Is This Why Starship Wasn’t Destroyed The Moment It Lost Control?

I still have questions, this is one possible answer to the Flight Termination System question.

[krisvires]

Imagine being the Range Safety Officer, and actually pushing that big red button covered in glass... and the rocket *doesn't* explode immediately.

[treschlet]

crazy. I just assumed that they delayed using it until the last second, because they hadn't technically left their flight envelope yet, so they just let it flop around for awhile to gather more data

[idontknowleavemealoneplease]

Starship just said "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

[seagie]

in my head I was like "SPACEBAR DECOUPLE DECOUPLE DECOUPLE PRESS SPACEBAR!!"

[ottokarvonschnallenburg]

Another issue to fix: self destruction

[lmap_REAL]

"From initiation to break up, that took about 50 seconds." Average highschool relationship.

[RGDcommentnode]

I'm surprised Starship and the booster didn't break apart when it started tumbling. Guess that's a credit to it's structural integrity.

[ImmortalAbsol]

I felt like in the meantime I could see the booster doing it's best to right the orientation and succeeding briefly, very Kerbal.

[PharaHooves]

I was about 20 miles east of this when my coworker looked over and was like. "The hell is going on over there?". I was wondering what was going on as well. lol.

[bombud]

ive never seen a rocket tumble over 45* and stay together. this thing went around 1080* and was still intact.

[vinix]

I'm more excited about the technical investigation than the launch itself 😁

[alaskaguyd]

That Kerbal was in for one hell of a ride.

[markusanderson]

I noticed it had lost ~ 9 KM in altitude before actually exploding .... this, I'd assume, needs to be addressed too. Seems to me a large delay is a potentially large problem.

[sbreheny]

I thought that the flight termination system was usually a linear charge running along the entire length of the stage. So it doesn't just punch a hole - it tears open the entire side of the tank so that aerodynamic forces will rip it apart immediately. I am not familiar with this particular rocket but most of them use a linear charge.

[geekchameleon]

Having seen hundreds of rockets blow up after going about ten degrees off axis, I am amazed to see how Starship was able to tumble like that and survive.

[watkinscopicat]

i really wanna see more onboard camera footage from this spinning part

[numbersix]

Thanks Scott for covering this flight so well, and timely.

[bugsbane]

This 50 second delay could be one of the reasons the FAA grounded spaceX

[robertgolden]

Got to admit, it held together pretty well through all that.

[merylsmith]

Honestly I was surprised most by the fact that it didnt just collapse as soon as it started cartwheeling. I wouldnt have guessed it would be able to withstand those kinds of lateral forces with the full stack still stuck together.