This isn’t knowledge, but I have concluded that the reason that SpaceX’s primary goal was to clear the launchpad is because they had wanted to learn as much as they could about how the pad would hold up. Had Starship not cleared the pad, it would be difficult to know what pad damage came from the engine thrust and what damage came from a pad explosion of the rocket. Since it cleared the pad nicely, no one has to worry about making that distinction. This may not have been a successful failure but a complete success with a failure of a relatively inconsequential secondary part of the experiment.

Pictures have shown us that the pad didn’t hold up well. It looks like Musk was right that it may have been a mistake to not build flame deflection. Huge chunks of the concrete from the base were seen flying hundreds of feet into the air and large splashes were seen in the ocean, a few hundred feet to the east. The pad was heavily damaged, and we still don’t know whether the launch mount portion has to be rebuilt. I think that the real test was to determine whether a flame trench was needed or whether the booster could survive without one. The booster did survive without one, but the current pad design is insufficient for rapid reuse.

One YouTube channel, TheSpaceBucket* has a video about launch pads and flame deflectors. It may be worth viewing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDAyK3jRPCM (8 minutes)

Since huge chunks of concrete had been thrown high into the air, it is very possible that other chunks of concrete had damaged some of the boosters engines.

I am a bit disappointed that the performance of the Starship section of the rocket is limited largely to the boost phase of launch, rather than gaining some information about its own performance at altitude. It was clear that the booster had not given enough altitude and speed for Starship to reach orbital velocity and complete its mission. However, there may yet be data that can inform the engineers for future iterations.

It is good that the booster was able to perform up to the separation point. Future boosters should benefit from this launch. No wonder the SpaceX employee crowd was so excited even thought the flight had to be terminated early.

The coming weeks should be full of additional news about what happened, what went wrong, what went right, how well the booster handled the disintegrating situation, and what the future will be for the launch pad — “stage zero.”
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* TheSpaceBucket channel does not have the kind of presentation that I want, as the script seems to be read by a computer. However, their information seems to make sense to me, so it is one of the few space video channels that I view.

Steve Richter: Very well said.

Let me sum up the policy of the Biden administration and the federal government in one short phrase: They wish to deny freedom to Americans to follow their dreams. And at the same time they wish to exercise raw brutal power on everyone.

It is as simple as that.

The reason to blame Biden is it is his admin which blocked SpaceX from continuing its frequent and incremental test cadence. And it is his admin which has blocked SpaceX from considering a flame trench. ( how is environment damage from digging a trench any worse that the mayhem from this launch?) If SpaceX had been allowed to test as they deemed necessary they could have been sending up booster launch and recover flights the last 2 years. Those booster flight tests would have exposed the relative weakness of the launch pad. The engineers could have already been experimenting with different pad materials and designs, finding out what worked best. That way, once yesterday came the launch pad problems could have been worked out and the country would have seen a spectacular success, boosting American prestige throughout the world.

Musk’s tweet referred to “Fondag,” which is a type of concrete SpaceX had come across that they thought would be resistant enough to this kind of damage to survive the launch. Reasonably well, at least.
https://www.environmental-expert.com/products/fondag-pure-calcium-aluminate-concrete-207465

Fondag is a pre-blended, high strength, heat resistant concrete designed for heavy industrial applications. [Emphasis mine]

SpaceX had planned to use Fondag after the damage that happened during the half-thrust static fire test. This test gave them some confidence that it would be close to sufficient. This is what testing is all about, the determination as to whether what we think is true is actually true. Fondag was the observation, the hypothesis was that it would be close to sufficient, but the test proved them wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw (“Feynman on Scientific Method” 10 minutes)

This scientific method is why there is never a consensus in science. If the test proves the hypothesis wrong then it is wrong. If there is no test, then it has not been proved right, no matter what the consensus of scientists says. When a consensus is determining The Science, then The Science is broken. Discovering what is right is very, very difficult. There have been a couple of Nobel Prizes in science given out for science that turned out to be wrong, which was not the fault of the scientists receiving the prize. Keep in mind that science is never settled. The Science may be settled, especially by consensus, but that is not real science.

And before anyone takes this seriously, I am joking.

I think you might be joking about something that could be quite real. Can’t get a flame trench permit, but one accidentally appeared when the rocket was more destructive than we thought. We’re going to have to live with it until the work load slows down enough that we have time to pour more concrete.

Jerry Greenwood: Musk tweeted today about the concrete damage. I have added that tweet to today’s quick links.

Edward: You are right. I should have watched the video again. There are two very clear explosions at self-destruct. One was certainly Superheavy, the other likely Starship.

I had sensed that rumor was false. You have helped confirm this.

Max,
I’m sure that there is a whole lot of learning to be done from this flight. They had a bunch of problems that we could see, and who-knows how many others that we couldn’t.

“I’ve never seen a separation while under thrust …”

You may be interested, some of the Soviet/Russian rockets separate before thrust is completely gone from the previous stage. It allows them to fire the next stage without the propellants forming bubbles from the freefall conditions. It is at least one reason why they have those gaps in some of their interstage sections, as it allows the next stage thrust gasses a pathway out.

Many rockets stop the previous stage’s engines before separation, which required some sort of propellant settling thrust before the next stage can successfully be ignited. Usually this is done with tiny rockets on the next stage. Here is an example (1 minute):
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TZOvrUZtFpg
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Jerry Greenwood wrote: “I suspect the shrapnel from the tons of exploding concrete under the launch pad might have contributed to some of those engine issues. From the limited views I’ve seen so far it’s all gone.”

I read somewhere that Musk had described the exhaust from Super Heavy as the world’s largest blowtorch. Now we see what that can do.

