Elon Musk’s SpaceX has released footage of some of their less fortunate tests from the past few years and it makes for a pretty epic blooper reel.
The video is the result of SpaceX’s quest for reusable rocket boosters – an endeavour which has had some explosive results.
You can’t knock them for not having a sense of humour.
Musk’s company has been trying to reduce the cost of space travel by making boosters reusable, starting with their Falcon 9 primary boosters.
Since the difficult beginnings shown in the video, though, SpaceX has found success – pulling off 16 booster landings.
Here’s what one of those successful landings looked like.
Who knew a video without explosions could be even more satisfying than one with them?
Knowing they have started to crack the problem then, it’s understandable Musk approached the “blooper reel” cheerfully.
Putting together SpaceX rocket landing blooper reel. We messed up a lot before it finally worked, but there's some epic explosion footage …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 31, 2017
Thus far, only the primary boost stage rockets have successfully been reused but, according to Musk, when the upper stage and fairing follow, costs will drop by a factor of more than 100.
Awesome illustration that perfection doesn't happen without failures along the way.
— Mikael Lemberg (@Lemberg) September 14, 2017
Well put.