My brother in law was in the blockhouse that day. Everyone had parked their cars right up close and consequently had them destroyed by falling debris. He used to have a lump of melted glass on his desk that was all that remained of his windshield.
At least one insurer refused to pay out, declaring the incident "An act of God". Boeing actually came through and helped out those people whose insurance didn't cover it.@@Whitpusmc
Very good report. You did your research. I worked for McDonnell Douglas Delta program back in 1997. It was a sad day. Steely eyed missile men get misty eyed when one of their birds fail. Funny story; Once at Vandenberg one of the solid boosters was out of storage and sitting outside to get some testing. People were standing around near the nozzle. A plastic protective cap on the nozzle popped off with a good loud pop sound. I think the people standing by the nozzle had to go clean their shorts after that. I assume the air heated up in the nozzle expanded enough to pop the cover off.
Things going pop unexpectedly does tend to get peoples attention fairly quickly. Having worked in the hazardous chemical industry i worked with differential thermal analysis equipment. Take 10 grams of the waste stream which is potentially going to be distilled for solvent recovery and put it through a heating cycle to see if its safe to process. Only had one sample which suffered a thermal runaway reaction under heating, it did go pop, well it was more of a bang. Better to test it with a few millilitres of sample than 18000 litres in the still. I should add no damage or injury was caused by the event, the testing equipment was very sturdy and was probably built to withstand worse samples, the equipment was originally owned by ICI.
@@thePronto some people really should eat more fruit and vegetables. I think that is what it is all about. The statement you are complaining about really needs a scope statement like "assuming you can fully recover" or something like that. I agree the stament is about as stupid as the Disney Peter Pan song "You can fly" encouraging children to jump out of windows being supported merely by pleasant thoughts. :-)
I worked on the upgrade of Delta RS-27 engine to Delta II back in '87. I discovered a flaw in the engine analysis, in that they had failed to perform a fracture analysis on the turbopump main shaft. They had done a long duration durability analysis but that was insufficient for the cryogenic conditions to which the shaft was subject. They knew they had a flaw in the engine as they were losing one flight in 23 and half of those were due to engines going "boom", but they had not been able to find the cause. After I pointed out the flaw, they changed the design and the reliability doubled.
@@a7xgh442 As a current ARO major, prepare for many late nights. It's definitely a very interesting, and I'd say rewarding, career choice. There's at least 2 fluids classes, a Vibrations class, Systems Engineering lab, Controls & Avionics, and Thermo and Orbitals (if you're going the Astro route).
Nice firework. The second stage and payload flying of the disaster is so Kerbal. But kerbals would probably have tried to ignite the second stage to softland the payload ;)
Rockets don`t fail, they sometimes just make alternative live choices. Think about a spectacular end everyone can see instead of burning up over the ocean where nobody notices.
My friend Marc was a member of the launch team in the blockhouse during this event. He manned the instrumentation bay and after the explosion they noticed that noxious fumes were leaking in through the cable conduits. They rammed rags, paper and their shirts into the conduits to block the fumes. Marc's car was one of the severely damaged. Scott, contact me if you do a report on the Delta 3000 #134 failure of Sept. 13, 1977. I was a solid propellant consultant for the McDonnell Douglas failure review team. That failure resulted in a major change in solid propellant formulation.
(written as I look across the living room at a twisted little piece of Delta 241 tank which Moose gave me) Hey, I would like to hear anything you have to offer on that. Sounds interesting! I believe Marc said that a chunk of propellant actually struck the entrance to the conduit channel, which had at least been sandbagged (years earlier?) as a precaution. That had me imagining how whoever it was stuck lugging those sandbags in the Florida sun must have been complaining to themself about all that work when it was never going to matter, because what were the chances of a direct impact from something?
Teh_D3th_St4r That's the required, trained and drilled reaction. If you can't be that cool next to an unexpectedly exploding rocket with your own and your coworkers life probably lost, you aren't calm enough to minimize the damage. Airline pilots traditionally have similar requirements, being required to calmly perform emergency procedures while calculating which crash option will kill the fewest civilians, for example should they try to land and risk smashing into the airport building with thousands of waiting passengers or aim for that residential building with only hundreds, but no chance of saving themselves and their own passengers?
I still like the understatement when the Challenger blew up: "... obviously a major malfunction ." (as everyone watching national TV saw what happened)
They probably mounted the guidance sensors upside down or some other stupid thing we used to do when we didn't know better. The best failure has got to go to Wernher Von Braun when he built his rocket with the engine at the top because he thought it would create a "pendulum" (I believe) and that it would stabilize itself. Cool to think that same man designed what would ultimately become the Saturn V which took us to the moon. I guess that's the thing with smart people.
Exactly, reading ignition was quite interesting. While figuring out which liquid propellants worked well (and met the required freezing point specifications) quite a few explosive fuels/oxidisers were invented. And when it wasn't prone to explosions there'd often be plenty of other "minor" issues like acid eating through the storage vessels, being a toxic fluid or better releasing nice toxic vapours for researchers to breathe in. I think I lost count halfway in the book of how many serious lab explosions/fires the author listed.
I saw a documentary on this failure once where one of the engineers described making an insurance claim about is totally destroyed car. Apparently the insurance company was skeptical when he said that "a rocket fell on it." :) They also described jumping under the desks in the blockhouse as the debris came down. I'm not sure that doing that would've helped. Clearly, this could've been much worse.
