Big Flying Rockets: Space Launches V

[polishgenius]

8 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

You're making a claim there is mysterious, unknown damage

 No. I'm claiming there is known damage that might potentially be serious. Which could have been mitigated but wasn't because they couldn't be arsed to wait for the water-cooled plate or to build the traditional flame diverters etc. 


 

11 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

Which is exactly learning from a test launch is for.

 

If not mitigating any damage whatsoever even if you know it's on the table is what a test launch is for, why didn't they send pilots up in it? They're not taking steps they learned they needed to take from this launch, they're taking steps they were already planning to take. Which means they knew they needed them. They just didn't want to wait.

[polishgenius]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/04/elon-musk-messy-420-rocket-launch-may-delay-spacex-plan.html

 

Quote

Reports from the FAA show that actions he could have taken to prevent collateral damage weren’t required, and engineers and experts say that he could have built in relatively simple features into the launchpad that would have prevented the dust clouds and debris. 

and

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This was all preventable, says Olivier de Weck, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets and a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology teaching aeronautics, astronautics, and engineering systems. Rockets are, by their nature, huge explosive machines that will destroy anything that is too close, and the Starship, with its 33 engines, had twice the launching power of the Saturn V, which went to the moon. “The blast wave is almost like an explosion, but it’s not as instantaneous,” de Weck tells me. Still, there are ways to manage it. All that fire and heat has to go somewhere, and SpaceX’s launch lacked flame trenches — concrete bunker-like structures that divert the engine blast underground. Musk had apparently nixed the idea back in 2020, saying that it could be a “mistake” to have one, though he didn’t elaborate why.

 

 

Musk isn't blameless- the FAA just waved him through so they're on the hook as well - people saw it coming and it still happened. Needlessly. 

Edited May 2, 2023 by polishgenius

[SpaceChampion]

1 minute ago, polishgenius said:

 No. I'm claiming there is known damage that might potentially be serious. Which could have been mitigated but wasn't because they couldn't be arsed to wait for the water-cooled plate or to build the traditional flame diverters etc. 

If not mitigating any damage whatsoever even if you know it's on the table is what a test launch is for, why didn't they send pilots up in it? They're not taking steps they learned they needed to take from this launch, they're taking steps they were already planning to take. Which means they knew they needed them. They just didn't want to wait.

Wow, if only the rocket engineers took advice from non-engineers, everything would turn out perfect!

"If not mitigating any damage whatsoever even if you know it's on the table is what a test launch is for, why didn't they send pilots up in it?"    Is this non-sequitur suppose to be a logical sentence?  If you're under the impression this is a complete near-final design of the rocket with life support and seats, you're being absurdly naive about the process.

Yes, they're really are doing a lot of new things that go beyond what they were planning to already do, claims otherwise are special pleading.

 

[polishgenius]

10 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

Wow, if only the rocket engineers took advice from non-engineers, everything would turn out perfect!

 

It's engineers and professors that were talking about this. 

 

But hey, maybe we should be thankful that he just ignored them instead of calling them pedophiles, like did last time an expert told him he was wrong.

 

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by polishgenius

[maarsen]

1 hour ago, SpaceChampion said:

Wow, if only the rocket engineers took advice from non-engineers, everything would turn out perfect!

"If not mitigating any damage whatsoever even if you know it's on the table is what a test launch is for, why didn't they send pilots up in it?"    Is this non-sequitur suppose to be a logical sentence?  If you're under the impression this is a complete near-final design of the rocket with life support and seats, you're being absurdly naive about the process.

Yes, they're really are doing a lot of new things that go beyond what they were planning to already do, claims otherwise are special pleading.

 

In my working life as a millwright, there have been many occasions where I had to tell an engineer that his design/plan had flaws. In fact I had to remind an entire engineering staff planning a major addition to a hospital that steam, not hot water was required to heat the existing building. A power plant that was well under construction had to be modified to deal with what should have been done, with a simple look around before they began to plan being all that was needed.

[Zorral]

Gads these people are heartless and self-centered, can't even admit of say sorry for the tremendous damages they've done -- and they were just damned LUCKY nobody got killed.  Next time ....

[Leofric]

I think you guys are combining three different issues;  the damage and debris generated by the damage to the concrete pad launch pad; the damage to windows and buildings in the nearby communities caused by the concussion blast of the  rockets; and the the scattered dust and debris resulting from the the actual destruction of the rocket.  

