Unmanned SpaceX Falcon explodes on takeoff

This happened a few minutes ago:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-28/caught-tape-elon-musks-spacex-falcon-9-rocket-explodes-take-after-anomaly


Caught On Tape - Elon Musk's SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Explodes On Take-Off After "Anomaly"
Tyler Durden's pictureSubmitted by Tyler Durden on 06/28/2015 10:33 -0400

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Having been picked by NASA, and funded by US taxpayers, to ship a cargo capsule to the Space Station, Elon Musk's SpaceX 9 Falcon Rocket has exploded shortly after takeoff due to what is being called an "anomaly."

Everything was going well for 20 seconds..


Videos of explosion follow.

More here:

http://news.sky.com/story/1509814/nasa-spacex-hit-by-launch-vehicle-failure

The Dragon capsule was bringing 4,000lb (1,800kg) of gear to the space station, including a large parking space, known as an International Docking Adaptor.

This was designed to make it easier for other commercial spacecraft to dock at the orbiting lab in future.

Also on board the cargo ship were dozens of science experiments, including one that would have allowed astronauts to grow their own cabbage and lettuce.

Another experiment by school students aimed to study how worms behaved in a compost pile in space.

The spacecraft was built and launched by privately owned Space Exploration Technologies, led by entrepreneur Elon Musk.

Three men are currently living at the space station: American astronaut Scott Kelly and two Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and station commander Gennady Padalka.

That's what happens when you give it to someone who doesn't know a thing about it and take if away from NASA.

Yup. There are a few things that really ought to be left to the State - and space travel is definitely one of them. Looks like they'll be refuelling the Russian rockets yet again.

To add insult to injury, Elon Musk probably doesn't care as it has been funded by the taxpayers just as it would if NASA was in charge.

At least the space station crew won't starve. According to RT:

The International Space Station, which is currently operating with a skeleton crew of three, has been plagued by poor deliveries in the past months.

A US mission failed last October, when the delivery vehicle exploded on the launchpad, and a Russian Progress freighter failed to connect with the space station after reaching orbit.

Russia will launch another mission next week from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Well.....Obama did say that America wasn't exceptional when he first came to power.  It was but now it is definitely not.   

Seems he was psychic.....

Yes, and then Obama came along.....

I was watching old film of the Apollo launches a few days ago in some documentary - where did all those men that actually knew what they were doing, and were competent, go to? How did NASA manage to go from landing on the moon, to being incapable of getting out of Earth orbit?

It's because they wanted to get space travel into private hands but NASA is still funding exploration for instance, Mars.  It's the year round common or garden space travel that they wanted to farm out.

Ah, right. Unfortunately, the bread and butter stuff - like finding out how to grow food in space - is actually rather important if anyone wants to go to Mars.....

Of course it is, Bonny.   However, they have been spending money like drunken sailors and don't seem to know how to budget and other boring things like that?  So, important projects suffer.  

Never mind maybe they will give more of them to others like Musk.

Good video here of Soyuz launch:

http://www.rt.com/news/310514-space-mission-soyuz-iss/

Happily, it and the three people on board reached the space station safely in just under six hours.

Happy to hear and see that Bonny.