SpaceX pushed "sniper" theory with the feds

The rocket blew up because one of SpaceX&#x27;s old factory ERP systems didn&#x27;t sufficiently track parts, and only printed labels for frozen storage, refrigerated storage, and room temp storage.<p>Nobody flipped through the manifest of a fuel tank shipment to see they needed to be stored in liquid nitrogen. Someone put the shipment in frozen storage according to the label and the dry ice the tank was packed in evaporated. Cracks formed from the expansion.<p>Weeks or months later, someone noticed the improperly stored tank and tossed it into a tank of liquid nitrogen. The cracks shrank too small to see on the X-ray inspection. There was no inventory tracking within the freezer area.<p>When the fuel tank was filled with liquid oxygen, the cracks leaked, pure oxygen hit a spark, and boom.<p>Source: a .Net&#x2F;Typescript engineer who responded to the accident by porting the quality assurance ERP system to their new ERP, Warp.

&gt; Within the company, engineers and technicians actually took pressurized tanks that stored helium—one of these had burst, leading to the explosion—and shot at them in Texas to determine whether they would explode and what the result looked like.<p>Probably the most fun day of work in those technicians&#x27; lives.

The theory that it was a sniper lingered for almost 10 months.<p>Investigations into the catastrophic unscheduled disassembly were looking into internal failures as early as 1 week after the incident.<p>The 50cal used to shoot the tank was indeed fun and cool, everyone gathered around to watch the explosion.<p>After 10 months of investigation and destructive testing, the source of the explosion was discovered.<p>The trial and error necessary to find the cause led to an incredbly McGuyvered testing process&#x2F;device.<p>Eventually this led to Space-X developing and building a new in-company supply chain for 1 specific part of the rocket that had been previously outsourced.<p>To my knowledge Gen 2 and Gen 3 of this part have never failed but I haven&#x27;t been looking that closely till Starship trials started.

Huh, never realized this book[1] I read was actually distantly on a real (non-) story.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;128591386-the-eighth-continent" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;128591386-the-eighth-con...</a>

&quot;It was, for all intents and purposes, akin to an automobile idling in a driveway with half a tank of gasoline. And then it exploded.&quot;<p>Not entirely unheard of.<p>A certain vintage of Ford cars had a cruise control defect that led them to catch fire while parked (something to do with a switch connected to the brake hydraulics that was connected to +12V from the battery even while the car was off). There were, I believe, multiple rounds of recalls (as the problem manifested itself across a number of different models).<p>In one case I&#x27;m familiar with, the car&#x27;s owners left the car in their garage while they went on vacation. The car caught fire - fortunately the garage was sufficiently well sealed that the fire ran out of oxygen before it spread to the rest of the house.<p>The recall notice for their car was waiting for them at the post office when they returned home.<p>Damages, etc., were immediately taken care of by their insurance company and ultimately paid for by Ford - as I recall hearing the story this included thorough professional cleaning of rugs and such due to smoke from the fire making it into the rest of the house.

I mean, if they thought they saw a flash from the top of the competitor&#x27;s building a mile away the right amount of time before the explosion, I&#x27;m not surprised they wanted to investigate the theory.<p>I&#x27;m also not surprised they didn&#x27;t push it much publicly. It sounds like trying to deflect blame for your failures.

[flagged]

This is Elon Musk paranoia being pushed onto a bunch of n00b kids pretending to be engineers.

Every time I read a story like this, or hear about Musk, Hegseth, Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene in the large, or Pizza gate, Signal gate, eating cats and dogs I&#x27;m reminded of an episode on the Tonight Show late 1970s with Johnny Carson.<p>Burt Reynolds, and another character (maybe Don Rickles) were guests. Carson couldn&#x27;t get a word in edgewise. His guests were joking, cutting-up --- very entertaining for the audience to be sure --- but frustrating Carson.<p>The final guest was Carol Wayne the movie lady. She&#x27;s the physical manifestation of the dumb-blonde concept. As they spoke, she called Johnny old, tried to explain the graphic symbols used on TV weather reports, and made mention of the fact she was friends with one of Burt&#x27;s ex-wives.<p>Burt said something snarky back to Wayne then, partly embarrassed, climbed over the interview couch and briefly hid. He then climbed back over which I&#x27;m sure Carson thought uncouth. This was followed by more outbursts from the other guests.<p>At some point Carson grew tired of Wayne and all the noise. He announced it was time for a TV advert (the ol&#x27; clock on the wall!) saying something to the effect of:<p>&quot;There are days I&#x27;d give my bottom dollar just to talk to a regular person. I&#x27;m supposed to be the host. When we come back I&#x27;ll try to make sense of this chaos.&quot;<p>Over the last 10 years I&#x27;ve been feeling Carson&#x27;s angst more and more viscerally. A sniper? Oh c&#x27;mon!