CatastrophicFailure

Gotta love December in the PacNorWest.

And I’m here in Seattleish all like...

Looking at it closer and in better light, I think the tank cap did, indeed, pop off. If you look close, you can see the scalloped weld line just before where the metal ceases to exist. Actually a really good sign, since it doesn’t look like the weld failed at all even after such a catastrophic event, the base metal is what tore free. Ever drop a beer soda bottle straight down so that it lands upright on its bottom and shoots up a fountain? Looks like similar happened here, only that “fountain” took the tank cap along with it. I think that would be a hard case for the SEC, et al to argue, at least in case of electric motors. Using a Tesla motor means it’s a product those in the loop understand very well, have near-direct access to every bit of data about how it performs under X condition, and have a level of trust in the quality of the product they won’t have with a random contractor (remember those pesky upper stage COPV struts?). It seems like an absolutely logical decision to go with Tesla motors here, even if it’s also very convenient.

One minute later...

May, of course, be missing some significant bits, but... for what it’s worth...

Pix or it din’t happen.

That’ll buff out...

Well, I mean, there is those other guys. Y’know, the ones we don’t hear about often, have their own little moon program, even launched & landed a few (sub-orbital-class) things...

SpaceX is arguably the world leader in propulsive rocket landing right now, they have literal metric tons of data on such. The last 10m of the flight is relatively easy, it’s the whole “controlled fall” bit that’s the big unknown, that no one’s really studied yet. They really need to get into that regime ASAP to get the info they need the most.

https://www.krgv.com/news/spacex-planned-9-mile-launch-self-destruct-zone-over-gulf (shamelessly ganked from NSF) Some interesting details above, mostly confirming what’s been speculated. Yes, the 50 kilofoot flight will indeed head out over the water, and has an FTS system in case things go sideways. Well, more sideways than they’re supposed to. SpaceX was seriously considering launch as early as the 3rd of this month before... stuff happened.

The official word, not saying very much... there was also this a couple hours before, may or may not be anything:

Encountered this while out driving today. Thought it was a really large dog at first. It was a deer. Apparently it’s a thing around here, we have, like... Dalmatian deers... (note the derpy little smile) Also, found some folks who needed to re-home their critters, so to the Einstein-haired bunny and nosey black guinea pig, we added another guinea pig... ...and a small, oblong tribble.

Delayed at least a day: Also, Stalinked confirmed:

Yeesh, looks like me coming home from work most nights. Rough seas, maybe? I don’t recall the landing looking that hard, I wonder if a big wave after the fact could have caused enough of a bang to collapse one of the crush cores.

I hate it when that happens. So... burning air, then? In all seriousness, if the flarping fuel plumbing melted(!!!!!!), it’s really mind-boggling that the whole thing didn’t go all critical existence failure.

Wow... so like... I just watched all this on a proper screen, finally. The glowey-drippy part came over a minute after the actual static fire. How the heck does stuff get hot enough to still be molten that long after the fiery bit and not make the whole dang thing go up in flames?

Eek. ...well... crap... Too much Taco Bell.

And now, just to really mess with y’all’s heads... I have to hear it, now so do you.

Clearly, Kerbals run WindowsXP. ...which might explain a few things...

Halloween Metal. Tho... I suppose all metal is Halloween Metal... skulls... corpses... James Hetfield Frankenstein... I’m a bit more partial to the Toyes’ version myself...

“You keep what you kill.” [stares hard at Boeing]

The complete stack will be taller than the Saturn V. Superheavy alone is the same size as the first and second stages of the SV combined. And it’s gonna come hurtling back down from the sky right towards the camera like some big shiny Necromonger dropship.

Reading some of the back and forth on this got me thinking... hey @mikegarrison, you know a thing or two about 747s, maybe you know this: on Boeing’s Dreamlifter, the whole dang tail swings open to load cargo. Are all the various electricals, hydraulics, cables, etc run through the hinge mechanism or is there some kind of quick-disconnect around the periphery?