I just read about this a few minutes ago as I'm doing a post on imgur about this failure. Here's the story: "One of those belonged to Dr. Jay Bernard, who joined Aerospace in 1977, then moved to the Delta II program in the early 1990s to work on the Redundant Inertial Flight Control Assembly (RIFCA), which was part of an avionics upgrade." "Bernard recounted that his insurance adjuster was initially skeptical when he reported the cause of damage as a collision with a rocket. But he was convinced after Bernard told him to turn on the television, which was covering the event right then."
Imagine going to your car insurance after this happened. Agent: I'm so sorry your car burned. Did everyone get out of your car alright? Engineer: What do you mean? Nobody was in the car. Agent: Oh, that's good. So did your house catch fire and spread to your car? Engineer: Actually burning solid rocket fuel rained down after a rocket explosion and hit my car. Agent: *confused staring*
This actually happened. Guy filed an insurance claim on his truck (the one Scott shows at the very beginning) on the same day, and the insurance adjuster didn't believe him until the guy told him to watch the news. The first-hand story is floating around on the intertubes somewhere.
That's pretty much how I explained it to my insurance company- told them to check CNN. We had to file two claims - one to our auto insurance and fortunately one to a government insurance handler for lost personal belongings.
Brian Clark For metal casings, this is the proper standard procedure. Because solid metal is more like a spring that will be just as strong after that pressure test. While fibres is a bunch of strings permanently breaking one by one at max load.
I'm shocked the engineering team didn't mandate a full-up NDI (using ultrasonics) of the composite structure after loading it up to 95% ultimate. Sometimes you learn things the hard way.
@Mr. Minticuz It's not directly under the rocket, it's more in front of the concrete block the rocket is placed on. You see that red pipe? The bird is more underneath that walking towards the stairs that need up to the rocket motor. Still the most bad ass bird in the world. Can't even be bothered to fly away...
Something I’ve been noticing in your videos is that when you put up any sort of predominantly white screen, it seems to lose brightness within a second (I’ve seen it happen on 3 different platforms and screens). If this is done on purpose in your editing, I really appreciate it. I tend to watch mostly at night so it’s quite nice to not have my retina fried away by an unexpected bright point in the video.
I may be wrong, but (excluding the Challenger and Columbia disasters) NROL-7 aboard a Titan IV(401)A may be the most expensive rocket failure in history. At over a billion dollars, it's certainly way more costly than the Delta II failure in this video.
I always remember the documentary about this one launch failure - and the guy in the blockhouse calling his insurance company to explain that his car had been blown up by a rocket..
I immediately thought of this when I heard of the Titan submarine having a carbon fiber hull. Carbon composites are very strong and have many advantages in several applications, but everything in engineering is a tradeoff that must be weighed against the drawbacks. I'd imagine they didn't do enough inspection after each dive.
I was in my high school science class watching that launch on TV. After it exploded they locked down the school as a precaution because of the wind direction and the plume. The local weather man showed it on radar slowly drifting over the county. I suspect we were never in any danger, but as a high school kid it was exciting to think we were.
This was a very impressive explosion, great to see a video explaining why. I think it's safe to say, Delta II had a bad problem and did not go to space that day.
The zipper failure, had it happen on old tires, or at least ones that were run flat. one sidewall cord fails, then another, then another, and you get that popcorn sound moments before the whole sidewall rips open like a zipper,. BOOM!
I remember I watched a video of one of the control room guys calling a car insurance company and trying to explain the operator what happened to his car.
LOVE THE IDEA! I get back from work tired and needing some good/ interesting videos; EVERY time I come back and see a new video by Scott Manley on my feed I watch first and am NEVER disappointed!
Awesome idea for a new series. I don't want to see rockets explode, but it is fascinating to watch and learn about. Keep the great videos coming Scott.
Hi Scott, Thanks for the new series! This reminds me of what happened April 18 (1985 I think) at VAFB SLC-4 with a titan 34D (if I’m not mistaken). It was a big RUD. It took a full day or better to put the fires out.
I was standing on a beach crossover in Cocoa Beach at the time,was not expecting that show. It took at least 90 seconds for the noise from the explosion to reach us and even at that distance you could feel the percussion.
In my experience, rockets don’t usually just explode, they’re usually shot down by giant laser carrying Russian trained whales. And so the Russian whale conspiracy goes deeper than anyone thought imaginable.
I showed my Dad this a while ago and we now have a running joke of calling a total disaster a “anomaly” because of how calmly the person narrating describes the explosion. I understand that’s what an anomaly is but we just found it funny... it was also pretty funny when my 5ft model rocket exploded in a spectacular way and the only thing my Dad could say was, “just a bit of an anomaly. Love the video as always!
The destruct signal from the blockhouse would be Command Destruct. Self Destruct (internal failure) and Auto Destruct (from the flight termination safety chain) are different events. Rocket staging temporarily inhibits Auto Destruct, for obvious reasons.
This seems familiar. Didn't the Apollo 13 malfunction start when a sensor in an oxygen tank was tested to beyond its specification? The sensor passed the test and appeared undamaged, but was actually damaged in a way that caused the explosion in-flight. Stress testing is not always a great idea.
When you haven’t watched Scott Manley in about 8 years (whenever I last watched ksp), you’re so outdated about the rocket stuff and you get blasted with a whole bunch of rocket terminology which you have no clue about.. That’s me.. Absolutely awesome video, Scott!
