Photo by Manuel Mazzanti/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The spectacular launchpad explosion of the new Blue Origin rocket leaves NASA more dependent on Elon Musk’s company than ever.
In spaceflight, nothing is routine. Even when the rocket is standing still.
Last week, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin launch company fueled up its enormous New Glenn rocket on a Florida launchpad. The Blue Origin team was preparing to run a static fire test, a standard procedure that involves briefly igniting the engines while the rocket stays locked to the pad. It’s a way to ensure everything is working properly before the actual launch, which was scheduled for June 4.
Things didn’t work properly. A few seconds after the engines lit up, the rocket exploded in a stupendous fireball that hurled flaming debris across the Cape Canaveral shoreline.
Fortunately, no one was hurt. But the explosion was caught on cameras for miles around and shook the earth more than 100 miles away. After noting the lack of casualties, many online commenters expressed awe at the images. Special effects departments will “imitate it for years to come,” one prominent screenwriter tweeted on X. “Michael Bay is somewhere saying, ‘Damn, not bad.’ ”
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James B. Meigs is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a City Journal contributing editor.