Free For All – Explosions

This month I bring you…. a free explosion. Now you may say that explosions are inherently costly, or that you can go to any NASCAR event and see a crash, this explosion, however, is a new breed. Usually the explosion of a spacecraft is completely unexpected and sometimes tragically fatal. In the case of SpaceX Falcon 9 vs. a floating barge, it was no big surprise that the barge won. Landing a Falcon 9 booster on a floating barge is a first for space technology, as SpaceX is attempting to reuse the booster by safely maneuvering and landing the rocket. So it didn’t come as a huge shock that the first attempt was a bust. During the landing, the rocket managed to find the barge and attempted to land, but that’s when it ran out of hydraulic fluid, causing it to tip, crash and then explode. A camera affixed to the barge caught all of the spine tingling action.

Following the crash, the CEO of SpaceX posted this tweet:

At least he has a sense of humor about it, I might blame some of my own misadventures on RUD.