Other than a full on nuclear explosion, this has to the most monumental explosion I've even seen.
No one hurt apparently. 👍
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cvgz0pdg32mo
In a statement on social media, Blue Origin said it had "experienced an anomaly" during a hotfire test.
That does seem quite a safe conclusion to make.
Ooft, that's rather spectacular....
Other than a full on nuclear explosion, this has to the most monumental explosion I've even seen.
No one hurt apparently. 👍
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cvgz0pdg32mo
Beirut would like a word...
Its a big fireball right enough but in terms of accidental explosions i doubt it even registers.
Musk and Bezos compete for the the biggest fire balls
I don't think it's even an explosion, it's just a very big fire. Deflagration rather than detonation. The towers right next to it are still standing so I doubt there was any supersonic blast wave.
Very much a Hollywood explosion. As fake as the celebrities in space flight 😂
Beirut would like a word...
I thought the same this morning, apparently the Beirut fertilizer explosion is one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded.
Yeah but still fairly small. I think Fauld is the largest non nuclear explosion and halifax the largest non military explosion (and most destructive by a long way)
Looks like they should've built out of the whatever the stand was made off. That seems fairly untouched.
Billionaire ****s, eh?
What a time to be alive
And this is why we have "minimum safe distance." I've watched a rocket launch from about 2 miles outside minimum safe distance and I'm not sure as I'd have wanted to be much closer; that cato must have been a hell of a thing to witness first-hand.
one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded.
it's interesting that aside from one rocket fuel explosion, all of those incidents are either ammonium-based (presumably) fertiliser or actual explosives.
I don't think it's even an explosion, it's just a very big fire. Deflagration rather than detonation. The towers right next to it are still standing so I doubt there was any supersonic blast wave.
Very much a Hollywood explosion. As fake as the celebrities in space flight
Did you even watch the video? There's a very evident shockwave at the moment of the blast and two of the three closest lightning towers were completely obliterated.
Dawn is 06:26 local time, so it'll start getting light over the next hour. We'll probably then start seeing pics of the damage appearing. I'd imagine it's pretty substantial. They have a 2nd booster in the building around 500m from the pad. Did that building get damaged?
I guess that's BO out of the launch business for at least a year to rebuild the pad.
Which reminds me, on another topic, does anyone know if the Soyuz pad has been repaired after their mishap in November?
Very much a Hollywood explosion. As fake as the celebrities in space flight
"Hey I know, let's take a multi-million (billion?) dollar rocket and pretend to blow it up on the launch pad. That'll really keep the masses under control!"
Ever notice how the vast majority of conspiracy theories crumble under the most basic question: "why?" Like all the flerfers who were falling over themselves to "debunk" the Artemis II mission recently; if I were NASA* and I'd got away with hoaxing an entire planet** into believing we'd been to the moon, I'd be keeping very quiet rather than continually risking providing more evidence.
(* - weird how no other space agencies exist)
(** - aside from the 'awake' brigade, obvs)
Will this mean more adverts on Prime?
"Hey I know, let's take a multi-million (billion?) dollar rocket and pretend to blow it up on the launch pad. That'll really keep the masses under control!"
Ever notice how the vast majority of conspiracy theories crumble under the most basic question: "why?" Like all the flerfers who were falling over themselves to "debunk" the Artemis II mission recently; if I were NASA* and I'd got away with hoaxing an entire planet** into believing we'd been to the moon, I'd be keeping very quiet rather than continually risking providing more evidence.
(* - weird how no other space agencies exist)
(** - aside from the 'awake' brigade, obvs)
I'm fairly sure he wasn't saying it didn't happen, just that it was a "Hollywood explosion".
A deflagration is where a vapor cloud ignites but the flame front remains behind the shockwave, a detonation has the flame front traveling ahead of the shockwave as the compression effect causes the combustible material to ignite.
A deflagration usually looks more spectacular because you've got a great big orange fireball of burning gas going off for a period of time. A detonation is just a flash and a bang and it's gone.