Thank you Scott. The latest explosion was the Crew Dragon one. What a pity. Things are going so slow and now they will get even slower with more delays and postponing the future manned flights. Do you thing there is a real chance of watching any manned flight this year? You fly safe too.
I love this series ! « Why rockets fail ». Also love the « KSP doesn't teach »... Ok, I love all this channel ! Please, MOAR videos on failed launches ! ❤️❤️
Can't wait for a video (maybe?) on the spectacular proton rocket crash. It is perhaps the only crash that can give this firework display a run for it's money!
Makes me wonder what went wrong on the crew dragon test stand... Maybe those copv's have a limited number of load/recycle times before....well...ya know...
I was there!!! I was 10 years old and I still remember the noise and the incredible explosion that rocked the building I was in... we were getting ready to board the big red boat and they said if that boat wasnt between us and the explosion, all the glass in this glass wall facing the ship would have shattered!!! I remember the sliding doors coming off their tracks and the security guards running around not knowing what had just occurred... when we got on the boat we could see the smoke and fires still on the grounds...
@@HalNordmann Not that heavy when you factor in the strength per mass and over all temperature ranges especially below -200C and above 300C where both carbob fiber and aluminium fall apart. Centaur is one of the highest performing and lightest upper stages ever made and it is fully 304L stainless steel. Steel is a very generic description that includes heavy carbon steel and modern super alloys in the 300 series that outperform aluminium and cf. Sure room temperature ok. But turn the heat up, say during reentry and the cf delaminates while the aluminium looses all strenght and the vehicle breaks apart. Do some research before spreading BS. Seriously how does one not know about Centaur, the most frequently flown US upper stage. Even Centaur V for Vulcan will be 304L. Also SpaceX builds both F9 carbon fiber interstage and the cf fairings in house, as they do for the SX500 inconel, so suggesting they don't have any better materials science is ridiculous. Stainless is far superior to anything else in reusable rocket.
0:47 - A new series of _U.S._ GPS satellites. Remember, Russia (née the Soviet Union) already had its own fully-operational GPS constellation (GLONASS) by this time, so it's best to be specific about _whose_ GPS satellites you're referring to.
No these were updates to the existing US GPS network technically this was the 4th GPS iteration. Unlike GPS GLONASS at the time was still a proprietary system which didn’t offer commercial use until 2007z
@@scottmanley Yes, I _know_ that these were U.S. GPS satellites - I was just pointing out why it's best to be specific which country's GPS satellites one is referring to. (Even more important nowadays, given that we're up to four GPS constellations - the original U.S. network and GLONASS, plus Baidu and Galileo.)
Here in the middle of Europe we tend to call them collectively GNS or GNSS, to distinguish between the idea and a particular system. In my opinion GPS and GloNaSS should be renamed, getting proper trademarks instead of a generic description of what they do, since they operate for profit on the civilian market. We don't have millions of companies named The Local Bakery, we don't fly with (The) Airline, so why GPS/GloNaSS?
What gets me is if it was a manned launch they would have a launch escape thing (brain fart) to give the crew a good chance of survival. But if the payload is a $25M satellite there's no escape if things go wrong. How many satellites could have been saved?
Most companies would just call a tow truck if you park in the "no parking" zone. Nuking the parked cars with burning bits of rocket is a rather novel approach...
this is the same thing that killed Challenger. when boosters arrive at the Cape they are delivered in sealed railcars to prevent ignition. When they are stacked every joint must be sealed and packed with epoxy to prevent leaks. what happened here and with Challenger is the o rings shrank and broke and the booster was not sealed properly. Just like Challenger the flames ignited the solid fuel in the other boosters and melted the tank leading to destruction. those that did not explode when the rocket went up were destroyed by the range safety officer. Today Northrup Grumman test all of its boosters in Utah before they are shipped to the Cape and they make sure there are no leaks if a leak is found they seal it or the boosters will explode.
My father was in the blockhouse during this launch/failure...he was a propulsion engineer (liquid engine) for Boeing/McDonnell Douglas/Douglas Co. since 1963. As the rockets grew larger and more powerful over the years, he had said that if they lost one on the pad it would obliterate the blockhouse...needless to say, the explosion at roughly 1/4 mile off the pad knocked him out of his chair. They were stuck in the blockhouse for over an hour before being evacuated. His truck was lightly damaged, but the vehicle parked behind his burned to the ground. He was close to retiring at the time, but stayed on until the next successful launch (he didn't want to leave until they had a good launch). He then retired, but contracted back for the (ill fated) Delta III and early Delta IV. He was a very intelligent and well respected engineer, but extremely modest. His passion for the space program was unwavering, and inspired me to join the space program myself (Space Shuttle).
@Scott manley; could /would you join a flat eart/space rebunk on a channel like Reds rethoric? Reds is doing great, but if you would come in,i think 75 percent of the globe/space debunkers would flee with their tails between their legs. It would make a great video! (just an idea of a person whom hate unscientific reality deniers. love your work, by the way. greetings from The Netherlands.) and really watch Reds space x live recording,they are great.
I don't recall if that spectacular explosion was on the six o'clock news back in 1997 but I do remember reading about the Thor Delta II explosion in a contemporary issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology where they had a remotely operated camera only a few hundred feet from the LC.
