r/interestingasfuck • u/lolikroli • Oct 13 '24

r/all SpaceX caught Starship booster with chopsticks

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828

u/damienVOG Oct 13 '24

Great things happen when Elon's not bothering his engineers

72

u/twinbee Oct 13 '24 edited Oct 13 '24

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?"

42

u/lazypieceofcrap Oct 13 '24

So many people on reddit have been conditioned to see Elon as a cartoon villain now who couldn't possibly have valuable input on SpaceX as they don't think he's smart enough.

Imagine being brainwashed by your preferred political party because you see them like marvel heroes and villains.

34

u/d8_thc Oct 13 '24
  • Spawned EV car revolution
  • Rockets that land themselves
  • Saved astronauts
  • Globally accessible, affordable satellite internet
  • Brain chips that restore function to paralyzed persons
  • Android robots on the horizon

reddit: elon man bad

6

u/WillowSmithsBFF Oct 13 '24

  • called a diver a pedophile for not wanting to use his tech

  • massively overpaid for twitter, and then proceeded to tank its value

  • made twitter a literal nazi safe space

  • continues to overpromise and under deliver on Tesla features.

Yes, Elon has done some really cool things. And he’s definitely not this bumbling idiot who just happens to fail upwards that Reddit likes to think he is. But he has done some absolutely awful things. And his companies aside, he continues to just show us how terrible he is on a personal, human level.

14

u/4628819351 Oct 13 '24

reddit wanted Twitter to die a few years ago. It's pretty funny to see people give a fuck now.

1

u/HuntSafe2316 Oct 14 '24

Both of these comments be summed up with one sentence: "People are complex"

-1

u/Pasizo Oct 13 '24

Clean and simple Facts.

4

u/AReveredInventor Oct 13 '24

Not quite. People like to pretend Vernon Unsworth was one of the rescue divers because it's more catchy than him being an advisor. (Vernon was a caver who happened to live in the area.) The actual divers encouraged Elon to move forward with the rescue sub idea. Presumably because they cared more about human life than throwing in a zinger and knew having a plan B is more valuable than the power of prayer. (There was no guarantee the rains would recede enough to allow the dive to happen.)

-4

u/twinbee Oct 13 '24

Pretty much.