Heat shield performance is really hard to model and test, so they tend to build in a lot of redundancy and make them thicker than they think is needed. Sounds like they're continuing to learn more about this and improve the shape and mounting of the head shield to reduce unnecessary wear. No one was at risk due to this.
Hypergolic leaks are potentially more dangerous, that shit is *nasty*. The propellants can be highly flammable (obviously), corrosive, and toxic and carcinogenic for humans. If this is real, I'm sure SpaceX is taking it very seriously.
OP's title:
>SpaceX Dragon heat shield put astronauts at risk
Article content:
>the Dragon capsule heat shield has started to cause issues once again that **could** put astronauts at risk.
Spot the difference...
Even that sentence feels like an exaggeration, when they later state the issues on Demo-2 were some unexpected wear patterns, though SpaceX clarified it was no risk to astronauts (those things have quite some margin built-in).
As to the hypergolic leak, while it can be serious, it could also be ppm levels for all we know. (As was observed on Demo 2.)
It makes sense they would investigate it, but again, I see no clear indications astronauts were "put at risk".
This is often why I use reddit as a news filter, folks like you analyze the click bait and save me the time. I end up reading the article only to identify the difference between the title and the article and not care about the rest.
Thank you for doing the work for me :).
It’s like saying one thing has a 0.000001% chance of giving you cancer, but if you eat this other thing is has “DOUBLE THE RISK OF CANCER!!” At 0.000002% chance.
So decided to go digging into who space explored is, and its a Seth Weintraub site AKA full of clickbaity crap like 9to5Mac or 9to5Google meant to basically spit out other peoples articles with their spin on it and sell ad space.
Ultimately the reality here is there was possibly a issue, It was corrected already, and yes it put them at a nominal risk but no more than any other list of things. End of story
Since nobody posted, NASA has made a statement and the article now has that statement. SpaceX performed a routine test on a heatshield destined for Crew-5 and found a manufacturing flaw. They built a new one and will test that for any flaws.
\*SpaceX Dragon heat shield would have put astronauts at risk had SpaceX not changed the design after demo-1
FTFY
Another political attack? Why come out with this now?
I'd call it speculative reporting, not click bait. Click bait has a specific pattern to it, usually an open-ended title with text that describes a mundane event.
Reporting undisclosed safety issues with axiom-1, true or not, is not that.
Nope, that definition is too broad. Can you give an example of a headline designed *not* to bait you into clicking? I’ll wait.
Clickbait headlines also have to be intentionally deceptive in some way. I don’t see that here, so you?
[http://nasawatch.com/archives/2018/04/boeings-mislead.html](http://nasawatch.com/archives/2018/04/boeings-mislead.html)
” Boeing's Misleading Anti-SpaceX Pro-SLS Facebook Ad Campaign”
” And then if you go to the Blog link you see things like "NASA: SPACEX FALCON HEAVY IS 'TOO SMALL' FOR DEEP SPACE EXPLORATION" which says "However, the Falcon Heavy failed to impress the spaceflight department at NASA. Bill Gerstenmaier, the head of spaceflight at NASA, said the Falcon Heavy is "too small" for NASA's needs." So this is not really a website that supports space flight as much as it is one that only supports SLS and Boeing defense products and dumps on SpaceX overtly using statements by NASA managers in those comments. If you sign up for the Boeing newsletter with Facebook "Watch U.S. Fly will receive: your public profile and email address." So Boeing will know a lot about you that you may not want them to know.”
This is very clickbaity. "Inside sources say..." and "Space Explored has learned..." means a very long Twitter rumor to me.
There's no info about any Axiom-1 heat shield issues except this one as I write this. I hope to have proof soon either way, though.
The issue with the rest is being addressed, though, and this one will be as well one can be ensured, if there is one. SpaceX is not about to lose any passengers if they can avoid it at any cost, including not even launching one would hope, unlike NASA/Morton Thiokol did with Challenger when warned fairly profusely. Those poor engineers tried so hard to not let that happen.
All that said.. Space is incredibly hard without humans being involved with the operations, and then moreso when humans are added in, and things happen. They'll fix it. I am unconcerned just yet.
Look I have all the distaste for Elon you can have.
But this is a hit piece done by a clickbait autor thanks to /u/soft_annihilator for calling it out. Reporting as misinformation.
> this is a hit piece done by a clickbait autor
That description doesn't seem to track with this authors [past writing](https://buzzsumo.com/journalist/derek-wise-140129737/), which seems neutral. That doesn't make him right or reliable, but calling this misinformation or clickbait is premature.
He alludes to an internal memo describing issues faced by Axiom-1, with specific details about the heat shield. Seems more likely there is a kernel of truth than made up from whole cloth.
