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Space

Blue Origin Rocket Exploded Thursday Night During Hot-Fire Test (cbsnews.com) 73

Spaceflight Now shared their video of the explosion, which the Orlando Sentinel describes as showing Blue Origin's rocket "become engulfed in flames. The fireball expands out and covers the entire launch pad as the fuselage of the rocket can be seen crumbling into the flames."

Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said on X.com "It's too early to know the root cause but we're already working to find it. Very rough day, but we'll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It's worth it." (SpaceX founder Elon Musk posted "Sorry to see this, I hope you recover quickly.")

It's unclear how this will impact future launches. "The rocket was destroyed," reports CBS News, "and as the smoke cleared, there was no sign of the erector-gantry used to move the New Glenn from its hangar to the pad and to raise it from horizontal to vertical. Likewise, one of two tall lightning towers was no longer visible." It was the first such on-pad explosion at the Cape since a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blew up on nearby pad 40 on Sept. 1, 2016... Blue Origin only has one New Glenn pad, the one that was damaged in the Thursday test. The New Glenn, which has launched three times, is a heavy lift rocket designed to compete head-to-head with SpaceX Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. During New Glenn's most recent flight in April, an upper stage malfunction prevented a commercial internet satellite from reaching its planned orbit...

The New Glenn destroyed Thursday was to send 48 Leo internet satellites owned by Amazon into space [which were not on board for the hot-fire test]

Blue Origin posted on X.com that "Debris from our recent hotfire anomaly may wash ashore in the coming days/weeks. If you encounter any debris, do not touch or approach it for your safety."

"Spaceflight is unforgiving, and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult..." NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman posted on X.com. "âWe will provide information on any impacts to the Artemis and Moon Base programs as it becomes available."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader symbolset for sharing the news.

Comment Re: Cue up (Score 1) 348

You realize there are a bunch of homes available for sale in all sorts of places for next to nothing. The problem isn't "housing", it is "housing where people want to live". Declining population in places like Italy have created housing collapse where nice houses aren't sold, and sit empty, and they'll pay you to move into one.

Comment Re:Yes (Score 2) 192

If you take your employer's work home with you, that's something you're doing for your employer. They probably (assuming illegal shit isn't happening) pay you to do that.

If you take your school work home with you, that's something you're doing for yourself. You might even be paying them for it.

Comment Re:Yes (Score 1) 192

It isn't colonial, it is industrial. The current format of school is that of preparing for a factory workforce. We are post industrial, knowledge/AI/Whatever it will be called workforce.

Educators need to come to grip with getting EVERY child their MAX educational value we can. This means breaking the rows and columns of desks in a classroom, and getting kids their most valuable education they can get. This means some will do much better than others. Talent has gradations. Not everyone can be a Astro Physics expert.

Comment Re:Cue up (Score -1, Troll) 348

"fair" is subjective. What you think is "fair" isn't really fair. It is objectively unfair to use qualitative terms in discussion of policy.

What would be fair, is that Government live within the means we ALREADY tax out of the public. Cut Spending first. Then, when all cuts that can be made, are made, then MAYBE we can have a discussion on tax increases.

Its Not Your Money.

Envy isn't a virtue.

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