Planned failure. Unlike NASA, SpaceX does not have to contend with public opinion about every little aspect of their process. NASA had such spectacular failures very early in their testing (pre-Mercury/Redstone/Atlas) but they weren’t televised or at least not to the extent things are today.
The difference is SpaceX can do a test every month or so. NASA is currently on track to complete it’s second test in 15 years sometime in the next 24 months and the 3rd test will be a year or two after that. I expect by that time SpaceX will have sent several Starship flights around the moon and possibly ever landed on their own (can the US Government prevent them from doing that?). They might even have an unmanned Starship on the way to Mars by then to assess the rockets viability for manned missions. Once they get it flying reliably, I don’t see any reason not to stress it as much as possible.
ABSURD headline. Yes, the rocket exploded. But it had already passed its test. There was no unexpected loss; once the rocket cleared the launchpad, there was no more use for it.
“As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation,’ SpaceX tweeted.
These guys definitely enjoy their work. Great sense of humor. Not like stuffy NASA bureaucrats.
How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster, by SpaceX.
How Not to Land a Flying Grain Silo by RoBossBomb.
Both the payload and the booster were going to do “hard landings” in water after separation (splashdowns). So they really achieved about 80% of their goals with this flight which was mainly to test launch and flight capabilities as a whole.
Remember that SpaceX’ self landing rockets (which were Pooh-Pooh’s by nasa as impossible at one time) took close to a dozen attempts before he got a success and now it’s an everyday occurrence with his launches.
This was a test flight. Just like learning how to land.
Odds are, it was detonated by mission control as it go out of control.
And they keep pushing forward...
Also read (but not seen) that some damage was made to the launch structure and there was flying concrete from the pad beneath it. . .
So there are bugs to work out there as well. . .
It didn’t explode, it self-destructed.
I know Musk knew there was a better than fair chance this could happen. What beggars belief is that he shows a blanket disregard for the optic all these highly-publicized explosions present to the hoople-heads.
And I have to admit, I do not fancy signing on for a flight to Mars in anything he’s making.
Hope he had insurance on that.
“ Despite the failed launch….”
———-
This was a test. The launch was successful. It blew up down range.
The people who write crap like this should think about how they edit their failed first drafts!
One simply cannot launch the largest rocket ever in secret. The failures have to be in public. Thinking they will succeed the first time out of the gate is naive.
It was a successful TEST launch.
It just wasn’t a successful orbit.................😉
Alternative Headline: Russians still masters of space Travel.
Not sure why so much joy comes from a failed attempt to reach space by your own countryman
27 out of 33 ain’t bad.....................😜👍
Robot to William Shatner:
“Danger Will Shatner danger”!!
Theres been tons of explosions. Thats how they operate.
Totally sensational and misleading headline. Yes the thing exploded but that was not unexpected.
GEESH
Up in smoke on 4/20. Oh well, it took a lot of failed V2 rocket tests to get us to the moon.
You all need to realize, they were ditching all the craft for splashdown to simplify this first launch. And the thing that went wrong is one of the more 'fixable' processes, unlike a launch pad detonation. It's a big win. Starship is viable. Mars, here we come.
An awesomely successful test...
Hope it makes that new moon team happy...