An opinion piece on a need for focus

JF Mezei wrote:

On 2016-09-06 13:28, Rick Jones wrote:

Presumably, with self-destruct engaged, all that fuel and oxidizer
will be burned-up at altitude rather than down on the ground. That is
probably a net win compared with having a still largely fueled rocket
hit the ground.

Did triggering FTS help reduce pad damage for Antares ? What if allowing
it to continue on inertia had brought it further away from pad to
greatly reduce pad damage?


They triggered the FTS for the same reason they always trigger it - to
prevent a rocket that is no longer behaving as it should from taking
off and hitting people. It didn't hit the pad, so the answer to your
question is 'no'.

Mark Kelly, a retired NASA astronaut and SpaceX advisory board member,
told CNN it was the right call. "They commanded the destruct system
to make sure it didn't wind up in a populated area when they knew it
wasn't going to make it to orbit," he said.


Since the rocket was going to explode before it hit the ground anyways,
it wouldn't have made much of a difference in terms of fuel hitting the
ground.


You don't know that any of the preceding statements are true. It had
a first stage engine problem. Suppose it had suddenly got a surge of
thrust again (it's malfunctioning - you don't know what it's going to
do) and hit a populated area?


With failed engines, there wasn't much risk of it flying from Wallops to
Washington or to Delaware beaches, aiming for that girl in a nice bikini
playing volleyball with friends.


You still don't understand what Range Safety does, despite having been
told multiple times. You don't bet on a 'not much risk'. If the
rocket has left its predicted profile, if there is ***ANY*** chance of
it hitting anything outside the range area they trigger the FTS.

snip Mr Mezei's discussion from ignorance of Range Safety


--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson

JF Mezei wrote:

On 2016-09-08 23:52, Fred J. McCall wrote:

You don't know that any of the preceding statements are true. It had
a first stage engine problem. Suppose it had suddenly got a surge of
thrust again (it's malfunctioning - you don't know what it's going to
do) and hit a populated area?

Was it in any danger of hitting a populated area at time Antares was
detonated: NO.


Again, you're making claims that you have no evidence for.


The issue I have is that there is "robotic" training to push the red
button as soon as something goes wrong. This fails to consider whether
the button should be pressed now or wait a bit for rocket to clear pad
as much as it can.


You REALLY don't know **** about what Range Safety does or how Range
Safety Officers are trained, do you? And this despite having at least
the first part of that explained to you in simple English multiple
times.

It's true in your case. I can't fix stupid.


I am not advocating they wait till the rocket has traveled and treathens
Manhattan. But when rocket is still at/over pad, might as well wait a
bit. (besides, generally, at that point, if range safety is activated,
it is because rocket has begun to explode on its own.


Multiple bull**** false statements in a single paragraph. The shot
being discussed didn't hit the pad. The FTS isn't activated "because
the rocket has begun to explode on its own". This has been explained
to you repeatedly. PAY ATTENTION, YAMMERHEAD.

snip ignorant bull****


--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson

JF Mezei wrote:

On 2016-09-09 01:18, Fred J. McCall wrote:

Multiple bull**** false statements in a single paragraph. The shot
being discussed didn't hit the pad. The FTS isn't activated "because
the rocket has begun to explode on its own". This has been explained
to you repeatedly. PAY ATTENTION, YAMMERHEAD.


So you deny range safety was activated for the Atares explosion at Wallops?


I note you've 'cleverly' removed all the context, including the quote
from Astronaut Mark Kelly.

I deny that the FTS was activated "because the rocket has begun to
explode on its own".

Congratulations. You've moved from merely being adamantly ignorant to
being intellectually dishonest.


--
"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the
soul with evil."
-- Socrates

In article . com,
says...

On 2016-09-06 13:28, Rick Jones wrote:

Presumably, with self-destruct engaged, all that fuel and oxidizer
will be burned-up at altitude rather than down on the ground. That is
probably a net win compared with having a still largely fueled rocket
hit the ground.

Did triggering FTS help reduce pad damage for Antares ? What if allowing
it to continue on inertia had brought it further away from pad to
greatly reduce pad damage?

That's not the point of the FTS. Note what the acronym means: Flight
Termination System. It is designed to stop the launch vehicle from
flying in an uncontrolled fashion. This means it comes down anywhere
along the flight path which ideally has nothing beneath it.
Unfortunately, the launch pad is the notable exception.

crap deleted

So the parameters to trigger FTS should be updated to reflect modern
realities.

Bull****.

BTW, was FTS activated during the SpaceX "anomaly" after explosion
began?

I'm sure the signal was sent, but beyond that, who knows. I'm not going
to engage in pointless speculation. The accident investigation will no
doubt figure out the exact timeline for this.

At what point does it become "armed" ? Whenever rocket is fueled
? Or within X minutes of launch or firing of engines ?

Ask the USAF who is in charge of range safety.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

In article om,
says...

On 2016-09-08 23:52, Fred J. McCall wrote:

You don't know that any of the preceding statements are true. It had
a first stage engine problem. Suppose it had suddenly got a surge of
thrust again (it's malfunctioning - you don't know what it's going to
do) and hit a populated area?

Was it in any danger of hitting a populated area at time Antares was
detonated: NO.

