APRIL 15, 2015
On Tuesday, April 14, the commercial spaceflight company
SpaceX attempted what would have been a game-changing feat when it tried to
land a rocket on a robotic platform in the Atlantic Ocean.
The idea is to create reusable rockets that detach from
their payloads and fly back to Earth. Spaceflight companies could launch the
same rocket over and over and dramatically reduce the cost of launches.
The technology is still in the works, and this landing
attempt didn’t quite go as planned.
The rocket came in almost perfectly vertical, but as SpaceX
CEO Elon Musk put it:
Looks like Falcon landed fine, but excess lateral velocity
caused it to tip over post landing pic.twitter.com/eJWzN6KSJa
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 14, 2015
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 14, 2015
It was obvious that there was too much exhaust gas and
resulting pressure that caused the rocket to flip and explode. This was not even close. Some very obvious and elementary
miscalculations.
The only footage we had yesterday was this Vine that SpaceX
released and it shows no rocket explosion (trying not to scare investors by providing half truths or avoiding the release of the aftermath or putting a positive spin on everything):
Now, there’s a video that shows what happened after the Vine
cut off.
You can see the rocket start to tip over:
And then it hits the deck in a fiery explosion:
There definitely won’t be any reusable parts after that
landing, which Musk mildly deemed “too hard for survival.”
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com.au