The most spectacular rocket explosion since N1 just happened in Florida

lorenzohess

Video: https://xcancel.com/nasaspaceflight/status/20601649284728548... Another angle: https://xcancel.com/SawyerMerritt/status/2060174287563116696...

justinhj

https://x.com/sawyermerritt/status/2060174287563116696?s=46&...

sebmellen

This article is amazing because it talks at length about a magnificent video that is never shown.

a1371

It looks like the explosion starts from the second stage

Markoff

I will remember this when someone tells me how my little fireworks once a year is bad for environment.

brcmthrowaway

There's got to be better way than burning a shittonne of fuel. Anyone else know?

mholt

Is it normal to load ALL the propellant when doing a static fire? (I presume that's the case, anyway, given the sheer magnitude of the kaboom.) I know a WDR typically would, but I don't think they perform an ignition for those.

866-RON-0-FEZ

Dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48317774

anshumankmr

https://youtu.be/UcTmBfA7Qik?si=HJOELEdt4DLX-Z6i&t=69 Jeff Bezos right now

HardCodedBias

There are massive machines filled with reactants under high pressure and cryogenic temperatures. It is amazing that this doesn't happen more often.

alexissantos

I might have seen the explosion light up some clouds in Orlando. I was driving East when I saw a patch of clouds glow orange for a few seconds and then go dark. I wondered what that was... then found out this happened at the same time I was driving!

userbinator

Does anyone else find it surprising that rockets are a century old[1] and yet still seem to fail spectacularly with amazing regularity, often due to some small flaw? Is it just that they're still relatively niche machines and thus haven't benefited from mass manufacturing improvements? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Goddard_and_Rocket.jpg

galkk

Reminds me words, attributed to one of first soviets astronauts: "You're sitting on top of 9 story building, completely filled with fuel and they say to you: don't worry, we calculated everything". The exploded one was about 15-story building.

protocolture

So uh those Artemis commitments huh.

baq

On the scale of bad 1-10 where 10 is the absolutely worst case this is a 12 easily . (Elon’s strategy of blowing up smaller versions of their rockets more or less deliberately doesn’t sound so insane in the light of this.)

panick21_

Man they spent a huge amount on the launch infrastructure and it was ready long before the rocket. It was waiting for a long time. And now it reversed.