CatastrophicFailure

And led to a thermal curtain failure due to a differing burn time. And with no mischievous spherical robot to help, either. The orbiter crew surviving ditching is probably impossible too. The space shuttle truly was a flying brick, touchdown speed was on the order of 220mph, almost twice what Sully’s famous ditch was at, and a 737 is actually designed for such, too. The crew had no way to bail out, either. Even if the stack had only failed after SRB sep, outside of the atmosphere, there’s no way the orbiter could have survived, there were HUGE “black zones” in the flight profile where LOCV was guaranteed after a major failure. The updated procedures after Challenger didn’t entirely eliminate them, either. What @sevenperforce said. Also, in that recent Soyuz abort, the booster actually struck the core and caused it to depressurize and go off course, yet the capsule was fine with only tiny separation motors.

In all fairness, once you’re more or less “in space” a full-up LES isn’t really necessary, things generally happen slowly enough to shut a malfunctioning booster down and abort with the spacecraft’s orbital engines. Soyuz did this after a staging failure a long while back, and even the most recent abort only used small motors on the fairing, the main tower had already been discarded.

Just have to add my own thanks to @Mythos. Had the infamous docking port bug and I was about ready to start "disassembling" my ginormous ship with the object thrower, KML Editor fixed multiple docking ports with just a click! Now to choke on the landing and crash it into the surface...

I'll just chalk it up to being... thorough... SpaceX can also do it a lot more economically than... those other guys. Used booster, probably a surplus/STA tank, dummy engine, and potential capsule re-use. The test itself probably won't cost them that much, relatively speaking, while ULA would have to spend nearly as much as an actual launch.

Man, this is gonna be so cool...

Video of above. Appears to be a proper plume, not an "uh-oh..."

Yeah. See, if I had the money, I’d totally drop it on this. This. Believe it or not, but demand will still exceed supply once they start flying, I think. Once they’ve got more pods and boosters completed and can fly more often, the price will come down. Maybe not to Joe Schmo levels, but a single hundred-thousand is still better than multiples.

Yup, looks like the next pass will be right overhead. Aaaaaaaaaand it’s cloudy.

“Everyone knows the war is basically over, but we’re just gonna keep on shooting until a very specific time...” <facepalm>

Well of course, it’s got the most experience. Professionals always make it look easy.

So... we’ve got a launch time and approximate inclination here, could any of y’all numbers people extrapolate this and figure when a future pass might be?

Yes.

Interesting, they’re potentially launching with a dead sat, by the sound...

On shore winds? Looks more like a meteor shower.

Then... why do I see a sloth with a half-melted face?

So it would seem. Aww, man...

wait, what? Going live in about 15 minutes from the official channel. Wasn’t expecting this, anyone know what’s going on? orrrrr not. Someone’s been faffing about in the SpaceX media room it seems...

Well, his stated goal IS Building Better Worlds™️....

Ninja’d. Poop.

Watch everyone scatter like roaches when the mods show up... Soft little clicks...

Or for launching a Mobile Infantry invasion of Planet P, which could only be a resounding success. [Would you like to know more..?]

Good view of some proper-looking RCS thrusters here, also the canard actuator... and apparently someone’s taking a shower inside... Must be like a sauna in there anyway...

I did not click this. Swap gas refracted the light from Venus something something anyways, look right here:

Nonsense. Squad does a HAHO jump from a top hatch as soon as the vessel is subsonic, vessel then crashes into target in a huge explosion, eliminating both the target AND any need to recover the vessel, squad lands in a hellish, burning wasteland to mop up any survivors assist the locals. Egress via standard helicopters since any remaining hostiles within several kilometers have gone off in search of fresh chonies. Simple logic. I might have to use this...

Finally, we have a launch coming!