The damage to the launch pad resulted debris and concrete dust.    The effects of this damage are mostly constrained within a limited range around the the launch pad and probably had little effect on the surrounding communities.   The major concern is silica dust from the concrete being breathed and leading to long term issues.  The damage was observed to be partly due to the slower launch speed of the rocket causing the the force of the rocket acting on the pad for longer period of time, but also caused by the not having additional mitigation measures in place that were designed but not completed at the time of the launch.   These factors can be adjusted before the next launches and future damage mitigated which will limit any issues with dust and debriswould recur.  

The concussive blast of the actual launch and the effect on the nearby communities is harder to mitigate when dealing with the power of the rockets involved,  This issue will probably continue with every launch  and it will fall on the FAA as to limiting number or timing of launches or restricting them all together.    The repairs of physical damage to buildings should be paid by SpaceX. 

The dust and debris resulting from the destruction of the rocket (and the delay in the signal to trigger detonation) have the potential the biggest impacts over a larger area.   We don't know yet what chemicals may have been in the debris and whether they could lead to acute or chronic health effects to humans or the environment (though the report of no signs of deaths among wildlife would reduce the chance of acute, short term affects).    As the long term plan is to actually make these rockets reach orbit, the number of accidental or deliberate detonations of the rockets should be limited and reduced over time.    So we need to see if chemical analysis of the dust that fell from this explosion is actually at concentration levels of concern, or will become a concern if additional dust from subsequent rocket detonations is added to the environment.

 

[The Anti-Targ]

19 minutes ago, Leofric said:

The major concern is silica dust from the concrete being breathed and leading to long term issues. 

Which is not trivial, given the call by some people to ban engineered stone products because of the health risk (similar to asbestos) to factory workers of breathing in fine silica particulates.

[Leofric]

23 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Which is not trivial, given the call by some people to ban engineered stone products because of the health risk (similar to asbestos) to factory workers of breathing in fine silica particulates.

True, but it all comes down to duration of exposure.   These factory workers are potentially breathing it throughout their entire 8-hour shifts, day after day, year after year, while these launch events are months apart with any the clouds of dust dispersing within an hour, so exposures should be minimal, if at all.  

My company often deals with saw-cutting concrete or demolishing concrete structures as part of our projects.  We all get silica awareness training and all of our Health Safety plans and work practices include mitigation measures to reduce dust and prevent exposure such as engineering controls, water sprays, vacuums, and PPE when needed.   

[The Anti-Targ]

2 hours ago, Leofric said:

True, but it all comes down to duration of exposure.   These factory workers are potentially breathing it throughout their entire 8-hour shifts, day after day, year after year, while these launch events are months apart with any the clouds of dust dispersing within an hour, so exposures should be minimal, if at all.  

My company often deals with saw-cutting concrete or demolishing concrete structures as part of our projects.  We all get silica awareness training and all of our Health Safety plans and work practices include mitigation measures to reduce dust and prevent exposure such as engineering controls, water sprays, vacuums, and PPE when needed.   

And none of those health and safety measures are in place for the random member of the public who walks into a cloud of silica particles, and potentially gets a year's worth of controlled environment exposure in one or two breaths. As the latest alcohol health advice says: there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. I imagine it's similar for breathing in silica particulates, there is no safe level of exposure. 

Morbidity and mortality from exposure due to these events is unlikely to show up in any stats, and its unlikely there could be any credible academic studies into it. But that doesn't mean the work shouldn't have been done beforehand to ensure an exposure event like this never occurs. 

[SpaceChampion]

 

[The Anti-Targ]

Youtube video from Dr. Becky Smethurst surmising the cause of the ejection: 3 galaxies merging causing an unstable interaction between the 3 central black holes of each incoming galaxy thus throwing out all of the supermassive black holes from the merged galaxy. I guess leaving the galaxy with no central supermassive black hole. Pretty wild stuff all right.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

On 5/4/2023 at 10:56 AM, SpaceChampion said:

 

That is awesome in the truest sense of the word.   

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

13 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Youtube video from Dr. Becky Smethurst surmising the cause of the ejection: 3 galaxies merging causing an unstable interaction between the 3 central black holes of each incoming galaxy thus throwing out all of the supermassive black holes from the merged galaxy. I guess leaving the galaxy with no central supermassive black hole. Pretty wild stuff all right.

