Scotius

Ah, man - what insanity And i missed it due to this pesky need to sleep Anyways, that explosion looked very energetic. There was that much methane leftover in the tank after the flight?

Better abort than a fireball. Better luck next time

Abort!

Fixed it for ya

Oh, yes - that's a lot of wires I hope birds will evacuate posthaste when pre-launch activities commence LOL

"Falling Shield" sounds better

I like the fact that more or less all modern, commercial launchers are of simple "single stick" design. Falcon 9, Antares, Electron, Vega - all are similar, without unnecessary bells and whistles like side-mounted SRB's. Or weird Russian parallel stages

First photo just came in!!!

I wouldn't say it would be moot. Sooner or later we will send astronauts to land on Mars. For crewed spaceship sky-crane, parachutes and airbags aren't really an option. Gathering experience with powered landings on Mars, using hardware that completed its main mission and is now expendable would be similar to the way SpaceX used to perfect the recovery of Falcon 9 boosters.

I wonder if anyone ever considered landing the sky-crane once it releases the rover and flies some distance away? If it can hover with the lander hanging below, it should have both thrust and control to land itself, right?

Pretty much this. Any company working on space transportation should want to project positive image. Even just so politicians would notice public interest in space exploration. Also, it helps when you are being seen as modern, progressive and ready to push boundaries. It works well for car manufacturers

Oh wow! BO actually demonstrated something resembling a rocket. Aside from New Shepard, of course. So far, keeping New Glenn sub rosa did not made them many friends in space nerd community - wonder if this reveal will repair BO's reputation?

Then we'll build orbiting cities Build a 'stock' Starship. Furnish its interior as a living space comparable to apartment block. Launch it. Launch modular docking adapter. Start stacking Starships together, adding docking adapters in quantity and configuration as needed. Add infrastructure. Hospital Starships. University Starships. Factory Starships. Warehouse Starships. Agriculture Starships. Power plant Starships. Ideally, organize everything in a configuration that can rotate, providing artificial gravity. Have fun with you Space Lego City!

I hope it will not be too complicated. Spaceship's shape is much simpler than Shuttle's after all. Cylindrical-to-conical tapering pipe vs. delta-winged spaceplane with elements of lifting body mixed in

See the circular thing on the right of the rocketplane? It's a repurposed orange juicer It's so iconic, it returned in newest CGI series of Thunderbirds.