How is SpaceX Cracking the Formula with Crucial Atmo Data?

I'm really thrilled to have had this opportunity to work with the Atmo AI meteorology team from atmo.ai/ ! It has been a wonderful experience getting to more deeply understand how SpaceX selects the best time for launch. This new technology is quite exciting I must say.

The Challenger rocket explosion was not an unavoidable “oops” caused by weather. The company Morton Thiokol supplied the solid rocket boosters and their subcontractor, HydraPak, supplied the booster segment's o-rings and gave NASA a no-fly low temperature limit. Mistake 1 - NASA, knowing the air temperature was below the value recommended by the Morton Thiokol/HydraPak engineers, still called Morton Thiokol and ask them if they could fly anyway and the Morton Thiokol/HydraPak engineers said “no”. Mistake 2 - The Management at Morton Thiokol overruled the engineers and, well, you know what happened (o-rings leaked, boosters exploded). Humanity has been learning this lesson over and over and over again in all facets of life.

When you talk about the loss of the Shuttle, you needed to mention that one the engineers on the ground warned NASA repeatedly that the O-rings could fail due to the cold temperatures. NASA ignored the warnings, and the rest is history.

I cannot blame you for including Challenger as weather was obviously the factor that made the ship unsafe to fly. However, we cannot blame the weather for the failure in any meaningful manner. If you drive your car into the sea, you cannot blame the tide and better forecasting would not have helped. Challenger involved weather, but the disaster was caused entirely by human stupidity. I was a young teenager, but I remember that morning well. Having been too young to have experienced Vietnam, Challenger was my first major lesson in placing trust in authorities. I , sitting on the floor in front of our console TV, was worried about the flight as the network newscasters were telling us that the temperatures were below official no-go levels and they even pointed to the solid booster seals as potential problems! Those astronauts trusted NASA, as did I. That trust was not warranted.

WHOA! Hold up there. The Challenger accident was NOT weather-related incident. Completely unrelated to the topic of weather prediction. It was a complete failure of the internal decision-making process. Engineers who said, "NO GO" and administrators who said, "Do it anyway".

challenger accident wasn't caused by incorrect weather forecast. They knew what weather was on that day.

Great to see a midweek update commentary from you Marcus. Once a week was great but twice is even better. Thanks 😊

Weather prediction helps by not wasting labor and resources preparing for a launch that eventually gets scrubbed, but it does not necessarily ensure safety. 06:24 The tragic loss of Challenger was not a weather caused failure, but rather a human failure. Clear boundaries were violated in the operating envelope of the SRB’s. Ample warnings were given and they were ignored.

AI forecasting has been used for NASA space launches since the '80s. They were rather rudimentary then. Baysian methods were used during the 70s ... all from paper tables. The Challenger accident was not due to a failure to forecast dangerous conditions but because the weather conditions were ignored. The upper air winds were being measured that day using an experimental wind shear radar. The question is, without the data, how accurate can an AI forecast be? How can the AI forecast be verified? What basis set is used to build the AI model?

After experiencing my first tornado warning here in Kentucky a couple days ago, I understand just how crucial it is to improve our meteorological predications and protect our assets and lives.

Awesome mid-week video! So glad to see this channel growing so quickly, great work Marcus & team <3

Thank you for your videos. I drive every night, and you always help me stay informed as well as helping me pass the time

Great introduction to a previously under-reported but critical part of a rocket launch. Congrats!

Love and respect for everything you and your crew accomplish Marcus! You guys are so professional.

Awesome mid week video. . Throughly interesting from start to finish. Thank you MH + Team for this extra nugget of space happiness

Excellent video! Thank you and your Team, Marcus!

I'm a big fan of your videos. Thanks for making them. The Challenger disaster wasn't caused by weather. The disaster was caused because the people in charge flew despite engineers telling them not to fly. The conditions were outside of tolerances for those gaskets the engineers told them it was outside of tolerances and the assholes decided to roll the dice. I know this was a tiny part of your video but I believe it's important to not forget the correct lesson that should have been learned from the Challenger disaster. It was people deciding to ignore safety warnings and put other people in harms way in order to not look bad. Safety should always be the first priority, it wasn't for Challenger just like it isn't for many things today and people are paying the price again.

The challenger explosion was not caused by or effected by poor weather prediction. NASA new the o-rings had problems in the cold a long time before, they were told days before hand that it was going to be too cold to safely launch. NASA pushed the launch any ways.

I always appreciate your updates about the "spice" missions, Marcus House! Hugs from Italy

Thanks Marcus for this" mid week" post..! You and your team have probably been working on this for quite some time.. Great research and production. As a tech geek, its great to see you report on the advantages of AI advancing the state of the art, and being hugely beneficial to humanity, not the mainstream medias threats of doom and gloom everyone hears.. Cheers...!