this explosion was not an accident don't
worry no one was hurt in fact SpaceX and
NASA blew up this Falcon 9 rocket to
make sure no one gets hurt
the explosion was actually an in-flight
abort test and it's essential to making
sure the Falcon 9 is ready to take
people into space well not this Falcon 9
of course the Falcon 9 rocket is the
world's first reusable orbital class
rocket which means it's designed to
deliver cargo to or beyond Earth's orbit
and land safely back on earth after each
launch in this case that cargo is
theoretically people the rocket is made
up of two parts the Falcon 9 rocket
itself and the crew Dragon capsule the
capsule is designed to bring passengers
to space or at least it will if all this
testing is successful SpaceX has been
launching the Falcon 9 since 2010 but
none of its missions have had humans
aboard just supplies for the
International Space Station satellites
and other cargo now SpaceX is closer to
flying human passengers than ever before
Mikko dragon launch escape initiated
this in-flight abort test was meant to
assess the crew dragons escape system in
case of a rapid unscheduled disassembly
the technical term for an unplanned
explosion the crew dragon is designed to
detach from the Falcon 9 and propel
itself and the humans inside away from
the rocket the capsule lets loose a
parachute and drifts safely down to
earth while the Falcon 9 does not and it
worked
now if blowing up a multi-million dollar
rocket seems like a waste there's
actually a very good reason for it
Apollo 1 Apollo 1 was supposed to be the
first manned Apollo mission but during a
pre-flight test a fire swept through the
command module and killed all three
astronauts on board the accident was
preventable
it happened in 1967 three years before
former president john f kennedy's
deadline to put a man on the moon by the
end of the decade some experts believe
it was this pressure that pushed NASA
and the project's contractor north
american aviation to cut
corners at the expense of safety the
capsules air supply was pure oxygen
instead of a mixed gas environment of
oxygen and nitrogen the pure oxygen
system was simpler and lighter but also
much more flammable the Apollo one
accident Review Board determined that
damaged wires caused an electrical arc
lighting up the inside of the cabin it
took 10 seconds for the command module
to fill with flames and less than a
minute for all three astronauts to
perish the investigation into the
incident halted the space program almost
putting an end to it entirely but it
eventually gave way to a new stricter
system of checks and balances that apply
to NASA missions to this day including
the Falcon 9 it took seven years between
JFK's Moon speech and the Apollo 11
mission to successfully put a man on the
moon the Falcon 9 is now moving into its
11th year of operation without even
carrying a human crew what could be seen
as a sign of slow progress is actually
the opposite in the end
taking the time to test and lessons
learn from the past could save lives in
the future
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