Space X lands the Falcon 9 again… Sort of

I love following the progress of SpaceX. Their pioneering technique of landing the Falcon 9 on FOUR STRUTS after its been in orbit has revolutionised the way in which private space travel is going to operate. It has not, however, been without its slight hiccups. After successfully landing the Falcon 9 on the drone ship today one of the struts gave way and what followed was a very slow arcing of the rocket as it fell towards its fiery doom. It was spectacular to watch but probably very painful to witness by the SpaceX team.  The video shows a perfect landing right on the X and then the eventual buckling of one of the landing struts. It reminded me of the old models used to make when the glue hadn’t set properly on one of the annoyingly small fixtures that would take hours to align. It would usually involve breaking the whole model and throwing it in the bin in a fit of frustration. What I admire about SpaceX is their refreshing candidness when things like this go wrong. The public reaction to these events seems to be overwhelmingly positive with Musk’s twitter account full of praise and encouragement to just keep at it to never give up. It is a true testament to something I read once by Richard Branson in which he states that we learn by doing and falling over.

Keep sending them up Elon.. Keep sending them up.

 

http://www.space.com/31653-spacex-rocket-landing-crash-droneship-video.html

 

Credit: SpaceX

Credit: Elon Musk via Instagram

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