That hole in the base of the pad is impressive. Twice the blowtorch gives us this, rather than the light damage after the half-thrust static fire test. More lessons learned. I will be interested to know whether they decide the engine-out problems were due to pad debris, sonic reflections from the concrete, other problems, or a combination of them.
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Robert Zimmerman,
I doubt that the second explosion that we saw was anything other than Starship. Its flight would also have to be terminated, guaranteeing that it would not light any engines and fly into any unauthorized debris zones. I will remain skeptical about that report, unless it is definitely confirmed.

My first guess is that the report you heard was the result of a game of “telephone,” where someone speculated something and others took it as fact.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has done what no on else has done – land rockets on its tail like a 1950’s SciFi movie.

Elon Musk is a modern day Howard Hughes – a rich guy who gets it done.

Andrew_W: I don’t have a reliable one. This is a rumor I heard that I’d like confirmed by a real source.

All:

Has anyone heard anything about Starship? I just heard that it hit the water intact. Can this be true?

Richard M: Seems to me from that image that SpaceX has simply gotten a head start on digging that flame trench. Rather than hire heavy equipment to dig it out, it used Superheavy to do the digging.

And before anyone takes this seriously, I am joking.

https://twitter.com/unrocket/status/1649425500526329863

Zack Golden of CSI Starbase: “OMFG. This is significantly worse than I first realized. That is MAJOR foundation damage. I can’t even imagine how this can be repaired. It’s a miracle the propellant lines weren’t ruptured. This seriously breaks my heart.”

Some serious rethinking is needed on the OLM.

They are not trying to create a ship, but a shipyard. The biggest concern is damage to the pad.

As I said early in the thread, the decision to launch was probably a tough call by Elon, but probably the right one.

True. NASA ended up learning far more about Saturn V’s flaws from the near disastrous Apollo 6 test flight than it did the unexceptional Apollo 4 flight six months before. Without those fixes, Apollo 8 does not succeed. Frank Borman would have had to pull the abort handle by Max Q.

“Those three failures refer to the initial effort to reach orbit.”

My apologies! I realize now that I carelessly read Pzatchok’s question to say “Falcon 1” instead of Falcon 9! Falcon 9 of course reached orbit on its very first attempt in 2010. But then it is also true that this was only possible because of what SpaceX engineers learned from failing with Falcon 1.

As to your point about Raptor failures on yesterday’s launch being attributable to clustered engine vibrations, I do increasingly suspect we are going to find that the engine failures were mostly inflicted by “extrinsic” causes rather than something intrinsic to the Raptor 2’s themselves (which after all have racked up hundreds of hours of successful test burns at McGregor). Not just vibrations or shock from the combined engine cluster, but probably also shock and debris impacts from liftoff dynamics at Stage Zero – I mean, it dug one heck of a crater there! That maybe on a better designed Stage Zero, Booster 7 could have got Starship successfully to an orbital insertion trajectory. If so, I think the hardest rethinking is going to have to go into Stage Zero rather than the rocket itself.

If it turns out that parts of the rocket were damaged by the blast and flying debris then I do not see how this flight advanced the ball much. SpaceX needs to test that all components of the system work together. But if components are damaged by concrete missiles, you are not giving the system a chance to actually operate.

Very discouraging to read that there is no flame trench because of the regulatory requirements and denials. So important that the country has a President with the brains and decency who can step in and clear the way for a company like SpaceX which is working to do something great.

Will the new KSC launch pad be ready soon? Hope SpaceX has enough funds and engineers to work full time on both Boca and KSC.

The one thing that kept going through my mind as I watch the engines cut out for separation, (Except for one) relight then cut out again… That there’s no way the clamps will release when one of engines was still lit and pointed or outgassing in the wrong direction! causing the rocket to tumble.
Stabilizing Jets on the side of the rocket were firing to correct, but could not control the misfiring, possibly heavily damaged engine that would not shut off.

Have you ever tried to release clamps on any mechanical device when under a load, or under torque?
As long as there was thrust perpendicular to the releasing mechanisms, there’s no way starship could be released without ripping something apart.
Explosive bolts, as a fail safe, May release starship but not without consequences. I’ve never seen a separation while under thrust, I’m sure there are safety protocols to prevent separation for any reason, if expected conditions (near freefall) aren’t perfect. (within specifications)

There was also a flame hundreds of feet from the rocket that appeared to be fuel burning from an air fuel mixture with the atmosphere, not intentional. A different malfunction, probably a severed fuel line.

With so many engines not working, the other engines will not only have to compensate, but redirect their thrust load.
I didn’t see anything break off, but the stress was considerable.

… how much flight hardware ended up at the bottom of the Atlantic off Cape Canaveral before John Glenn rode some into orbit.

… that the reason Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 performed their rendezvous was because the original target vehicle for Gemini 6 had to be destroyed on the way up? And that was not the only time that had to be done with such vehicles?.

… that Neil Armstrong was almost killed TWICE before he got to step that one small step.

… that the problem with smooth test flights, is that you don’t always find out what can kill you before it does … after Gemini 4, everyone thought that spacewalking was a cinch … until Gemini 9 and how it almost killed Gene Cernan, and exhausted astronauts on Gemini 10 and 11, before Aldrin et. al finally got it right on Gemini 12.

Skipped them all, sorry folks.
Will read later, perhaps.

I enjoyed the TOTAL launch.

I did hear something about the service mast door not closing properly and there being damage inside the mast or whatever they call it now.

I wonder now many times they test cycled the disconnect.

Both SLS and SS went with hydraulically powered service mast doors in lieu of the tried and true drop weights.