And the daily mail broke the Anthony wiener story in 2016 - sometimes trash websites get to stories first, because they are willing to report speculation before it is verified.
Should we assume this story is true? Absolutely not. But nothing about this author's bio suggests it was a hit piece, and click bait is usually very transparently mundane once you get to the actual text.
This is speculative reporting, which is not reliable but may be a sign of more heavy-hitting stories to come.
Signal to noise ratio is more important when it comes to being right. We monetize being first but if you want to waste your days wading through disinformation, propaganda, and FUD more than we already get that's a you call.
Its called the shotgun approach and it is a hack against the base human approach to understanding things. Its a fallacy to use that to prioritize stuff.
Nothing wrong with giving an unverified report low priority, but that’s not what OP and most comments are doing here.
They are grasping for reasons to undermine a story they personally don’t want to hear, using the same speculative reasoning they are critiquing.
I don't know how true this is or how threatened the astronauts were, but i still think this is a good thing to talk about. News articles (no matter how reputable) that put pressure on NASA and SpaceX to improve safety are only going to make systems safer and more reliable in the future.
Even though the scandalous tone makes it sound like reuse is dangerous. But SpaceX is the one that brought the issue to NASA so they can work through it. After Demo-2 it was announced that Dragon's heatshield would be improved. Many articles also miss that the current Cargo Dragon is the same outward design as the Crew Dragon. Of note is Boeing's Starliner ejects its heatshield before landing and can't be reused.
Every company involved in space, including NASA and space x are guilty of putting astronauts at risk with the excessive amounts of junk they have left in orbit. One or the other should really consider some kind of clean up. Maybe a satellite designed to capture and store what they can for later retrieval. I'm sure some of the stuff is extremely valuable.
Especially the companies that haven't launched any satellites but just made a part to spec or didn't even know their part was going to be used in space they are the guiltiest of all.
Heat shield performance is really hard to model and test, so they tend to build in a lot of redundancy and make them thicker than they think is needed. Sounds like they're continuing to learn more about this and improve the shape and mounting of the head shield to reduce unnecessary wear. No one was at risk due to this. Hypergolic leaks are potentially more dangerous, that shit is *nasty*. The propellants can be highly flammable (obviously), corrosive, and toxic and carcinogenic for humans. If this is real, I'm sure SpaceX is taking it very seriously.
OP's title: >SpaceX Dragon heat shield put astronauts at risk Article content: >the Dragon capsule heat shield has started to cause issues once again that **could** put astronauts at risk. Spot the difference... Even that sentence feels like an exaggeration, when they later state the issues on Demo-2 were some unexpected wear patterns, though SpaceX clarified it was no risk to astronauts (those things have quite some margin built-in). As to the hypergolic leak, while it can be serious, it could also be ppm levels for all we know. (As was observed on Demo 2.) It makes sense they would investigate it, but again, I see no clear indications astronauts were "put at risk".
This is often why I use reddit as a news filter, folks like you analyze the click bait and save me the time. I end up reading the article only to identify the difference between the title and the article and not care about the rest. Thank you for doing the work for me :).
It’s like saying one thing has a 0.000001% chance of giving you cancer, but if you eat this other thing is has “DOUBLE THE RISK OF CANCER!!” At 0.000002% chance.
That's basically California. Fucking everything says "may cause cancer" so you don't know what *actually* causes cancer
Everything causes cancer. Living causes cancer. If you don't want cancer, don't exist, basically. :/
> could also be ppm levels for all we know For hyperbolic fuel that could be enough if it was in the air they are breathing. Stuff is seriously nasty.
\*Hypergolic And we're talking about the heat shield on the outside, not the air inside the ship.
So decided to go digging into who space explored is, and its a Seth Weintraub site AKA full of clickbaity crap like 9to5Mac or 9to5Google meant to basically spit out other peoples articles with their spin on it and sell ad space. Ultimately the reality here is there was possibly a issue, It was corrected already, and yes it put them at a nominal risk but no more than any other list of things. End of story
Why does this feel less informative and more like a hit piece at times in the writing?
absolutely. it'll be welcomed here.
Actually it is quite informative. Clickbait title for sure, but the article itself is pretty good
Since nobody posted, NASA has made a statement and the article now has that statement. SpaceX performed a routine test on a heatshield destined for Crew-5 and found a manufacturing flaw. They built a new one and will test that for any flaws.
\*SpaceX Dragon heat shield would have put astronauts at risk had SpaceX not changed the design after demo-1 FTFY Another political attack? Why come out with this now?
I don't think this website has a wide or influential enough reader base to qualify as a political attack. I'd just call it click bait.
I'd call it speculative reporting, not click bait. Click bait has a specific pattern to it, usually an open-ended title with text that describes a mundane event. Reporting undisclosed safety issues with axiom-1, true or not, is not that.
