Weekly eLetter 4/21/2023 – Rapid Unplanned Disassembly
With what has to be one of the most interpretive euphemisms ever spoken, Mission Control at SpaceX announced that the test flight of Starship Super Heavy had been terminated – about four minutes after launch.
John Insprucker, a SpaceX engineer was providing live commentary on the webcast of the launch. At around the plus-three-minute mark the combined Starship/ Super Heavy displayed a flight anomaly causing John to say, “Obviously…this does not appear to be a nominal situation”. A few seconds later, with the rocket clearly out of control, its “flight termination system” did what it was meant to and blew it up over the Gulf of Mexico. Interrupting his own pause, Insprucker followed up with, “This is what we refer to as a ‘Rapid Unplanned Disassembly’.”
The SpaceX engineers, as well as the commentators were stoic, noting that the mission actually produced a great deal of success with one senior engineer reminding us that, “Everything after clearing the tower was icing on the cake.”
The actual plan for Thursday’s flight was to drop the Super Heavy (first stage) in the Gulf of Mexico and then the Starship (second stage), after continuing on to reach orbit height, would then drop to a water landing in the Pacific near Hawaii. Neither stage was meant to be recovered.
Speaking to JP Morgan in March, Elon Musk explained: “Succeed or fail, SpaceX intends to collect as much data as possible during flight.” With that in mind, it is easy to see how the SpaceX engineers were pretty pleased with Thursday’s launch.
So, you may be thinking, ‘Gee, that space stuff is interesting but what does this have to do with financial planning?’ Well, we’re glad you asked.
First, I am pleased to say that financial planning is not rocket-science. The best part of that is that having a Rapid Unplanned Disassembly is pretty much not in the cards. We have a lot of rules to help keep us and our colleagues from coloring outside the lines. Some of these rules are externally imposed by various regulatory bodies but some are just plain old common sense about how people should be treated and have their goals respected. Life will always have some sort of risk element but, risks can and should be mitigated. Like we said, it’s not rocket-science. But, like rocket-science, financial planning is all about planning — and developing strategies that will deliver a desired result. Whenever the desired result is not 100% what we expected, we can quickly go back to the drawing board and apply what we have learned from the shortfall. Sometimes an adjustment in the goal is needed — we can’t always shoot for the stars and maybe reaching for the Moon is a better fit. In any case, with each round of progress we advance our abilities to better serve our clients and their families.
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There will be no Market Minute segment today.
Ron is away from the office due to the unexpected passing of his beloved brother, Robert. Ron and his wife, Patricia, are assisting in the handling of the necessary details that go with a funeral. We ask your prayers for his brother’s family.
NB: Today’s eLetter was written by Jack Walrad. In addition to being a frequent contributor to our weekly missives, Jack is also responsible for the Denkinvest.com website where is provides creative design, web authoring and technical support.
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