The rocket was undergoing a static fire test of the stage, in which a vehicle is clamped to a test stand while its engines are ignited, when the booster broke free. According to a statement from the company, the rocket was not sufficiently clamped down and blasted off from the test stand “due to a structural failure.”

Video of the accidental ascent showed the rocket rising several hundred meters into the sky before it crashed explosively into a mountain 1.5 km away from the test site.

  • @verity_kindle
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    62 days ago

    It won’t matter if you do, unless you’re a Party member. Example: the completion of the Three Gorges Dam was accompanied by forcing upwards of 30 million people to move. No compensation or new housing provided…just move somewhere else or you’ll drown. Fascinating book based on his long term reporting (I think New York Times IIRC), “River Town” by Peter Hessler. He was there, he lived it.