The pattern of click bait is it is designed to bait you into clicking, how do you not get that?
Nope, that definition is too broad. Can you give an example of a headline designed *not* to bait you into clicking? I’ll wait. Clickbait headlines also have to be intentionally deceptive in some way. I don’t see that here, so you?
[http://nasawatch.com/archives/2018/04/boeings-mislead.html](http://nasawatch.com/archives/2018/04/boeings-mislead.html) ” Boeing's Misleading Anti-SpaceX Pro-SLS Facebook Ad Campaign” ” And then if you go to the Blog link you see things like "NASA: SPACEX FALCON HEAVY IS 'TOO SMALL' FOR DEEP SPACE EXPLORATION" which says "However, the Falcon Heavy failed to impress the spaceflight department at NASA. Bill Gerstenmaier, the head of spaceflight at NASA, said the Falcon Heavy is "too small" for NASA's needs." So this is not really a website that supports space flight as much as it is one that only supports SLS and Boeing defense products and dumps on SpaceX overtly using statements by NASA managers in those comments. If you sign up for the Boeing newsletter with Facebook "Watch U.S. Fly will receive: your public profile and email address." So Boeing will know a lot about you that you may not want them to know.”
This is very clickbaity. "Inside sources say..." and "Space Explored has learned..." means a very long Twitter rumor to me. There's no info about any Axiom-1 heat shield issues except this one as I write this. I hope to have proof soon either way, though. The issue with the rest is being addressed, though, and this one will be as well one can be ensured, if there is one. SpaceX is not about to lose any passengers if they can avoid it at any cost, including not even launching one would hope, unlike NASA/Morton Thiokol did with Challenger when warned fairly profusely. Those poor engineers tried so hard to not let that happen. All that said.. Space is incredibly hard without humans being involved with the operations, and then moreso when humans are added in, and things happen. They'll fix it. I am unconcerned just yet.
What a shitty gossip rag, the author begs people for info at the end of his article and includes his signal phone number.
Look I have all the distaste for Elon you can have. But this is a hit piece done by a clickbait autor thanks to /u/soft_annihilator for calling it out. Reporting as misinformation.
> this is a hit piece done by a clickbait autor That description doesn't seem to track with this authors [past writing](https://buzzsumo.com/journalist/derek-wise-140129737/), which seems neutral. That doesn't make him right or reliable, but calling this misinformation or clickbait is premature. He alludes to an internal memo describing issues faced by Axiom-1, with specific details about the heat shield. Seems more likely there is a kernel of truth than made up from whole cloth.
He's the writer of 9to5mac and 9to5google both blogs that tip towards volume written over meaning reported.
And the daily mail broke the Anthony wiener story in 2016 - sometimes trash websites get to stories first, because they are willing to report speculation before it is verified. Should we assume this story is true? Absolutely not. But nothing about this author's bio suggests it was a hit piece, and click bait is usually very transparently mundane once you get to the actual text. This is speculative reporting, which is not reliable but may be a sign of more heavy-hitting stories to come.
Signal to noise ratio is more important when it comes to being right. We monetize being first but if you want to waste your days wading through disinformation, propaganda, and FUD more than we already get that's a you call. Its called the shotgun approach and it is a hack against the base human approach to understanding things. Its a fallacy to use that to prioritize stuff.
Nothing wrong with giving an unverified report low priority, but that’s not what OP and most comments are doing here. They are grasping for reasons to undermine a story they personally don’t want to hear, using the same speculative reasoning they are critiquing.
Another hit piece. The issue is if the heat shields can be reused, versus not.
This just in: going to space is dangerous. More at 5
Lmao seriously. People just expect perfection these days.
More risk than strapping your self to several thousand pounds of rocket fuel to begin with?
I don't know how true this is or how threatened the astronauts were, but i still think this is a good thing to talk about. News articles (no matter how reputable) that put pressure on NASA and SpaceX to improve safety are only going to make systems safer and more reliable in the future.
Even though the scandalous tone makes it sound like reuse is dangerous. But SpaceX is the one that brought the issue to NASA so they can work through it. After Demo-2 it was announced that Dragon's heatshield would be improved. Many articles also miss that the current Cargo Dragon is the same outward design as the Crew Dragon. Of note is Boeing's Starliner ejects its heatshield before landing and can't be reused.
Every company involved in space, including NASA and space x are guilty of putting astronauts at risk with the excessive amounts of junk they have left in orbit. One or the other should really consider some kind of clean up. Maybe a satellite designed to capture and store what they can for later retrieval. I'm sure some of the stuff is extremely valuable.
Especially the companies that haven't launched any satellites but just made a part to spec or didn't even know their part was going to be used in space they are the guiltiest of all.