In 1997, I lived in Satellite Beach about 17 miles from the launch pad. I was just coming out from getting my hair cut. There was a flash and a compression wave hit me, almost knocking me down. I could see the fire at the base. Then, the sound wave hit. It was spectacular!
Another interesting "local" impact occurred when a half hour after the blast, a nasty purple cloud (perhaps hypergolic rocket fuel) rolled across the Port Canaveral entrance on a stiff NE wind, causing the big crowd of observers to flee Jetty Park. There's a video of this somwhere.
Have you done a video about the failure of the first Ariane 5 rocket, Scott? Also at the risk of sounding like a pedantic nitpicker, Scott, it's NOT a Delta II it's a thrust-augmented Thor-Delta II.
Those pressures are even more crazy when you consider that there are humans who live and work at similar pressures. A saturation diver lives at pressures up to 52 atmospheres for weeks at a time.
There was no true blockhouse in use at CX17in the sense of the heavily re-enforced structures seen on ICBM row. The one at CX17 was just a modified bunker using sandbags and other material. Glad I arrived after this event. But I did have a front row seat for it just north of it.
I was living in Orlando at the time that happened. Scared the shit out of everyone. IDK why because they launch them over the Atlantic Ocean. Media hype... Side note. I miss the sonic booms from the Space Shuttle :(.....
[revert to vehicle assembly building]
LMAO
We need that button
My brother in law was in the blockhouse that day. Everyone had parked their cars right up close and consequently had them destroyed by falling debris. He used to have a lump of melted glass on his desk that was all that remained of his windshield.
Were they able to get insurance coverage for that loss?
imagine what he wrote for insurance claims!
That was a heck of a souvenir.
At least one insurer refused to pay out, declaring the incident "An act of God". Boeing actually came through and helped out those people whose insurance didn't cover it.@@Whitpusmc
Hit by a rocket? That's an act of God!
Very good report. You did your research.
I worked for McDonnell Douglas Delta program back in 1997. It was a sad day.
Steely eyed missile men get misty eyed when one of their birds fail.
Funny story; Once at Vandenberg one of the solid boosters was out of storage and sitting outside to get some testing. People were standing around near the nozzle. A plastic protective cap on the nozzle popped off with a good loud pop sound. I think the people standing by the nozzle had to go clean their shorts after that.
I assume the air heated up in the nozzle expanded enough to pop the cover off.
I think the "misty eyes" were from the toxic cloud. 😂
Things going pop unexpectedly does tend to get peoples attention fairly quickly.
Having worked in the hazardous chemical industry i worked with differential thermal analysis equipment. Take 10 grams of the waste stream which is potentially going to be distilled for solvent recovery and put it through a heating cycle to see if its safe to process. Only had one sample which suffered a thermal runaway reaction under heating, it did go pop, well it was more of a bang. Better to test it with a few millilitres of sample than 18000 litres in the still.
I should add no damage or injury was caused by the event, the testing equipment was very sturdy and was probably built to withstand worse samples, the equipment was originally owned by ICI.
@@patkins8319 that's what your mom said
It's amazing how far a rocket can get in 12.4 seconds.
They are so large but the scale throws off perceived velocity.
"What doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger".
Composite material: "Well actually..."
well, the saying still works in the long run, just not in the moment
"What doesn't kill you leads others to learn important lessons from your demise"?
So I guess I'm fulllfilling a valuable purpose of making 7+ billion people stronger because I don't want to kill anyone. ...so... your welcome :-)
That has to be the dumbest saying ever. Even dumber than "an apple a day keeps the doctor away".
@@thePronto some people really should eat more fruit and vegetables. I think that is what it is all about. The statement you are complaining about really needs a scope statement like "assuming you can fully recover" or something like that. I agree the stament is about as stupid as the Disney Peter Pan song "You can fly" encouraging children to jump out of windows being supported merely by pleasant thoughts. :-)
If your SRB has a hairline crack, you will not go to space today.
Ah I see, your a man of culture as well...
You will not go to space very quickly
If your flame-spewer attached to up-goer-two has a crack, you will not go to space today.
But you may go to heaven.
I would hope that if ANYTHING had a hairline crack they wouldn't be going
I worked on the upgrade of Delta RS-27 engine to Delta II back in '87. I discovered a flaw in the engine analysis, in that they had failed to perform a fracture analysis on the turbopump main shaft. They had done a long duration durability analysis but that was insufficient for the cryogenic conditions to which the shaft was subject. They knew they had a flaw in the engine as they were losing one flight in 23 and half of those were due to engines going "boom", but they had not been able to find the cause. After I pointed out the flaw, they changed the design and the reliability doubled.
baddoggie101 wow super impressive! I’d love to be an aerospace engineer
One in 23. Taxpayers' money. We get a do-over. Nice business.
Memestealer_chungles 05 especially one working on rockets!
nice pfp
@@a7xgh442 As a current ARO major, prepare for many late nights. It's definitely a very interesting, and I'd say rewarding, career choice. There's at least 2 fluids classes, a Vibrations class, Systems Engineering lab, Controls & Avionics, and Thermo and Orbitals (if you're going the Astro route).
Nice firework.
The second stage and payload flying of the disaster is so Kerbal.
But kerbals would probably have tried to ignite the second stage to softland the payload ;)
Because they didn’t buy winrar after 40 days so they have problems with unzipping
Okay wow
How dumb were they, everybody knows 7zip is better
Winrar for unzipping? LOL
But... I thought all the cool kids used arj achives...!
