SpaceX giant rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

The largest and most powerful rocket in history took off and in moments exploded..

What happened Elonald, you love to waste millions on failures, like you do with Twitter..

CircUS, circUS, LOL..

The world’s largest rocket blows up spectacularly and Elon calls it a win.

There’s a metaphor in there somewhere…..

As the old saying goes, "If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed." This is a misleading title. As a safety precaution, the rocket self-destructed when separation from the booster stage failed. Events like this are expected to happening during the development stage. Design mistakes will be corrected and the next iteration will perform better. The main test was still successful.

The largest and most powerful rocket in history took off and in moments exploded..

What happened Elonald, you love to waste millions on failures, like you do with Twitter..

CircUS, circUS, LOL..

Clearly you really didn’t understand the goal of this experiment then. Smh…

A great disappointment for all those involved but the problems will be resolved and another attempt made.

How much money was wasted on this, while hundreds of millions around the world starve?

The world’s largest rocket blows up spectacularly and Elon calls it a win.

There’s a metaphor in there somewhere…

Anyone who is an engineer or who works closely with them knows that failures are where you learn the most.

The booster uses 33 rocket motors. It appears, at least initially, that many of them were not operating. As a result the rocket could not reach a velocity necessary to achieve orbit and began to tumble end over end. Ground control initiated the self destruct mechanism.

If you ever want to understand why it is so hard to make a really big rocket motor work there is a great description of the problems NASA engineers had to overcome with the five first stage rocket motors used on the Saturn V booster you can see at the Marshall Space Center They were experiencing blowouts caused by combustion instability. The Russians had the same problems and never overcame them. Instead they use a larger number of smaller rocket motors like Musk is using. NASA engineers came up with the idea of a big spiral vane inside the nozzle to better mix the fuel and oxygen and achieved more stable combustion. They also made the rockets so powerful that even if one were lost on launch (which happened on Apollo 13) the remaining four were sufficient to lift the rocket into orbit.

I gues they learned "a lot" then.

And yes, failure is a necessary part of innovation and advancement.

Elon and his narcissim just makes it easy and fun to mock.

As much as I think in order to save the world, either Musk or Kennedy should be next President of the USA, Musk should be honest and admit he failed.

Regardless, I think Musk's companies, whilst technically excellent, all seem to display very risky profiles 'economically'. Tesla is a perfect example, technically superior in every way to every other car makers, but investors have not seen a dime of dividend. AND, reports said Musk is pursuing volumes over profit, hello Tesla already hold no1 spot in BEV volume globally???

SpaceX, IMHO, more of profitable satellite launches over going to Mars might be better for SpaceX' investors' bottom line??

Word has it they loaded Musk's ego to the rocket and it collapsed under its own weight.

Im happy that it exploded !!! The debris should have fallen on elons house and nasa headquaters ! Pie in the sky mission to mars, when there are so many people and problems that that kind of money could have helped, right here on earth.

Nobody said BIG DREAMS were easy!

"The company also confirmed that spacecraft triggered its flight termination system on both booster and ship."

Short-sellers will just have to wait for SpaceX's IPO, now those guys dream, real societal value, you know stuff like operational investments, new IP, jobs jobs jobs, new industries and companies, discovery of cosmos...NOT!

The world’s largest rocket blows up spectacularly and Elon calls it a win.

There’s a metaphor in there somewhere…..

Your wishful thinking is overiding the facts. The mission was hugely successful, and the data will be used to improve the next rocket which will be ready to launch in a few months. This outcome was expected.

Actually reading the article helps!

This outcome was expected.

Yeah, that doesn't mean what you think it means.

And I did read the article. Thanks.

Yes, Elon's managing expectations better these days, Tesla's whisper number +50B in sales increase for 2023!

"SpaceX also confirmed that spacecraft triggered its flight termination system on both booster and ship."

That's dollars fyi, not pesos, yuan, yen, etc.

he failed? trying and mostly succeeding at something that almost no one else but him in the world could even attempt?

sometimes I wonder what posters here think they have actually done and contributed in their lives that allow them to constantly speak in such a dismissive way.

The rocket wasn't supposed to reach orbit. It was headed to Hawaii, suborbital.

There are 2 ways to build rockets.

a) design, design, redesign, think, redesign, redesign, fight for budget, get denied, delayed, and 10+ yrs late, build, get close to launching. Of course, since Congress controls the budget, as much of that money has to be spread around the country as possible, regardless of the 50% increase to logistics cost it brings. That's the USGovt SLS project.

b) Design, build, launch, repeat. All done in the fewest locations possible. That's SpaceX's method.

BTW, NASA tried to cancel the SLS, but Congress wouldn't let them. NASA knew that SpaceX and other commercial launch platforms would get their faster, cheaper, without all the political aspects.

This was not a failure and it costs US taxpayer's $0. THAT's the really important part. We got a free show and SpaceX got publicity and data so they can correct issues.

