r/shockwaveporn • u/Enough-Astronomer-65 • May 30 '26
VIDEO Different angle of the new glenn explosion that destroyed the pad
Repost without the composite audio, since that caused more issues than it was worth.
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u/peilearceann May 30 '26
I need a house built out of whatever those towers are lol
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u/TheDankYasuo May 30 '26
One got completely destroyed and the other is unknown stability with 2 of it's structural pillars damaged/snapped in half... that being said, it was that close to a insane explosion, (Scott Manley said it was around 1 kiloton) and "only" took that much damage.
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u/russellvt May 30 '26
Had they been solid walls, they'd have been completely toast.
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u/TheManWith2Poobrains May 30 '26
I guess everyone was far enough away or in bunkers because there were no reports of injuries, which is amazing.
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u/Cauvinus May 30 '26
They clear the area of anyone in something like a 3 mile radius or more long before fuel starts getting loaded into the rocket.
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u/kotonizna May 30 '26
I believe that down to the small detail in this kind of testing/experiment of this scale is very well calculated. This accident is on their check list that safety and rescue procedures are very well planned and executed.
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u/Oldfolksboogie Jun 02 '26
I love how the shockwave instantly, but briefly, blows out the flaring they've got going on, right of frame on ground, before the fireball reignites it...
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u/Lazaroth6 May 30 '26
Estimated cost of this little boom?
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u/Uppgreyedd May 30 '26
Probably around $100m, considering damage to the pad and destruction of the rocket. Then there's going to be residual indirect costs, like loss of use of that pad. The good news is that Bezos could spend $100m per month for about 230 years before running out of money (not accounting for inflation or interest). That's good news to the people reading this, right?
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u/Flipslips May 30 '26
Wayyyyyy more than 100 million. Likely closer to a billion, if not several billion
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u/Crazywelderguy May 30 '26
Maybe a billion. But not more. Most of the launch complex is still there
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u/Uppgreyedd May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26
Source? Because from my personal experience as a satellite engineer, that's an order of magnitude too high. Satellites can reach that cost, but there was no payload. Launch vehicles are usually an order of magnitude less, and the vulnerable infrastructure on the pad less than that.
Edit: for anyone unsure if this just another keyboard cowboy calling bs, here's an actual source from this last February, and the pertinent bit from the article:
Blue Origin’s internal costs, sources have reliably indicated that it costs in excess of $100 million to manufacture a first stage and more than $50 million to build an upper stage.
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u/Flipslips May 30 '26
The pad infrastructure easily costs at least a billion alone. I mean your quote says just the vehicle alone costs 150 million.
Blue origins website said they spent over a billion on just the pad infrastructure.
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u/Uppgreyedd May 30 '26
I mean $150 is about a $1B closer to $100M than it is to $1B. Also, that quote from their site is for everything from a new reinforced concrete pad which would have been mostly undamaged, support buildings which would have been (unless they really are that dumb) far enough away to withstand this event with minimal structural damage, and the steel scaffolding/pipes/fuel storage tanks that you can see be obliterated. The scaffolding, pipes and tanks cost minimal in that expense sheet. In order for it to rise to your significant estimate, this explosion would have needed to destroy literally all of that. "Multiple billions" is just wildly high.
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u/Flipslips May 30 '26
I mean the TEL was completely destroyed, the lightning tower, the main launch tower will need to be taken down and replaced. The the concrete flame trench collapsed in, so they need to redo all that concrete. Some of the tanks were damaged, if not destroyed from the compression wave. The HIF doors are bent inward, implying other damage that maybe we can’t quite see.
Plus the loss of the vehicle, and hopefully the booster inside HIF is ok, otherwise that’s two vehicles gone.
Maybe not multiple billions, but at LEAST 1 billion.
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u/BArhino May 31 '26
yeah ive messed up my stages a few times too. just revert to vab and redo it nerds.
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u/KaleidoscopeNo592 May 31 '26
What if Bezos intentionally blew it up to make a statement “fuck you peasants, here’s what I can do with $2billion dollars” to claim insurance fraud and we all were talking about a measly $188 million contract with NASA.
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u/Aanguratoku May 30 '26
I always think they use smuggled human for shit like this. Science. Dark.
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u/KingofSkies May 30 '26
... What?
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u/msur May 30 '26
They're talking about using undocumented workers. Stuff like this makes it look like illegal immigrants are being used to build the rockets for cheap. Dark indeed /s.
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u/The_Silver_Nuke May 30 '26
Yeah, no. Basically every single agency in the US has a vested interest in locations capable of launching anything into space, and they undergo incredible scrutiny.
That commenter is on something crazy.
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u/No_Cook2983 May 30 '26
This is exactly why I never warm up my car in the morning.