[edit] IMO there is a detonation very early on in that clip, which breaks apart the structure of the rocket, you've then got a fuel leak (looks like it's either near the top or the cylindrical tank has split axiay/longitudinally) which doesn't immediately ignite (no oxygen left in the atmosphere?) then when it does there's a deflagration which is the big fireball that looks so spectacular.
Interesting little read on the ramifications of this explosion in regards to NASA and humanities return to the moon.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy2q0g07kgo
Saw the clip before the explosion, just wow. Booom
I thought the same this morning, apparently the Beirut fertilizer explosion is one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded
Does Tunguska count?
Confirmed - pad 36 is almost totally destroyed including the strongback and all transfer infrastructure. The HAB is also heavily damaged.
This will set Blue Origin back by years.
Gives us a visual idea of the mount of CO2 released by each launch. Hopefully it'll reduce the amount of space tourism for a while. As nobody was hurt I'll take it as one of the few "good news" stories of the day.
Only if you’re a complete idiot with a myopic view of emissions and the point at which they’re made.
New Glenn is an LNG powered rocket and as such has lower emissions and lower particulates than anything comparable. CO2 in the upper atmosphere is not the biggest worry.
In my industry the Septic's lawyers try to get terms like 'Thermal Event' used in investigation reports into what any English speaking nation would call a fire.
They'd try to term this as a non-minor anomalous short term thermal episode.
I'd then have to correct them and say it was a ****ing huge exploding fireball.
Only if you’re a complete idiot with a myopic view of emissions and the point at which they’re made.
New Glenn is an LNG powered rocket and as such has lower emissions and lower particulates than anything comparable. CO2 in the upper atmosphere is not the biggest worry.
You do realise LNG stands for liquified natural gas that is a fossil fuel that when burned releases CO2 stored in rocks millions of years ago and that will accumulate in the atmophere, hang around for hundreds of years and will thoroughly green house our lovely planet. That we're currently about pliocene in terms of Geological time CO2 levels, about 428ppm (check Hawaii records for some more up to date) which is about 50% above base line and once the ocean has warmed up and the ice melted to reach equilibrium will make where we live uncomfortable and dangerous. Further emissions will exacerbate an already dire situation yet emissions are still going up. Most emissions from a rocket are made low in the atmosphere and decline as the rocket rises.
Your post suggests a misunderstanding of the total green house impact of producing and burning LNG. The emissions notably of methane associated with production make using LNG much worse than was thought a few years back. Given the high level of methane emissions burning LNG can me compared with burning coal in terms of greenhouse gas emmissions. That methane is generally released at sea level or a few metres above. Methane sniffers around the world have only recently revealed just how polluting LNG is.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ace3db
I'm geologist and worked on atmospheric pollution, I know about these things. I'll let other STW members judge who is the idiot on the basis of our respective posts. I think they'll find I've debunked every rockethead point you've made.
In a statement on social media, Blue Origin said it had "experienced an anomaly" during a hotfire
Isn’t it a ‘rapid unexpected disassembly’?
Does Tunguska count?
Possibly, but it’s not anywhere close to either Krakatoa or Tambora, both were huge, the equivalent of several thousand megaton nuclear bombs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1815_eruption_of_Mount_Tambora
Tambora threw possibly 36 cubic miles of rock and debris into the atmosphere, and the 1815 Tambora eruption is the largest observed eruption in recorded history. The explosion was heard at least 2,600 km (1,600 mi) away and possibly over 3,350 km (2,060 mi) away, and ash fell at least 1,300 km (810 mi) away.
Humans don’t come close when it comes to ‘things fall down, go ‘boom’ ’!
Apparently, Tambora would have registered something like 300dB, which, considering decibels are measured on a logarithmic scale, is almost incomprehensible to the human ear.
And very damaging.
Once again, your incomplete knowledge leads to gaping holes which you try to fill using information from decades ago.