@@arctic_haze *zip* files
Rockets don`t fail, they sometimes just make alternative live choices. Think about a spectacular end everyone can see instead of burning up over the ocean where nobody notices.
Is Murphy's Law just our perspective on mechanical systems' personal development?
Chad missile fireworks vs. virgin rocket ocean crash.
"It wasn't an explosion, it was... uh... an 'energetic materials science experiment'. Yeah, let's go with that."
That's good shit
You can anthropomorphize but that doesnt pay for repairs
My friend Marc was a member of the launch team in the blockhouse during this event. He manned the instrumentation bay and after the explosion they noticed that noxious fumes were leaking in through the cable conduits. They rammed rags, paper and their shirts into the conduits to block the fumes. Marc's car was one of the severely damaged.
Scott, contact me if you do a report on the Delta 3000 #134 failure of Sept. 13, 1977. I was a solid propellant consultant for the McDonnell Douglas failure review team. That failure resulted in a major change in solid propellant formulation.
(written as I look across the living room at a twisted little piece of Delta 241 tank which Moose gave me)
Hey, I would like to hear anything you have to offer on that. Sounds interesting!
I believe Marc said that a chunk of propellant actually struck the entrance to the conduit channel, which had at least been sandbagged (years earlier?) as a precaution. That had me imagining how whoever it was stuck lugging those sandbags in the Florida sun must have been complaining to themself about all that work when it was never going to matter, because what were the chances of a direct impact from something?
That first shot of the propellant falling from the sky reminds me of some of the explosions in the original Thunderbirds TV show
Life imitates art
Imagine the car insurance claim -- burning rocket fuel and debris landed on my car.
Does insurance cover that kind of damage?
Farmer's insurance commercial. We covered that.
@@TheAgamemnon911 I don't know about car insurance but I remember having renters insurance that specifically excluded damage from "space debris"
Jeffrey Hueseman “we know a thing or two because we’ve seen a thing or two”
rocket hit my car
I giggled at "9 strap ons"
that's hardcore
Watch Indian pslv rocket launch. For strap on 😂
Ksp: wait that's illegal
My favorite part of this particular rocket failure was mission control:
*rocket explodes*
*Everyone gasps
"Uuhhh. We have had an... anomaly?"
Anomaly literally means “Something that is not normal” and or unexpected
Teh_D3th_St4r That's the required, trained and drilled reaction. If you can't be that cool next to an unexpectedly exploding rocket with your own and your coworkers life probably lost, you aren't calm enough to minimize the damage.
Airline pilots traditionally have similar requirements, being required to calmly perform emergency procedures while calculating which crash option will kill the fewest civilians, for example should they try to land and risk smashing into the airport building with thousands of waiting passengers or aim for that residential building with only hundreds, but no chance of saving themselves and their own passengers?
@@johnfrancisdoe1563 I understand that, but the tone of voice was hilarious... ffs, it's like I'm the only rocket enthusiast with a sense of humor.
I still like the understatement when the Challenger blew up: "... obviously a major malfunction ." (as everyone watching national TV saw what happened)
Would be super awesome if you could cover the failures of the first rockets/rocket motors. I'm very curious what went wrong in the early days
This !!! Please Manley-san !
@@helioswind2614 *Manley-sama
They probably mounted the guidance sensors upside down or some other stupid thing we used to do when we didn't know better. The best failure has got to go to Wernher Von Braun when he built his rocket with the engine at the top because he thought it would create a "pendulum" (I believe) and that it would stabilize itself. Cool to think that same man designed what would ultimately become the Saturn V which took us to the moon. I guess that's the thing with smart people.
@@mankeez5892 it wasn;t Wernher von Braun it was Robert Gottard
@@mankeez5892 Yeh that was Robert Goddard who did that, not Von Braun.
All rocketry is, essentially, a controlled explosion. We're so accustomed to success we forget that they occasionally go kaboom.
Exactly, reading ignition was quite interesting. While figuring out which liquid propellants worked well (and met the required freezing point specifications) quite a few explosive fuels/oxidisers were invented. And when it wasn't prone to explosions there'd often be plenty of other "minor" issues like acid eating through the storage vessels, being a toxic fluid or better releasing nice toxic vapours for researchers to breathe in.
I think I lost count halfway in the book of how many serious lab explosions/fires the author listed.
I saw a documentary on this failure once where one of the engineers described making an insurance claim about is totally destroyed car. Apparently the insurance company was skeptical when he said that "a rocket fell on it." :)
They also described jumping under the desks in the blockhouse as the debris came down. I'm not sure that doing that would've helped.
Clearly, this could've been much worse.
I just read about this a few minutes ago as I'm doing a post on imgur about this failure. Here's the story:
"One of those belonged to Dr. Jay Bernard, who joined Aerospace in 1977, then moved to the Delta II program in the early 1990s to work on the Redundant Inertial Flight Control Assembly (RIFCA), which was part of an avionics upgrade."
"Bernard recounted that his insurance adjuster was initially skeptical when he reported the cause of damage as a collision with a rocket. But he was convinced after Bernard told him to turn on the television, which was covering the event right then."
Thor became fat. It got heavier and heavier and became the delta; the tanks have been stretched, a second stage was added. It then blew up.
This should have been called: Big OOps Moments, which is an acronym for BOOM.
Imagine going to your car insurance after this happened.
Agent: I'm so sorry your car burned. Did everyone get out of your car alright?