This is hindsight and armchair quarterbacking of the most dangerous
kind. Please stop!

At the time of the event, you push the big red button because at the
time of the event, you don't *know* what's going to happen. Better to
push the button than to take *any* chance that the thing might kill
someone.

Your further speculation (including the b.s. about Antares) is
completely pointless, so I'm snipping it.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

Jeff Findley wrote:
In article . com,
says...

On 2016-09-06 13:28, Rick Jones wrote:

Presumably, with self-destruct engaged, all that fuel and oxidizer
will be burned-up at altitude rather than down on the ground. That is
probably a net win compared with having a still largely fueled rocket
hit the ground.

Did triggering FTS help reduce pad damage for Antares ? What if allowing
it to continue on inertia had brought it further away from pad to
greatly reduce pad damage?

That's not the point of the FTS. Note what the acronym means: Flight
Termination System. It is designed to stop the launch vehicle from
flying in an uncontrolled fashion. This means it comes down anywhere
along the flight path which ideally has nothing beneath it.
Unfortunately, the launch pad is the notable exception.

crap deleted

Ask the USAF who is in charge of range safety.

I can understand his point that the falling rocket coming back on the
pad is probably not a desirable situation, especially when it can be
avoided.

However, your last sentence sums it all up. FTS is operated by the
USAF, it is not their rocket, it is not their pad, they simply don't
care. They want simple procedures that can be executed by trained apes,
and these are only "destroy when path not nominal", not detailing any
advanced decision criteria like "minimize monetary loss".

It is like the fire brigade cutting off the top of your car when you
have been tailended, "because they don't want to risk you have any
back injury", not considering the level of that risk and not considering
the remaining value of your car. It is not their car, and they have
been instructed to handle incidents this way. The fact that your car
is now a write-off doesn't bother them at all.

Jeff Findley wrote:
In article om,
says...

On 2016-09-08 23:52, Fred J. McCall wrote:

You don't know that any of the preceding statements are true. It had
a first stage engine problem. Suppose it had suddenly got a surge of
thrust again (it's malfunctioning - you don't know what it's going to
do) and hit a populated area?

Was it in any danger of hitting a populated area at time Antares was
detonated: NO.

This is hindsight and armchair quarterbacking of the most dangerous
kind. Please stop!

At the time of the event, you push the big red button because at the
time of the event, you don't *know* what's going to happen. Better to
push the button than to take *any* chance that the thing might kill
someone.

And also because the one who pushes the button is not the owner of the
pad, so he does not care how small the risk is that something bad is
going to happen and how much the damage to the pad will be. It is his
job to push the button so he does not care about those things.

Jeff Findley wrote:

In article . com,
says...

BTW, was FTS activated during the SpaceX "anomaly" after explosion
began?


I'm sure the signal was sent, but beyond that, who knows. I'm not going
to engage in pointless speculation. The accident investigation will no
doubt figure out the exact timeline for this.


I actually doubt that it was. The vehicle was locked down, so it
wasn't going anywhere.


--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to
live in the real world."
-- Mary Shafer, NASA Dryden

Jeff Findley wrote:

In article om,
says...

On 2016-09-08 23:52, Fred J. McCall wrote:

You don't know that any of the preceding statements are true. It had
a first stage engine problem. Suppose it had suddenly got a surge of
thrust again (it's malfunctioning - you don't know what it's going to
do) and hit a populated area?

Was it in any danger of hitting a populated area at time Antares was
detonated: NO.

This is hindsight and armchair quarterbacking of the most dangerous
kind. Please stop!

At the time of the event, you push the big red button because at the
time of the event, you don't *know* what's going to happen. Better to
push the button than to take *any* chance that the thing might kill
someone.


Yep. We had a vehicle on the range one time that took a 'wide turn'
on the range. It didn't leave the range and was actually in a
controlled turn, but the wide turn took it outside the predicted
trajectory. They blew the FTS.


--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to
live in the real world."
-- Mary Shafer, NASA Dryden

JF Mezei wrote:
On 2016-09-09 07:24, Jeff Findley wrote:
At the time of the event, you push the big red button because at
the time of the event, you don't *know* what's going to happen.
Better to push the button than to take *any* chance that the thing
might kill someone.

Surely the folks at Wallops know how many seconds of flight it takes
for a rogue rocket to leave the immediate pad area, how many seconds
it takes to leave Wallops property, how many seconds it would take
to leave the park area surrounding it and how many seconds to reach
populated areas, and in such cases, where is the last point where
FTS must be triggered to ensure debris falls before reaching
populated areas.

Clearly something is wrong with the vehicle. At the time there is
little to nothing actually known about what is wrong, and perhaps more
importantly, whether there is a cascade of things going wrong. So,
one cannot, or perhaps more accurately should not, ass-u-me the FTS
will remain operational as the incident progresses.

Or midway: for first X seconds of flight, wait for rocket to clear pad
or breach the "last chance to FTS" whichever comes first, and after
that, trigger at first sign of anomaly.

I believe that for the incident in 1996 for which I posted links the
other day, the Chinese had a lift-off delay of 15 seconds or so before
their FTS activated - in the name of protecting the pad.

rick jones
--
portable adj, code that compiles under more than one compiler
these opinions are mine, all mine; HPE might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hpe.com but NOT BOTH...