OT - SpaceX's Starship due to launch 1.00 pm today (Saturday)

[Another Dave]

Watch live on Everyday Astronaut's channel on youtube.

Another Dave

[PeterC]

It's gone bang - and then bang again.

[Another Dave]

All 33 Raptor 2.0 engines on the booster performed flawlessly.

Stage separation took place perfectly.

The booster performed its return-to-base manoeuvre but then blew up.

The starship (upper stage) continued on all of its 6 engines on track and reached 24,000 km/hr (orbital speed is 28,000) and shut down its engines and then blew up.

The launch pad seems to be undamaged meaning they can go again soon.

Most people (including me) think the test was a huge success.

Another Dave

[Davey]

I'm glad to see you use the normal human terminology of 'blew up' rather than the horrid 'unscheduled disassembly'.

[Jeff Gaines]

The people at the launch centre used "rapid unscheduled disassembly", Americans have become insufferable since they discovered long words.

[Joe]

Or, more often, invented them.

'Burglarized', indeed. 'Administrated'.

[Bob Henson]

"Dubya" was good at them - he used to invent them on the fly in mid-speech. Sadly, the Oxford dictionary now includes many American words, which is making crossword and similar puzzles nearly impossible to complete.

[S Viemeister]

'Coronated' is also a popular one.

[charles]

I once heard "Compositionize" on an interview with a USian/

[Tim+]

But it was used very tongue in cheek.

Tim

[Theo]

'tis a technical term in rocketry, m'lud, dating from the 60s:

See also 'lithobraking'.

Theo