It seemed that 5 of the 1st stage 33 Raptor engines failed. Russia had a similar problem with their heavy launch vehicle attempts. Around 30 seconds in, looked like at least 1 Raptor blew up, possibly taking a few other nearby engines.

Seeing the entire assembly corkscrew in the sky was a bit odd. The planned flight had it flipping over, then separation, and the 2nd stage would continue as the 1st stage tried to land. The separation never happened, perhaps because the 1st stage rockets didn't shut down when expected, and that was likely due to 5 Raptors being payload, not thrust.

Word has it they loaded Musk's ego to the rocket and it collapsed under its own weight.

Can you remember what it was exactly that made you turn against Elon after you bowed down to him for making Tesla?

Tiny elon may be a egomaniac nob but simply getting that rocket off the ground is a feat of engineering in itself.

Any rocket launch from the equator are mostly successful, because their is less orbital posterbastion the equator act as sling shot,hurling the rocket into space

I liked the semantics used by SpaceX, it was a “rapid, unscheduled disassembly.”

Artemis was a success ,NASA

I'm sure this spin that it was a successful learning incident isn't sitting too well with the people who may be going up in one of these things in the near future.

When billion dollar rockets don't fly as intended, then it's a failure. Call it for what it is.

the rocket was spewing parts while ascending until it finally went bellyup.

I wonder, they keep sending this clearly unfinished rocket into fireworks, do they hope for a better luck for a flawed design?

Tesla is a perfect example, technically superior in every way to every other car makers, but investors have not seen a dime of dividend.

I was quite keen on getting one, despite my disdain for Musk, but on reading more about them, there is a lot out there about how poor the build quality of the cars is.

Can you remember what it was exactly that made you turn against Elon after you bowed down to him for making Tesla?

For me it was when he accused someone trying to rescue the Thai teenagers trapped underground of being a paedophile because he rejected Musk's time wasting idea of building a special submarine.

Nothing he's said since has put him in a better light.

One thing is to recognize the lauch is a hugely difficult thing, and that even a partial success is still and advancement, but focusing exclusively in what was gained without also accepting that the failure to reach orbit means a lot of resources were necessary to get these limited advancement seems forced.

Recognize the good and the bad as well, not everything was lost but things were not as planned either.

NOMINATION: Can you remember what it was exactly that made you turn against Elon after you bowed down to him for making Tesla?

When changed from a brilliant, inspiring man to a bargain basement troll.

Starship is a new system. They could have spent the next 10 yrs studying all possible problems and wasting money or they could put it up, see what happens and gather some data.

I'm not against the "try it, see what happens" method, provided it doesn't harm other people or property.

To be VERY CLEAR - Starship was never going to reach orbit. That was never part of the flight profile. It was a sub-orbital launch.

What part of "test flight" is being missed? It was a test. A few weeks ago, Musk said there was a 50/50 chance of excitement. Think that was delivered. Musk is the big idea guy. He didn't create the GN&C code. He didn't weld any parts together. That's handled by the SpaceX employees.

At least we have a few days with him away from Twitter, which is dying.

BTW, NASA tried to cancel the SLS, but Congress wouldn't let them. NASA knew that SpaceX and other commercial launch platforms would get their faster, cheaper, without all the political aspects.

The only problem with that statement, and it is a big one, is that the SLS has flown successfully. It works now, not tomorrow. Musk didn't get their faster. He hasn't gotten there at all yet. For the time being SLS remains the largest and most powerful rocket to have flown.

This whole episode is a reminder of of something I have a great fondness for, Horner's Five Thumb Postulate:

Experience varies directly with the amount of equipment ruined.

'm sure this spin that it was a successful learning incident isn't sitting too well with the people who may be going up in one of these things in the near future.

Speed, it is not spin. Not at all. I work in R&D. Our mantra is "fail fast". That means take risks, fail and learn from those failures to improve the product rapidly. It is a recognition failures are where engineers learn the most and a recognition that advancing material science and engineering knowledge requires taking risks that lead to failures.

Elon Musk is a scumbag, but if he can get his rockets working and sell Twitter, he could be remembered along with other rich scumbags that have done some good.

It’s really like rolling a dice, 50/50 chance, you will never know what you're going to get. That’s scientific to you. Are there any parts made in China or are they all made in the US, I wonder? Last year China conducted 50 missions with 140 spacecrafts that all reached the orbit successfully. Why not make sure that the rocket will reach the orbit and learn from your success than failure.

Elon Musk is a scumbag, but if he can get his rockets working and sell Twitter, he could be remembered along with other rich scumbags that have done some good.

Sell Twitter? Musk has apparently found a new CEO for it, his dog Floki. The poor doggie :(

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-calls-dog-twitter-ceo-dresses-it-elizabeth-holmes-2023-4

All in all a great success showing American ingenuity; even NASA praised the efforts. Well done.

Didn't realise this is going to the moon some day.

Must give credit where it's due.

Musk came through with his promise at least.