Bezos Discloses Failure of Blue Origin Rocket Test Flight 99
astroengine writes "An experimental suborbital space vehicle developed by Blue Origin, a space startup founded by Amazon.com chief Jeff Bezos, was lost during a test flight last week. During the secretive flight, the vehicle reached an altitude of 45,000 feet and attained a velocity of Mach 1.2. Soon after, things went horribly wrong. 'A flight instability drove an angle of attack that triggered our range safety system to terminate thrust on the vehicle,' said an upbeat Bezos in Friday's statement."
It's rocket science folks (Score:5, Informative)
Things go boom. Pretty much no one in the business of putting up boosters has managed to do so without create a fair amount of debris and fuss.
Bezos seems to appreciate this. It's a disappointment, for sure but it's just that.
Re:It's rocket science folks (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, and 45000 feet at Mach 1.2 is the beginning of the real stress zone [wikipedia.org] for the frame. Not too surprising it flopped over there. Of course, there are lots of ways a booster can screw up.