Engineer: What do you mean? Nobody was in the car.
Agent: Oh, that's good. So did your house catch fire and spread to your car?
Engineer: Actually burning solid rocket fuel rained down after a rocket explosion and hit my car.
Agent: *confused staring*
This actually happened. Guy filed an insurance claim on his truck (the one Scott shows at the very beginning) on the same day, and the insurance adjuster didn't believe him until the guy told him to watch the news. The first-hand story is floating around on the intertubes somewhere.
That's pretty much how I explained it to my insurance company- told them to check CNN. We had to file two claims - one to our auto insurance and fortunately one to a government insurance handler for lost personal belongings.
Can you make a video on thrust vectoring systems and their differences?
this
:D
As we all know cause they had an Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly! :)
I believe you mean a "Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly"... ;)
Obviously they picked the wrong rocket from the shelves - this was the fireworks version.
Die PietSmiet Community übernimmt Ksp
I love the announcer on that explosion,
rocket: *boom
lady: "we have had an anomaly"
Instructions unclear, where am I flying my safe to?
"It would be bad if these boosters failed. We better test them so that doesn't happen."
"Good thinking, Jim."
Brian Clark For metal casings, this is the proper standard procedure. Because solid metal is more like a spring that will be just as strong after that pressure test. While fibres is a bunch of strings permanently breaking one by one at max load.
I'm shocked the engineering team didn't mandate a full-up NDI (using ultrasonics) of the composite structure after loading it up to 95% ultimate. Sometimes you learn things the hard way.
5:16 Most badass bird under rocket motor
michael cannard can’t see it :/
@Mr. Minticuz It's not directly under the rocket, it's more in front of the concrete block the rocket is placed on. You see that red pipe? The bird is more underneath that walking towards the stairs that need up to the rocket motor. Still the most bad ass bird in the world. Can't even be bothered to fly away...
Something I’ve been noticing in your videos is that when you put up any sort of predominantly white screen, it seems to lose brightness within a second (I’ve seen it happen on 3 different platforms and screens).
If this is done on purpose in your editing, I really appreciate it. I tend to watch mostly at night so it’s quite nice to not have my retina fried away by an unexpected bright point in the video.
Awesome. Great idea for series of videos. Thanks. That slow motion shot of SRB was super cool.
I remember the LEGO set of that rocket, its what got me interested in rocketry from the beginning. Sad that it will never fly again :(
Love the new series, Scott! Very entertaining, you are awesome, sir.
The most expensive fireworks display in history.
What about the N1?
I may be wrong, but (excluding the Challenger and Columbia disasters) NROL-7 aboard a Titan IV(401)A may be the most expensive rocket failure in history. At over a billion dollars, it's certainly way more costly than the Delta II failure in this video.
I always remember the documentary about this one launch failure - and the guy in the blockhouse calling his insurance company to explain that his car had been blown up by a rocket..
3:23 - The Kerbal solution for getting an oversized rocket off the ground: MOAR SRBS!
I immediately thought of this when I heard of the Titan submarine having a carbon fiber hull. Carbon composites are very strong and have many advantages in several applications, but everything in engineering is a tradeoff that must be weighed against the drawbacks. I'd imagine they didn't do enough inspection after each dive.
Same
How late am I on the strap-on jokes?
i always get a good chuckle out of people mentioning "strap-on"s :-)
I was in my high school science class watching that launch on TV. After it exploded they locked down the school as a precaution because of the wind direction and the plume. The local weather man showed it on radar slowly drifting over the county. I suspect we were never in any danger, but as a high school kid it was exciting to think we were.
[Revert to VAB]
Add more boosters. Fly again. Rinse and repeat until it works.
*TAC Self Destruct mod intensifies*
This was a very impressive explosion, great to see a video explaining why. I think it's safe to say, Delta II had a bad problem and did not go to space that day.
The zipper failure, had it happen on old tires, or at least ones that were run flat. one sidewall cord fails, then another, then another, and you get that popcorn sound moments before the whole sidewall rips open like a zipper,. BOOM!
I remember I watched a video of one of the control room guys calling a car insurance company and trying to explain the operator what happened to his car.
LOVE THE IDEA! I get back from work tired and needing some good/ interesting videos; EVERY time I come back and see a new video by Scott Manley on my feed I watch first and am NEVER disappointed!
I've become an Atlas V, Delta IV and SLS fanboy. Oh, and SpaceX! All things SpaceX.
....and Rocket Lab!
I've always quite liked the Delta IV heavy. Looks very Kerbal.
@@jeffvader811 Also, it sets itself on fire on each flight. That is the most Kerbal way to liftoff.
@@kristenburnout1 Just like cooking hot dogs.
@@kristenburnout1 and it's 100% non reusable. Also, very Kerbal. 😂
Awesome idea for a new series. I don't want to see rockets explode, but it is fascinating to watch and learn about. Keep the great videos coming Scott.
Very cool! Did they actually identify many flawed SRBs after changing the testing, loading, and inspection methods?
Rockets fail because they don't work well after exploding.
All failures can be eliminated by only launching in the USA on the 4th of July.
[humor]
Found this channel because of KSP. Stayed for the rockets... Never looked back.
Hi Scott, Thanks for the new series!
This reminds me of what happened April 18 (1985 I think) at VAFB SLC-4 with a titan 34D (if I’m not mistaken). It was a big RUD. It took a full day or better to put the fires out.
