As you’ve no doubt heard, if you were anywhere near space media last week, SpaceX attempted its first flight test of their full Starship launch vehicle on April 20. The rocket cleared the pad, passed the point of maximum air pressure (where many new space vehicles fall apart), and then started spinning while attempting its upper stage separation, and the launch controllers ended up hitting what I imagine is a big red “Self-Destruct” button, exploding the rocket and ending the test.
While I missed the launch, I spent some time catching up on the online conversations about it afterwards, and immediately noticed that (a) everyone on my Twitter feed was suddenly a rocket scientist, and (b) there were two very different reactions to the launch test. Some hailed it as a success, because the rocket didn’t explode on the pad, and while exploding was its ultimate fate, the SpaceX engineers will no doubt learn a lot from all the data they gathered during the test. Others criticized or even mocked the launch test as a failure, because Starship failed to reach its planned maximum altitude or even complete its upper stage separation, and even during the four minutes while the rocket was intact and airborne, it was visibly apparent that several of its 33 engines had failed.
Some observers (of both the launch and the discourse) characterized this disconnect in public reaction as the difference between “space people”, who are aware that rockets blow up a lot during testing, but that there’s always much to be learned even from tests that end in a fireball, and “non-space people”, who assume that a test that fails to meet its stated goals is a failed test. I think these arguments are also a result of the cultural difference between the way NASA (a taxpayer-funded government agency) tests their rockets and the way SpaceX (a private company) does.
NASA is beholden to voters and politicians, and is much more vulnerable to shifts in public support. While NASA has certainly had their share of exploding rockets— both during testing and, tragically, during crewed missions— they put an enormous amount of work and money into predicting and preventing as many failures as possible before they test their very costly new rockets (like the Space Launch System, still the most powerful rocket to reach orbit, whose very first launch was the successful Artemis 1 mission that sent an uncrewed Orion spacecraft around the Moon).
SpaceX, on the other hand, can ignore public opinion about whether this test was a “success” or “failure”, and continue iterating and testing their designs until their money runs out. Like many tech companies, SpaceX appears to be taking Mark Zuckerberg’s “move fast and break things” approach: pushing their new tech to the limit to learn as much as possible from failure in order to innovate rapidly. The rest of us can (and will) armchair quarterback their decisions and analyze every frame of the test footage, but SpaceX isn’t even obligated to provide us with an explanation of their decision-making, let alone consider public feedback on their testing decisions.
So, private rocket companies like SpaceX are more risk-tolerant than NASA, and SpaceX certainly appears willing to take those risks. But who actually bears that risk?
The relevance of this question became apparent last week as the smoke cleared and we all got a look at the crater where the launch pad used to be:
The pad, apparently constructed of concrete and rebar, had only previously been tested with a Starship engine firing at half thrust, and the full force of last week’s Starship launch blew apart the concrete, sending chunks of debris flying in every direction, including, it seems likely, into the engines of the launching rocket.
While the online debate raged on about whether SpaceX should have built a flame trench or a water deluge system to manage the heat and energy of the rocket, residents of the nearby town of Port Isabel dealt with shattered windows and a layer of sandy debris covering everything. In fact, some residents of Boca Chica, where the SpaceX launch center sits, had already been complaining for years that rocket tests closed access to public roads and beaches, threatened the local wildlife and wetlands, and disrupted residents’ lives with noise and evacuation orders. The FAA did perform an environmental assessment of SpaceX’s Starship launch plans last year and gave SpaceX a list of 75 actions the company was required to take to minimize its impact on the region; the FAA then provided a launch license for last week’s test.
It remains to be seen whether the FAA will grant a launch license for the next Starship test; in the meantime, they’ll be conducting a standard mishap investigation. It’s also unclear how long it will take SpaceX to rebuild their damaged launch facility. In the meantime, this test serves as a reminder that rockets are violent (that’s what makes them useful weapons). While there is technology and infrastructure that can try to reduce the damage a rocket inflicts on its launch site, we’ll have to continue balancing the risks of launches with the potential benefits they can bring— and ask whether the same groups of people are taking on the risks and reaping the benefits.
And we’ll have to have these same conversations as we continue with NASA’s plans to return to the Moon. SpaceX is contracted to develop a lunar lander version of Starship that will be able to take Artemis astronauts down to the lunar surface, and then launch them into space again. On one hand, the lack of atmosphere on the Moon means that the force of the rocket’s engines will be more dispersed (see Phil Metzger’s great thread on launch pad physics); on the other hand, the lower gravity and lack of air resistance means debris flung up by the launch will travel even farther across the lunar surface. There are no wetlands to damage on the Moon, and no windows to shatter, but our launch activities on the Moon will risk adding new, manmade craters to the pristine environment and burying heritage sites and scientific equipment in dust.
Other News
I was interviewed for this piece in Scientific American on the Starship launch test, but I particularly appreciated the quotes from one of the local Sierra Club organizers at the end of the article.
Completely unrelated to Starship, I was invited to contribute a Book Bite for Off-Earth for the Next Big Idea Club.