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Script review for "Does Starship share similar design flaws with the doomed N1 rocket?" (Patreon)

Published:
2023-05-03 20:11:46
Imported:
2023-05

Content

Now's your chance to read through our next script and ask questions, catch errors, provide feedback! Feel free to read through this script "Does Starship share similar design flaws with the doomed N1 rocket?" and leave your thoughts in comments here. Don't worry about catching grammatical errors, just general feedback or specific factual errors. And Pilots, Commanders and Mission Directors, don't forget to check the separate link for the comment version! Thanks so much!!!

Files

[READ] Does Starship share similar design flaws with the doomed N1 rocket?

On February 21, 1969, the Soviet Union set a record for the world's most powerful rocket to fly. A title they would hold onto for over 50 years. But on April 20th, 2023, that record would finally be broken by SpaceX's Starship and its Super Heavy booster.

Comments

Anonymous

A few minor, unimportant grammatical problems, but nothing worth correcting. It has a casual spoken-word style, which is what you want. As I said in another comment, I would have liked to know more about the specific engineering or manufacturing changes that SpaceX made to make Raptor II more reliable or robust than the previous generation.

Anonymous

Looks great! Can't see any issues. Is it wrong I hear it in your voice when I read it? 😛

Anonymous

I find the last section particularly interesting noting the importance of Korolev's death. It wasn't just that Glushko and Yangel were unsupportive of Korolev's approach; they wanted to use different propellants and hence totally different engine designs and it looks to me that Korolev had extreme difficulty to keep the project on course trying to keep the government and funding on board. At SpaceX I could imagine that Elon Musk plays in fact more of an equivalent role to the Soviet government component for his engineers who design the equipment, with the enormous benefit that with his background he understands what the engineers are doing, how hard this work is and why things can fail. Korolev had no such support and in addition had to defend his work against competing peers like Glushko and Yangel. The fate of the N1 was actually not too far off what Musk was going through with Falcon 1: remember that an unsuccessful fourth launch would have meant bankruptcy and the end of SpaceX! Also, the fourth launch of the N1 first stage would have been successful if they had just gone ahead with stage separation, rather than terminating the test. But control systems were pretty basic at the time (KORD) and unable to make complex decisions, like modern computers with massive progress in AI can achieve.

Anonymous

PS: What does "successful" mean?! I was somewhat dismayed with most common media outlets reporting just the explosion at the end of the Super Heavy test launch, completely ignorant of the actual achievement of this flight and what it will likely lead to. A bit like Apollo 13: only interested when there is a simple headline for the next edition. Not a moment for the media to be proud of. So lucky we have you, Tim, and a bunch of other correspondents who do care about informed reporting!

Anonymous

Are there advantages from recent developments in materials that the N1 could not rely on? While there have been clearly developments in nanotechnology (lithography for semiconductor manufacture and development, nano materials) and light but strong materials (carbon fiber composites, magnesium and titanium alloys, etc) these are actually not that relevant specifically for the development of Raptor 2 - well, titanium probably is. Stainless steel was certainly available back then. But alternative approaches like 3D-printing are definitely new and I don't know if there are in any way used for Raptor 2; if not now so maybe in the future.

Anonymous

Elon is going to love this lol. He can't help but compare Starship to the N1. For good reason though.

Anonymous

You could make the document commentable by everyone with the link. Under share settings. This way we could comment directly in there

Reed Bowman

Several comments: First, you spend a lot of time comparing not just to the N1, but to the Saturn V (with important comparisons and contrasts as well between engineering culture at SpaceX, Apollo-era NASA, and ULA). My inclination would be to include this more in the title and intro. The current script does come circling back to the N1 comparison, but it's so much broader than that. Unless, of course, you're expecting to do a future video comparing specifically to the Saturn V. (Maybe when it first leaves LEO?) I felt one thing was missing on the comparison to the Saturn V: Though I believe no F-1 ever failed in flight, wasn't the Saturn V in fact built to be able to achieve mission objectives with one complete engine failure? Putting that detail in would be great. And importantly, if so, you should compare it to how many Raptors can fail in theory without jeopardizing the mission. Of course it can lose a few, but can it lose 20% like the Saturn V? This sentence needs work: "So there’s a bit of a bell curve between fewer engines is simpler, but more susceptible when there is a failure, but more engines is more likey to have a failure but it can be more robust when an engine does fail." I think you mean a tradeoff, not a bell curve. And things are susceptible *to* some outcome. Perhaps "So there's a bit of a tradeoff between fewer engines being simpler,but also more likely to kill the mission when there is a failure, while on the other hand, more engines mean you are more likely to have a failure, but the failure is unlikely to be mission-critical." "Will Starship suffer a similar fate TO the N1?" Sorry, can't stop the grammar editor completely, and that one really bothers me. Mikhail Yangel, not Michael. I was going to provide some assistance with pronouncing Korolev/Korolyov, but it turns out he was Ukrainian, and I don't want to steer you more toward the Russian pronunciation at this point in the history of the world. "The N1 could fly nominally with 4 engines shut down, but that actually means they could only lose 2 engines since each engine shut down would require the shutdown of its opposite pair. So there wasn’t actually much room for error." It would be better to say "require the shutdown of its opposite number." "Its opposite pair" sounds like you have to shut down two on the other side for some reason. I'd love to edit dozens more bits of usage to push it a little in the direction of Cronkite, and (with apologies) away from Millennial YouTuber, but allow me just one: "But perhaps the biggest thing these rockets each share is the ludicrous amount of engines." How about "the most noticeable thing" and "ludicrous number of engines"? Okay, I'll stop there. It seems like a big and rambling video, and I'm sure you could break it down into several, but it does tell a coherent story, and it's definitely the style we in your audience have come to expect.

Anonymous

Stage 0 comparison would complete the story: all the rocket stages are described & compared - except Stage 0. Points to consider: (1) The N1 and Starship launch facilities are quite different in terms of eg flame diversion & launch tower functions. (2) The rocket assembly process is quite different: The train based transport of the assembled N1 vs. Starship. (3) The importance of clearing the tower is best demonstrated by the N1 launch attempt on July 3, 1969. The explosion did extensive damage to the launch infrastructure; the next launch attempt didn't happen until June 26, 1971.

Anonymous

All-up testing: "This all means the only way to actually test the N1 at all was to just launch it." (1) George Mueller called this "all-up" testing on a memo dated October 31, 1963, where he argued that flying Saturn V's "all-up" (ie, with all live stages) was necessary to meet Apollo's schedule. (This wasn't totally true for Saturn V, as its 3rd stage, the S-IVB, was the 2nd stage of Saturn I.) (2) It might be worth noting how many recent new launch vehicles have failed in their "all-up" first launches. (3) Did SpaceX ever consider testing the Superheavy stage by itself (without Starship) in suborbital flights?