Burning LNG in the upper atmosphere releases less far CO2 than burning Kerosene like aircraft or Falcon 9, etc. it's around 1/3. It also produces far less soot particles (~80%) which are the primary cause of radiative forcing in contrails which persist far longer than than the Co2 does, it also doesn't release large quantities of methane like other fuels So by any measure, the New Glenn is better for the atmosphere than either the methane, kerosene or ammonia/aluminum based solid fuels used by most other rockets. Only the main stage of SLS and Ariane 6 are better.
Methane is only produced when burning LNG via methane slip which is caused by incomplete combustion - this might be a problem in some circumstances, but a rockets combustion efficiency is between 85% and 99.5% dependent on the flight phase.
Lets talk about what matters:
A typical rocket launch produces less CO2 than a 10h 747 flight - about 250t C02
There were 325 large rocket launches last year. so a total of 80kt of CO2
There were 1400 transatlantic flights A DAY in 2025 - 350kt of CO2
2.7bn miles are driven every day - that's 1.25mt of CO2.
So if everyone in the world just drove 10% less for one day or 10% more efficiently, it would pay for all the rocket launches. Similarly, if we stopped forced all transatlantic flights onto an A320XLR for one day, you'd pay for (and then some) the rocket launches.
Hell - formation flight or continuous descent for one day would almost pay for the rocket launches
Let's focus on what actually matters - huh?
I would be intetested to hear more specifically about the LNG/methane comparison, @Daffy.
Burning LNG in the upper atmosphere releases less far CO2 than burning Kerosene like aircraft or Falcon 9, etc. it's around 1/3.
Do you have a source for this claim? My understanding was that, while LNG does burn more cleanly than kerosene, it's more like 25% less CO2. We also have to think about its lifecycle impacts, and LNG produced from shale gas performs particularly badly in that respect. Obviously in this case, the upper atmosphere point isn't relevant...
Hopefully it'll reduce the amount of space tourism for a while.
Yeah, because it was really getting out of hand, you couldn't move out in space for all those tourists.
Good analysis from Scott manly
So now you're comparing filthy black with absolutely filthy black and expecting me to think one is white, Daffy and still show no signs of having understood why LNG is green housing our planet faster than coal or kerosene for almost all sources.
For anyone reading this, if you have the slightest regard for the conditions your children and future generations are going to live in don't fly.
I was riding over rocks 6 million years old today so rocks formed when CO2 levels were similar to today and methane levels much lower. There's a lignite mine which show the vegetation was sub tropical and river deposits to show spectacular washouts from the mountains, in other parts there are windblown dust deposits. I wouldn't have wanted to live here back then - that's what it'll be like in a few years time if we stop all emissions today yet the trend is evermore people flying:
https://dataopedia.com/air-travel-statistics/
Just stop flying.
I think you are preaching to those that know this. I rarely fly, maybe once a year and not long haul. My diesel van, newish purchase, will see me out as it does about 5k a year most, latest emission standards - used for trips/camping (we keep cars 20 years). I cycle to my job, always have (unless recovering from serious injuries sustained by cycle commuting). The petrol car get's used for local stuff, and it's similarly in sub 5k miles a year, and it's 14 years old now.
Most of us do our bit, but some countries (US) don't. Trump even mocks our wind farms - they work.
FFS "Edukator" Every time. This is about ROCKETS. Every time you relate it to flight and ALL forms of flight MUST stop.
My post was about ROCKETS!
STOP PROJECTING EVERYTHING TO FLYING AND HIJACKING EVERY SINGLE F**CKING THREAD WITH YOUR THREE WORD "SOLUTION"
Global Aviation emissions are 3.5% of global emissions, AI will overtake that this year. Emissions per RPK have dropped in aviation by 54% since 1990 and will drop by a further 20% in the next 10 years and a further 15% after that in the next 10 without ANY radical change in technology.
The global fashion industry, in waste alone, is bigger than aviation and is getting worse rather than better.
Let's focus on the right targets in the right order. Domestic and commercial energy, waste and personal transportation. Market forces will fix (as is already proven by history) aviation on its own either through technology, regulation or taxation. If you want to see it happen faster speak to the EU and campaign for fuel taxation - I'll support you.