I was standing on a beach crossover in Cocoa Beach at the time,was not expecting that show.
It took at least 90 seconds for the noise from the explosion to reach us and even at that distance you could feel the percussion.
David Dowling must have been one hell of a firework show
In my experience, rockets don’t usually just explode, they’re usually shot down by giant laser carrying Russian trained whales. And so the Russian whale conspiracy goes deeper than anyone thought imaginable.
Well what else did they expect launching it without first sending out the torpedolphins on patrol...
Dude you have got it all wrong.... the squirrels are to blame.
@@Richard_Cranium I thought the squirrels' gig was power outages.
Great idea Scott.
I love seeing your comments under other yourubers videos, I special like the ones about the toaster and star citizen
I showed my Dad this a while ago and we now have a running joke of calling a total disaster a “anomaly” because of how calmly the person narrating describes the explosion. I understand that’s what an anomaly is but we just found it funny... it was also pretty funny when my 5ft model rocket exploded in a spectacular way and the only thing my Dad could say was, “just a bit of an anomaly. Love the video as always!
The destruct signal from the blockhouse would be Command Destruct. Self Destruct (internal failure) and Auto Destruct (from the flight termination safety chain) are different events. Rocket staging temporarily inhibits Auto Destruct, for obvious reasons.
Hey Scotty. Thanks for beaming me up again!
those Delta 2's are pure kerbal
This seems familiar. Didn't the Apollo 13 malfunction start when a sensor in an oxygen tank was tested to beyond its specification? The sensor passed the test and appeared undamaged, but was actually damaged in a way that caused the explosion in-flight. Stress testing is not always a great idea.
When you haven’t watched Scott Manley in about 8 years (whenever I last watched ksp), you’re so outdated about the rocket stuff and you get blasted with a whole bunch of rocket terminology which you have no clue about.. That’s me..
Absolutely awesome video, Scott!
Glad to have you back, there's always stuff to learn.
Was tempted to say, "what a crack up"... But that's a little mean.. lol. Glad they solved it!
I bet the weather report didn't see the solid rocket propellant rain coming.
"Cloudy with a change of burning hot solid rocket propellant"
@6:11 Interesting to look back at what effectively would be a Scott Manley video in paper form, and that's only 22 years ago.
Thank you Scott. The latest explosion was the Crew Dragon one. What a pity. Things are going so slow and now they will get even slower with more delays and postponing the future manned flights. Do you thing there is a real chance of watching any manned flight this year? You fly safe too.
1:35 - I hope their insurance covered that...
They should have launched on new years... awesome firework :-)
Way better than RUclips “space experts” nerd videos.
I love this series ! « Why rockets fail ». Also love the « KSP doesn't teach »... Ok, I love all this channel !
Please, MOAR videos on failed launches ! ❤️❤️
Can't wait for a video (maybe?) on the spectacular proton rocket crash. It is perhaps the only crash that can give this firework display a run for it's money!
6:50 in....”despite this violence” so darn funny. Simply fantastic descriptions.
Keep up the great work Scott!
Makes me wonder what went wrong on the crew dragon test stand... Maybe those copv's have a limited number of load/recycle times before....well...ya know...
0:50 * Beavis and Butthead laughter * "Huh, huh huh, huhuhuh, you said,"Strap on". "
I was still developing in the womb when this exploded
I was there!!! I was 10 years old and I still remember the noise and the incredible explosion that rocked the building I was in... we were getting ready to board the big red boat and they said if that boat wasnt between us and the explosion, all the glass in this glass wall facing the ship would have shattered!!!
I remember the sliding doors coming off their tracks and the security guards running around not knowing what had just occurred... when we got on the boat we could see the smoke and fires still on the grounds...
And it burns burns burns, the rain of HTPB, the rain of HTPB~
Does car insurance cover burning falling solid rocket fuel? I'd like to know if their insurance covered their cars lol
Carbon fiber has been nothing but trouble in rocketry. Makes me feel even better about a steel Starship.
Rocketlab begs to differ
@@listtamaru I'd say it's a bit too early to call that one.
@@RobertLutece909 going boom has an even bigger effect on performance lol
Steel is incredibly heavy. It is good for simple SRBs, but that is about it. Once you can manage a different material, you should abandon it ASAP.
@@HalNordmann Not that heavy when you factor in the strength per mass and over all temperature ranges especially below -200C and above 300C where both carbob fiber and aluminium fall apart. Centaur is one of the highest performing and lightest upper stages ever made and it is fully 304L stainless steel. Steel is a very generic description that includes heavy carbon steel and modern super alloys in the 300 series that outperform aluminium and cf. Sure room temperature ok. But turn the heat up, say during reentry and the cf delaminates while the aluminium looses all strenght and the vehicle breaks apart. Do some research before spreading BS. Seriously how does one not know about Centaur, the most frequently flown US upper stage. Even Centaur V for Vulcan will be 304L.
Also SpaceX builds both F9 carbon fiber interstage and the cf fairings in house, as they do for the SX500 inconel, so suggesting they don't have any better materials science is ridiculous. Stainless is far superior to anything else in reusable rocket.
This is why I watch them from the web.
What!?! You mean to tell me they didn't try to save the payload by using the second stage as an emergency lander? Way to waste my tax money, USAF.
LOL
Two many parts and everything saposta work, I think not.
