
Elon Musk on SpaceX failure: Engines off and no apparent heat source - rrggrr
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-09/elon-musk-calls-spacex-explosion-most-vexing-failure-in-14-years
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sunstone
Given the the various aspects of this launch, satellite for Israel, growing
competition for Russia's current monopoly on manned launch capacity,
entrenched players disliking the new launch kid on the block etc.

It would be naive not to acknowledge that several nation states and other
powerful and knowledgeable tech entities would have an interest in a dramatic
failure like this.

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ConfuciusSay02
Elon's statements here add fuel to the already burning fire of suspicion over
this event, given the fact that the sale of the company that made the AMOS-6
satellite to a Chinese military controlled company was contingent on this
successful launch.

If some entity were to have decided they did not want China to get access to
this technology, there's your motive.

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sunstone
Oh right, the Chinese connection had slipped my mind. Certainly that too.

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mentalpiracy
The day of the explosion, someone somewhere had asked the question "How much
damage could a rifle shot do to a rocket on a launchpad."

As I recall, this question was dismissed out of hand at the time, without an
answer, owing to the plethora of more likely electrical/mechanical points of
failure.

While this is still a supremely unlikely scenario given the ample security
perimeter, surveillance, etc etc... can someone with more knowledge than me on
the subject humor the scenario?

A follow up of my own, in the same vein (though not directly related to this
incident): how small are the odds of a launching vehicle taking micrometeoroid
damage in the atmosphere? If this were to ever occur, this scenario is almost
always going to result in the loss of the craft, correct?

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scrumper
I was interested in this too. Shooting the tank could perhaps have done this.
So I researched a bit. A large calibre anti-materiel rifle of the type legally
available for purchase in the US has a maximum effective range of about 2km,
while its projectiles have shed almost all their energy before 7km out.
Looking at a google map of the complex[1] there's no way a saboteur is getting
within that effective or even maximum range: it's just miles and miles of
Kennedy Space Center and Air Force base. Maybe from a boat, but that's really
heavily patrolled (and much harder to shoot from).

[1]
[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Space+Launch+Complex+40/@2...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Space+Launch+Complex+40/@28.5655888,-80.6948604,12.05z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x88e0bb1a0a9edd77:0x983d6a01a54ad7e5!8m2!3d28.5620893!4d-80.577228)

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mentalpiracy
Ah so you'd need a pretty large and specialized piece of hardware for this
then, it seems. Not something that some clown could do on a whim with a .308
hunting rifle.

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scrumper
Yes, pretty specialized; even then, as I was saying, not really viable. There
are .50 cal rifles available for purchase which meet the range performance
numbers I gave. These are about the longest range, most powerful, man-
portable, unguided projectile weapons available for civilian (or indeed
military) use. After that you're into missiles, artillery pieces, or naval
guns which aren't really worth discussing.

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maweki
Probably the latest attempt on the SpaceX-project by time-travelers. We will
see many more of those in the future, disguised as accidents.

What secrets is the future trying to protect?

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pawadu
> We will see many more of those in the future,

You mean in the past?