Anyway, I won't be back to read any replies to this - I'm going back to trying to fix the problem.
Anyway, I won't be back to read any replies to this - I'm going back to trying to fix the problem.
How are you doing that?
Hopefully it'll reduce the amount of space tourism for a while.
Exactly how much of that has been happening recently, then? Compared, say, to the almost constant launching of SpaceX communications satellites?
And all the other satellites being launched for research, military and civilian use as well… 🤔
How are you doing that?
I lead a team responsible for developing the modelling and simulation capability for sizing the airframe of aircraft and spacecraft. The methods we've developed have removed tonnes of weight from every aircraft and spacecraft which will enter service (and that already has). My group is also part of a larger team which sponsors the science required for us to model climate effects of various fuel types across mission cycles, their effects on chemical and particulate formation and their safe inclusion into future aircraft to get toward net zero.
Some more math - every kg of weight permanently saved from an aircraft equates to 150000 kg of fuel saved over the lifetime of the aircraft. That's 0.5m tonnes of Co2 per aircraft per kg. My individual work has stripped around 200-240kg of weight from aircraft. My team, their tools and application have stripped a cumulative total of greater than 24t of weight from a combination of aircraft - all in just the last 10y.
As our methods improve, we can also harness the bending capability of the structures to further reduce fuel burn at high altitude without incurring additional drag.
My team are a significant part of that 20% fuel reduction which will come in the next 10+ years. The larger team will be the ones which truly enable the launch of a sustainable product based on alternative energy and modes of use, but it's not just a change, it's a paradigm shift never before seen in the history of transportation - in a globally connected world over which we have only so much influence, it's about which levers we can sue at the right time to get the change right.
We also can't wait around for the unicorn to arrive when we can make an impact on emissions right now and that's what we're doing.
P.S. I fly as infrequently as possible, I cycle everywhere and take the train where I can.
Anyway, I won't be back to read any replies to this
That lasted a long time.
As a layman I'm appreciating both of your contributions. Please don't stop.
Thing is that whilst you're making your planes and rockets a few percent more efficient you're also making lots more of them and the total amount of fossil fuels they burn is going up and up, Daffy - aviation green house gas emissions are going through the ozone layer (to quote Clarkson). There's enough oil gas and coal in the ground to take us back to the Cretaceous in climate terms and man can't survive those conditions any better than the species that went extinct in the cretaceous.
https://ourworldindata.org/global-aviation-emissions
As for sustainable air flight, anybody even slightly honest in the industry will tell you that isn't going to happen any time soon if ever. Aviation requires energy dense fuels for useful payloads long haul. Lighter than air vessels (Zeppelins) travelling at low speeds are about the only option that might work. However given the amount of energy in the atmosphere due to fossil fuels, by the time they're in use extreme weather is likely to make flying them a pretty hazardous affair.
You get angry on this these threads because you know I'm right, Daffy, you have no answers. Aviation is an increasingly important factor in green house gas emissions and that will only change if individuals choose to stop flying (along with using their gas central heating, ICE cars, eating more meat than is healthy, over consuming... ). What it will take to make individuals change their habits I'm not sure, history tells us that humans are particularly determined in continuing self destructive habits.
What it will take to make individuals change their habits I'm not sure, history tells us that humans are particularly determined in continuing self destructive habits.
It's not self destructive though, is it. Our grandchildren will be dead by the time the shit really hits the fan, and I expect that most people would find it hard to give a toss about that far into the future. People aren't buying EVs to save bunny rabbits tomorrow, they're buying them to save on fuel costs today.
Unless we can package these issues as a direct and present problem right now, folk will just ignore it.
Our grandchildren will be dead by the time the shit really hits the fan,
We might be, our children will have to live thru it. collapse is coming quickly - 25 - 40 years until it really hits IMO - thats mass starvation in many places and mass migration on a scale that makes Europes immigration issues now look like nothing.|
