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.
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.
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?
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).
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.
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.
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.