0:47 - A new series of _U.S._ GPS satellites. Remember, Russia (née the Soviet Union) already had its own fully-operational GPS constellation (GLONASS) by this time, so it's best to be specific about _whose_ GPS satellites you're referring to.
No these were updates to the existing US GPS network technically this was the 4th GPS iteration. Unlike GPS GLONASS at the time was still a proprietary system which didn’t offer commercial use until 2007z
@@scottmanley Yes, I _know_ that these were U.S. GPS satellites - I was just pointing out why it's best to be specific which country's GPS satellites one is referring to. (Even more important nowadays, given that we're up to four GPS constellations - the original U.S. network and GLONASS, plus Baidu and Galileo.)
Here in the middle of Europe we tend to call them collectively GNS or GNSS, to distinguish between the idea and a particular system. In my opinion GPS and GloNaSS should be renamed, getting proper trademarks instead of a generic description of what they do, since they operate for profit on the civilian market. We don't have millions of companies named The Local Bakery, we don't fly with (The) Airline, so why GPS/GloNaSS?
falling solid propellant sounds super rough
The four dislikes are the fortnite squad of flat earthers.
I wonder what the insurance companies for the parked cars had to say about that... what a nightmare haha
Jeez, now we have to update the fine print... again.
What gets me is if it was a manned launch they would have a launch escape thing (brain fart) to give the crew a good chance of survival. But if the payload is a $25M satellite there's no escape if things go wrong.
How many satellites could have been saved?
I guess back then they didn't "Fly Safe".
"A failure is only a failure if ýou don't learn anything from it"...
And that rapid unscheduled dissassembly is why we have exclusion zoned...
I live a few miles from there and I still have a big chunk of one of those GEM40's.
Most companies would just call a tow truck if you park in the "no parking" zone. Nuking the parked cars with burning bits of rocket is a rather novel approach...
"this is nothing more than a staged, freemasonic, pyrotechnic, psyop" as a flat earther commented another (actually successful) rocket launch.
well at least the guy got "staged" correct, cause rockets are indeed in stages
My engineering professor showed this in class and handed out parts from the sattelite that he recovered, he was in the Air Force at the time
this is the same thing that killed Challenger. when boosters arrive at the Cape they are delivered in sealed railcars to prevent ignition. When they are stacked every joint must be sealed and packed with epoxy to prevent leaks. what happened here and with Challenger is the o rings shrank and broke and the booster was not sealed properly. Just like Challenger the flames ignited the solid fuel in the other boosters and melted the tank leading to destruction. those that did not explode when the rocket went up were destroyed by the range safety officer. Today Northrup Grumman test all of its boosters in Utah before they are shipped to the Cape and they make sure there are no leaks if a leak is found they seal it or the boosters will explode.
My father was in the blockhouse during this launch/failure...he was a propulsion engineer (liquid engine) for Boeing/McDonnell Douglas/Douglas Co. since 1963. As the rockets grew larger and more powerful over the years, he had said that if they lost one on the pad it would obliterate the blockhouse...needless to say, the explosion at roughly 1/4 mile off the pad knocked him out of his chair. They were stuck in the blockhouse for over an hour before being evacuated. His truck was lightly damaged, but the vehicle parked behind his burned to the ground. He was close to retiring at the time, but stayed on until the next successful launch (he didn't want to leave until they had a good launch). He then retired, but contracted back for the (ill fated) Delta III and early Delta IV. He was a very intelligent and well respected engineer, but extremely modest. His passion for the space program was unwavering, and inspired me to join the space program myself (Space Shuttle).
I really like these tidbits of history. You're a great presenter. Keep it up
@Scott manley; could /would you join a flat eart/space rebunk on a channel like Reds rethoric? Reds is doing great, but if you would come in,i think 75 percent of the globe/space debunkers would flee with their tails between their legs. It would make a great video! (just an idea of a person whom hate unscientific reality deniers. love your work, by the way. greetings from The Netherlands.) and really watch Reds space x live recording,they are great.
I don't recall if that spectacular explosion was on the six o'clock news back in 1997 but I do remember reading about the Thor Delta II explosion in a contemporary issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology where they had a remotely operated camera only a few hundred feet from the LC.
In 1997, I lived in Satellite Beach about 17 miles from the launch pad. I was just coming out from getting my hair cut. There was a flash and a compression wave hit me, almost knocking me down. I could see the fire at the base. Then, the sound wave hit. It was spectacular!
Another interesting "local" impact occurred when a half hour after the blast, a nasty purple cloud (perhaps hypergolic rocket fuel) rolled across the Port Canaveral entrance on a stiff NE wind, causing the big crowd of observers to flee Jetty Park. There's a video of this somwhere.
Have you done a video about the failure of the first Ariane 5 rocket, Scott?
Also at the risk of sounding like a pedantic nitpicker, Scott, it's NOT a Delta II it's a thrust-augmented Thor-Delta II.
Those pressures are even more crazy when you consider that there are humans who live and work at similar pressures. A saturation diver lives at pressures up to 52 atmospheres for weeks at a time.
There was no true blockhouse in use at CX17in the sense of the heavily re-enforced structures seen on ICBM row. The one at CX17 was just a modified bunker using sandbags and other material. Glad I arrived after this event. But I did have a front row seat for it just north of it.
I was living in Orlando at the time that happened. Scared the shit out of everyone. IDK why because they launch them over the Atlantic Ocean. Media hype... Side note. I miss the sonic booms from the Space Shuttle :(.....