Does this mean there are supermassive black holes just roaming randomly across the Universe?  That cannot be the only time this has happened…

[The Anti-Targ]

I imagine even in this vast universe, if the cause of the ejection is correct, it would be a very rare event. According to Dr Becky's video when 2 galaxies with supermassive black holes merge the black holes eventually also merge. So the timing for a third galaxy with its super massive black hole to come in to cause an ejection to occur needs to be before the first two black holes merge.

Since it appears all the black holes exited this merged galaxy it's possible to have a guess at how many rogue supermassive black holes are out there by counting the number of galaxies that don't have a central supermassive black hole and something something sciency figuring out which galaxies naturally formed without a supermassive black hole and which ones lost their supermassive black holes through this sort of merger process.

One question I guess is whether these supermassive black holes could eventually form new galaxies around them.  

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

18 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I imagine even in this vast universe, if the cause of the ejection is correct, it would be a very rare event. According to Dr Becky's video when 2 galaxies with supermassive black holes merge the black holes eventually also merge. So the timing for a third galaxy with its super massive black hole to come in to cause an ejection to occur needs to be before the first two black holes merge.

Since it appears all the black holes exited this merged galaxy it's possible to have a guess at how many rogue supermassive black holes are out there by counting the number of galaxies that don't have a central supermassive black hole and something something sciency figuring out which galaxies naturally formed without a supermassive black hole and which ones lost their supermassive black holes through this sort of merger process.

One question I guess is whether these supermassive black holes could eventually form new galaxies around them.  

Remember the Universe is very large and very old.  Infrequent would still produce an awful lot of free roaming supermassive black holes…

[The Anti-Targ]

The number I don't know is the denominator of the estimated number of galactic mergers that have happened in the 12-13 billion years since galaxies have been a thing. It might be a lot, but it might also be a lot less than people imagine. If there is a galactic merger somewhere in the universe once every 100 million years then in the history of the universe there have only been 120-130 galactic merger events, seems too low. If it's once every 10 million years then there have been 1,200-1,300 such events in the history of the universe. 12-13,000 if once in a million years. If a merger takes about 1 billion years from start to finish, then if mergers happen every million years we should be able to theoretically observe about 1200-1300 active mergers with an almost complete survey of the universe. Given we cannot survey the entire universe, assuming relative homogeneity of the universe if we survey 1% of the universe we should see 12-13 mergers in that survey.

My maths might be is probably completely off, of course.

Oddly this makes me think of looking for cancer in a tissue sample by trying to find actively dividing cells under a microscope. Since it should be rare in normal tissue to see an actively dividing cell in a single field of view, if you see one actively dividing cells in a single field of view it is suspicious, if you see two it is probable you are looking at cancer. If the Hubble deep field image has a single active galaxy merger in it then the frequency of galaxy merger would be quite high I think, if it has two then the frequency would be very high. If you have to survey 10deg of the sky to find a single active merger then it's not going to be a very high frequency.

[polishgenius]

4 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

One question I guess is whether these supermassive black holes could eventually form new galaxies around them.  

 

I'm no authority, but from my understanding of how space works, I don't think so. There isn't a completely solid theory that explains the relationship between black holes and galaxies, but I'm pretty sure the most likely scenario is these black holes formed with the galaxies- the cloud of matter that was collapsing into the stars of the galaxy collapsed in the middle densely enough to become a black hole- rather than galaxies accreting around them. 

 

We're not really going to see new galaxies at all, apart from via collision and remaking of existing ones- there just isn't enough free-floating gas in the universe anymore. 

[SpaceChampion]

7 hours ago, polishgenius said:

We're not really going to see new galaxies at all, apart from via collision and remaking of existing ones- there just isn't enough free-floating gas in the universe anymore. 

40-50% of all normal matter is in intergalactic space.  Space is so big though that still just like 1 particle of hydrogen per cubic meter.  It's also hot -- 10,000K to 1,000,000K.

Also, research indicates supermassive black holes are hungry, feediing off intergalactic gas even when they're in a galaxy (not all are in the galactic core -- Milky Way has around 100 million of them), so I imagine in intergalactic space they must be feeding too.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/01/230119133357.htm

 

Edited May 9, 2023 by SpaceChampion

[SpaceChampion]

Intriguing article about Assemble Theory, and using it as the basis for detecting life with methods agnostic towards whether it uses DNA or even carbon-based chemistries, or not.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-theory-for-the-assembly-of-life-in-the-universe-20230504/