SpaceX launches test rocket that breaks apart before landing

[left-of-center2012]

SpaceX chalked up another failed landing Tuesday for its futuristic, bullet-shaped Starship, as the prototype Mars rocket broke apart right before touchdown.

A camera on the rocket froze not quite six minutes into the test flight, and dense fog in South Texas obscured views of the ruptured rocket. Other video showed debris raining down, and explosions could be heard.

This was the fourth full-scale stainless steel model to launch since December to an altitude of more than 6 miles. The previous three exploded at touchdown or shortly afterward.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-03-30/spacex-launches-test-rocket-breaks-apart-before-landing#:~:text=SpaceX%20chalked%20up%20another%20failed,views%20of%20the%20ruptured%20rocket.

[PortTack]

1. Seriously..the billions being spent could relieve so much suffering for ppl of the world

Why?

I consider myself quite the science geek, but Humans are never going to mars to colonize..it’s nonsense.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

2. Elon Musk needs to grift nt

[Loki Liesmith]

3. Man will never fly

The Wright brothers should have spent their resources increasing agricultural production.

[misanthrope]

4. Until we can counteract Mars' lack of a magnetosphere

colonizing Mars is an impossibility.

[lagomorph777]

7. I agree - but cheap access to space has more practical uses.

e.g. asteroid mining.

[Amishman]

9. and a hollowed out nickel-iron asteroid would be a great place to build a habitat

especially if large enough and the remaining shell thick enough to be spun up enough to simulate low gravity.

[Amishman]

8. It's not as impossible as it sounds

We'd need viable fusion reactors or some other more efficient form of electrical generation, but a massive artificial magnet parked at Mars's L1 orbit could do it. Not possible now, but assuming reasonable advances in technology, possible in 50-100 years.

[USALiberal]

5. So stop all space travel? Nt

[Amishman]

6. because it will expand the technological base needed to extend humanity off this world

Perhaps it was too much Star Trek as a kid, but I still firmly believe space and other worlds are our collective destiny.