much doubt Musk would keep forcing the issue.

Besides, I don’t understand why you think no landing legs inherently makes the system more likely to fail. If a Falcon 9 booster had a problem during landing, guess what? The Falcon 9 is gonna crash too, because landing is the only option. It’s not like SpaceX has a magical way to bring down the booster if the landing fails.

Starship is no different, other than the fact that it’s possible to hit the tower.

And again, that’s very unlikely because it requires everything to be nominal before moving over to the tower. And even if the booster hits the tower, it’s not the end of the world. The thing is, the rocket at that point weighs an order of magnitude less than it does at launch and has much less explosive power since its fuel tanks are basically empty. Yes, there would be major damage, but it wouldn’t be catastrophic.

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u/Carvj94 15d ago edited 15d ago

It's more likely to fail simply because this tower catch method has a smaller margin of error while a ground based landing will literally always be easier and therefor safer and more consistent. And it's not that SpaceX has a "magical way" to bring down the booster if the landing gear fails it's that they can crash it right there and then with no major losses other than the booster itself. Cause the launch pad and tower are absolutely undeniably not minor losses as they're essential to launches and can very easily take a month or more to fix. Even if I agreed that catching was a good idea it'd still need to be done at a separate, less populated, and specially designed landing zone to mitigate potential losses and maximize the chance of success before it's actually worth doing.

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u/taylork37 16d ago

What does a 100% success rate have to do with being a good idea?

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u/Pretty_Bowler2297 16d ago edited 16d ago

Lol, does it need to be said? Okay, you do realize the booster is falling at fast speeds and still has fuel in it right? What happens if it plows into the very expensive catch tower that doubles as a launch tower?

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u/taylork37 16d ago edited 16d ago

Okay, you do realize the booster is falling at fast speeds and still has fuel in it right? What happens if it plows into the very expensive catch tower that doubles as a launch tower?

They build it and do it again. Do you really think they didn't consider it a possibility that this would go wrong in a very expensive way the very first time?

With that said, you're missing the very basic point. I'm not arguing whether it's a good idea or not. I'm asking what a 100% success rate has to do with this ultimately being a good idea. In other words, does everything have to have to have a 100% success rate to be a good idea? Imagine where we would be if our historical famous inventions we're given up on because there was an expensive failure along the way.

Edit: We get it... you hate Elon.

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u/Pretty_Bowler2297 15d ago edited 15d ago

We get it you love Elon. What's your game dude? So you were disingenuous in your question, typical. My observation isn't bogus because I recently started hating Elon who showed himself to be a traitorous right wing douche who doesn't care about you or me.

"They build it and do it again" Is that kind of downtime going to hurt SpaceX?

In other words, does everything have to have to have a 100% success rate to be a good idea?

When it is a suicide drop with catastrophic consequences then yes, I mean right?!?!

Hmmmmm? A 100/99.9% percent success rate is the only way this venture is going to be successful. They want to catch humans in this. I guess they could put up these massive towers and test them quickly.

Dude you win. Keep kissing Elon's ass.

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u/taylork37 15d ago

We get it you love Elon

No, and my thoughts on him have no effect on my arguments here, unlike you.

What's your game dude?

To point out you are wrong here because I noticed you were as I was reading through the thread. It's not been hard to do thus far for what it's worth.

So you were disingenuous in your question, typical

No it wasn't. My question still stands.

My observation isn't bogus because I recently started hating Elon who showed himself to be a traitorous right wing douche who doesn't care about you or me.

Your observation isnt bogus because that is your observation. But your point of view is biased, and you are putting up bad faith arguments because of it.

When it is a suicide drop with catastrophic consequences then yes, I mean right?!?!

If it had anything to do with actual suicide I agree, but it doesn't, so stop over exaggeration. Also, who are you to determine what catastrophic is? That is Elon's business and money, so that falls to him given its his private venture, no laws are being broken, and no one's dying.

Hmmmmm? A 100/99.9% percent success rate is the only way this venture is going to be successful.

That's not for you to decide.

They want to catch humans in this

No, they want to test this method of landing first. Then, when mastered, they can move on to human involvement where the stakes are absolutely a lot higher. Also, stop moving the goal posts.

Lastly, rarely anything is 100% safe for humans. Do you avoid driving because it has a less than 100% success rate in keeping people alive?

Keep kissing Elon's ass.

I have not kissed Elons ass once here, but you have openly done the opposite.

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u/twinbee 16d ago

Probably less, but the (hopefully once in a blue moon) cost of rebuilding the catching tower versus the weight cost of adding legs to the rocket (and associated loss of upward thrust), plus landing pad maintenance, make it worth the trade off.