This is a breaking story, so the 24-hour rule applies: All reports within the first 24 hours are suspect. But we will strive to give you the most accurate information.
So today was a flight test for a “fully integrated Starship and Super Heavy rocket.”
Teams continue working towards Thursday, April 20 for the first flight test of a fully integrated Starship and Super Heavy rocket → https://t.co/30pJlZmrTQ pic.twitter.com/YwSuNdAR3o
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 19, 2023
We won’t pretend we know the significance of that. But we happen to be friends with John Hoge (@wjjhoge on Twitter) who is a contractor for NASA, who jokes, ‘I’m not a rocket scientist. I do applied quantum physics,’ and he agreed to speak with us in his personal capacity, as an expert. He explained that the significance of it being a fully integrated Starship and Super Heavy rocket was that previously they had tested each of those components separately, but this was the first time they were testing them as a single unit.
So, there was no one in the rocket, and they were just testing things out, and at first the launch went well:
Liftoff of Starship! pic.twitter.com/4t8mRP37Gp
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 20, 2023
But then test rocket experienced … well, we will let them explain:
As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 20, 2023
Okay, we need someone to translate that from corporate speak to English:
SpaceX is calling it “a rapid unscheduled disassembly”.
In my day, we called it an explosion.
— Jack E. Smith ⚖️ (@7Veritas4) April 20, 2023
Yeah, pretty much.
Hoge emailed us his explanation of what he saw: ‘I watched SpaceX’s live feed on the Internet. It appeared there was a problem with the main engine cutoff sequence and the separation of the second stage followed by an explosion.’
The official SpaceX Twitter account had this to say about the ‘rapid unscheduled disassembly’:
With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multi-planetary
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 20, 2023
That’s probably the best spin they can put on it, and it’s a valid point. While we are sure they would have preferred that the rocket operate perfectly, failure is part of the process, too. For instance, when they attempted to launch Apollo 1, the cabin caught fire and three American heroes (Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee) died. Less than two years and a half years later, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. We are grateful, however, that today’s failure resulted in no casualties.
Some were supportive:
👨🏻🔧Never mistake trial for failure. As you say in #BocaChica, “it’s not an explosion, it’s just rapid unscheduled disassembly.” Congrats 😎 @SpaceX on this #Starship launch! #SpaceX pic.twitter.com/67Y3brzbgs
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) April 20, 2023
That was awesome. Initial success and an explosion. Love the innovation and dreaming big. Failure is critical to success. Well done @elonmusk and SpaceX. https://t.co/ZQoGUZQBRh
— Spencer Cox (@SpencerJCox) April 20, 2023
More on the … uh… ‘unscheduled disassembly’:
(That phrase is never not going to be funny to us.)
📹 SpaceX Starship Rocket Suffers Mid-Flight Failure after Maiden Launch – the biggest rocket in history spins out of control after an apparent explosion and drops to Earth in a ball of smoke and flames
-RT pic.twitter.com/YyQ4asYwuq
— MARIA (@its_maria012) April 20, 2023
Appears the Corpus radar caught the SpaceX explosion. pic.twitter.com/sZ03wSAROk
— Matt Lanza (@mattlanza) April 20, 2023
We cannot verify this, so take it with a grain of salt. Meanwhile, this guy really sees a silver lining, here:
I don’t think people realize how much hung on that launch.
If Starship blew up on the pad, causing the largest non-nuclear explosion and destroying Starbase, the anti-Musk cynics would have come out in droves to block a second try.
By clearing that tower, SpaceX unlocked Mars.
— [email protected] (@gfodor) April 20, 2023
And some were happy because apparently, they hate Elon Musk for making Twitter fairer or something:
Blowed up good!
Blowed up REAL GOOD!#SpaceX pic.twitter.com/zdOw34gxf4— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) April 20, 2023
#starship ended with an explosion!
Well done #spacex team! 🚀#StarshipLaunch pic.twitter.com/FjpiDXoEyX— Arthur (@ArthurSpeaking) April 20, 2023
Predictably, Starship exploded and @elonmusk is attempting to bullshit his way through another management failure. And predictably, his legions of braindead potato-eating cultists are excusing it.
NYT had the story about the explosion PREWRITTEN. https://t.co/SQb9HPoCAb https://t.co/ncyAFjYMAA
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) April 20, 2023
you seemed so happy after the explosion pic.twitter.com/ItWJa1U9ek
— Elskipler (@ElSkipler) April 20, 2023
Elon Musk doesn’t want you to share this#SpaceX pic.twitter.com/qUHpbjre0m
— David Leavitt (@David_Leavitt) April 20, 2023
Who else is experiencing waves of enjoyment over this SpaceX explosion? pic.twitter.com/u38SkHWRwR
— Rick's thinking about it🌵 (@DaysonRick) April 20, 2023
And, well … this is random:
Does anyone else see the face in the @SpaceX Starship explosion? @elonmusk @NASA pic.twitter.com/BrhQYYTuab
— 🌐📍Joseph Mendoza (@NomadJoeM) April 20, 2023
It was aliens, wasn’t it?
(Yes, we are joking.)
But we did find credible information as to what actually caused the explosion:
Dear Mr @elonmusk Ser,
We found the cause of the explosion…@SpaceX #spacex pic.twitter.com/aq33I1p3S3
— $HOSKY Token 💩 (@hoskytoken) April 20, 2023
That man is the kiss of death!
(Okay, okay, we checked and it doesn’t appear to be a real tweet from Cramer. But it is funny.)
Join the conversation as a VIP Member