Typical Scandinavian-American family, circa 1900 » « Elon Musk is a fake everything

The Horrendous Space Kablooie

Horrendous, but spectacularly flamboyant: SpaceX’s “Starship” exploded over the Caribbean, producing an amazing fireworks show as tons of debris rained down over the ocean. Scott Manley explains what happened.

Typical Scandinavian-American family, circa 1900 » « Elon Musk is a fake everything

Comments

  1. birgerjohansson says

    A fuel leak that was not vented fast enough, building up pressure in the cavity behind the engine heat shielding.
    ‘The day before Jeff Bezos’ first stage of ‘New Glenn’ launched fine but lost telemetry while landing.
    .
    Do you like explosions and fireworks? Here is a fun prognosis: “Global economy could face 50% loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090 from climate shocks, say actuaries”
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/16/economic-growth-could-fall-50-over-20-years-from-climate-shocks-say-actuaries
    (Give me time and I might find the odd asteroid with our name on it as well)

  4. fishy says

    I wonder what kind of a light show the dinosaurs were treated to as ejecta from the asteroid strike reentered the atmosphere and turned the world into an easy-bake oven.

  7. outis says

    Thx for the video, but it reminded me that the EM wants to put people on Mars using that by 2028 – not very reassuring is it. It may be unlikely seeing it being rated for human flights for a while yet…

  8. says

    I know this is not a nice thing to say, but, it is what many, many are now thinking: The only thing that would make this explosion more satisfying would be if the muskrat was on board.

  9. says

    Elon is continually promising Any Minute Now milestones like the moon lander and going to Mars but Starship still hasn’t made it to orbit. Flying the promised Artemis moon lander seems more and more like a pipe dream. Of course the Petulant Plutocrat will blame everything on FAA delays. Flightradar24 had tracks of MANY airliners having to divert because of falling debris concerns over the Caribbean.

  14. Silentbob says

    @ 10 Walter Solomon

    Expensive fireworks shows seems to be all SpaceX is capable of doing.

    C’mon. I’m all for hating on bigoted fascist Musk, but this is trivially false.

    SpaceX, another commercial partner, conducted an uncrewed Demo-1 flight in March 2019, and in May 2020, the Demo-2 flight carried NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley to the space station. The first operational mission, Crew-1, launched in November 2020. Since then, SpaceX has regularly sent crews to the orbiting laboratory for scientific missions. The Dragon spacecraft launches on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

    They’ve also indisputably pioneered boosters that return to be reused rather than ending up as trash in the ocean. Including on the very mission you’re mocking as shown in the OP video.

  15. Silentbob says

    I think it’s safe for me to say no company (or government department) building rockets to go to space has ever not had things go kablooie. They use “rocket science” as a euphemism for “difficult” for a reason.

  16. StevoR says

    @ 10. Walter Solomon : “Expensive fireworks shows seems to be all SpaceX is capable of doing.”

    No. That’s just plain wrong.

    While reaching space is impressive on its own, the Dragon made history when it returned to earth, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean about 500 miles off the coast of Mexico in what must have been an impressive cannonball. It was the first time a private spacecraft returned from orbit.

    Plus :

    In yet another first, SpaceX built the first private spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. More than a year after the Dragon’s successful landing in the Pacific, SpaceX sent it to the ISS. After a lengthy approach — the Dragon launched on May 22, then spent days maneuvering and sending data back to SpaceX — astronauts aboard the ISS used a robotic arm to pull the capsule to a docking port.

    In addition to :

    Landing on a relatively small object out in the ocean is impressive — seems like the folks at SpaceX might be fearsome Cricket players — and important for future missions, as it is more cost effective to try and land in the ocean than on land.

    As well as :

    Having proven that it could use Falcon 9 rockets multiple times, SpaceX set out to demonstrate the same reusability with the Dragon. On June 3, 2017, the company used a Falcon 9 rocket to launch a previously used Dragon spacecraft back into orbit. It was the company’s eleventh mission to bring supplies to the ISS, and the Dragon in question was previously used in the fourth such mission.

    Also amongst more & quite recently and been covered on this blog before :

    Four private astronauts are back on Earth after a five-day mission (Polaris Dawn -ed) that set firsts and broke records in an effort to advance human spaceflight….(snip).. Isaacman, Poteet, Gillis and Menon became the first four people to be exposed to the vacuum of space at the same time when on the mission’s third day the Dragon was depressurized in preparation for the world’s first commercial spacewalk. Isaacman and Gillis took turns partially emerging from the capsule’s upper hatch to test SpaceX’s new EVA (extravehicular activity) spacesuit.

    Sources : https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/spacex-biggest-milestones/#dt-heading-first-droneship-landingapril-2016 & https://www.space.com/polaris-dawn-splashdown-records-firsts

    Plus there’s a list of more SpaceX achievements and milestones here too :

    https://journalsofindia.com/spacex-and-its-achievements/

    Including :

    Falcon 1 becomes the first privately developed liquid fuel rocket to reach Earth orbit in 2008.
    Falcon 1 Flight 5 makes history, becoming the first privately developed liquid fuel rocket to deliver a commercial satellite to Earth orbit in 2009.

    Also :

    In 2018 Falcon Heavy became the world’s most powerful operational rocket by a factor of two, capable of carrying large payloads to orbit and supporting missions as far as the Moon or Mars.

    Plus :

    The first private company to send a human-rated spacecraft to space (Crew Dragon Demo-1 Mission, SpX Flight 72 on Falcon 9 flight 69 on March 2, 2019) and the first private company to autonomously dock a spacecraft to the International Space Station (same flight on March 3, 2019)

    With plenty more that we’ve all (most of us?) seen ourselves on the news.including past Starship flights that ahve exceeded expectations.

    Musk is an utter douche and scumbag but SpaceX has flwon and worked wonders and developed space tech that we all gain and learn from so let’s not throw the hard work and efforts of SpaceX workers and engineers out with Musks’ deplorable fascism and politics please.

  18. Jim Brady says

    I still don’t understand why they want to use a stupendous single rocket to go direct to remote planets. It would seem to me, the way to do it is with space stations. Gravity wells are the big problem. Of course in Startrek, they used teleports so they avoided the problem.

  19. StevoR says

    @ ^ Jim Brady : Well that and their shuttles – and, oh yeah, warp drive starships* mainly. Among other things.

    Personally, that spore drive from Discovery sounds ideal to me.. If only I had a ship that could do that & be able to fly it & it wasn’t just fiction…

    Star Trek Discovery – First Time Using Spore Drive in Battle – HD by Ecoy Jago, length 3.43 mins.

    .* NOT the SpaceX ones which, er, don;t actually go interstellar actually so misnamed tho’ still extremely impressive.

  20. rietpluim says

    Fireworks are supposed to be fun.
    It is kinda fun to see Musk fail. Again.
    The pollution and the waste of resources are not very funny though.

  21. StevoR says

    @ ^ rietpluim : Musk ain’t SpaceX.

    Perspective and the relative extent of things here. Subjective. Think about it.

    How does progress & learning ever happen if people cannot try? With all that trying implies?

  22. Walter Solomon says

    With all that trying implies?

    Such as loss of life, wasting of resources, and polluting the environment? With this mentality, you can justify nearly anything for the sake of “progress.”

  23. rietpluim says

    @StevoR #21

    Musk ain’t SpaceX.

    That sounds fair. Though it bugs me to see Musk get credits.

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