Watch This Vine of SpaceX’s Rocket Crashing and Exploding
Source: ​Twitter

FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

Watch This Vine of SpaceX’s Rocket Crashing and Exploding

A visual poem about the hubris of man.

​When SpaceX ​attempted to land its Falcon 9 rocket on a drone ship last week, they said it "landed hard" on the boat. That is a huge understatement, as evidenced by this Vine the company just posted of the rocket blowing up on impact with the boat:

The Falcon 9 is SpaceX's darling project: ​a reusable rocket they hope will someday be able to shuttle humans into space. The $35 million Falcon 9 is designed to be flown, return to earth, and reused, unlike the rockets we know today, which crash land and are obliterated upon returning home.

After last week's launch, CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the "ship is fine," so the drone ship will live to see another test round. And he also said they have pinpointed what went wrong with the Falcon 9:

​He added that the fins, which help to steer the rocket, worked for about four minutes before they ran out of the hydraulic fluid that powers them, making the landing about "10% off," according to Musk's tweet.

But obviously there are few kinks to work out before they ​start putt​ing people on board.

Correction: An earlier version of this story stated the rocket survived the impact. In fact, it was the drone ship that got out unscathed.