Strong suspicions of sabotage of the Falcon 9

0 evidence. Plenty of motive though.

>Only there's 0 evidence for sabotage.

There's circumstantial (emphasis on circumstantial) evidence in the difficulty of finding a source of the explosion in the fault tree analysis.

Z-E-R-O

M8. Shit doesn't explode for no reason, and they're having some difficulty finding a reason that's completely native to the rocket. That's not proof of sabotage, but it is circumstantial evidence that other, un-monitored, external factors may be at work. There's zero PROOF of sabotge.

>Washington Post

>there's 0 evidence for sabotage.
Except some video of weird movement on a building with a clear line of sight to the rocket, within sniper rifle range.

And instruments monitoring all reasonable internal causes not detecting any fault.

And the rocket spontaneously exploding during routine tanking operations, an accident of a type that hasn't happened in the USA for half a century, and in a specific form that has never been seen before.

And this routine tanking operation being something they do many times in testing, with no such incidents until they put a payload on top of their rocket.

>Except some video of weird movement on a building with a clear line of sight to the rocket, within sniper rifle range.

Why is always the SpaceX/Tesla/Musk threads that bring out the turbo autists?

It's just redditors grasping at any excuse left to not blame it on spacex and their god musk

>Tesla autopilot causing accidents (and a death)
"It's the driver's fault"
>SolarCity panels have below-adverstised performances
"It's the customer's fault"
>SpaceX rockets exploding
"It's ULA's fault"

well, it makes sense if the reusability program comes even close to doing what it promised it means the instant loss of dozens of billions of dollars for many gigantic corporations all over the world.

frankly im surprised it didnt happen sooner

That is the exact, literal truth about what evidence there is.

It's not "0 evidence... ZERO", it's an intensely monitored, routine process failing in an unprecedented and catastrophic way, timed in such a way that it would do the most damage, with the instruments offering no explanation, and video shows some unclear stuff happening at the same time on the roof of a building controlled by competitors, with a line of sight to the rocket and within rifle range, which they only saw because they put out a call for all video shot by anyone in the area at the same time.

That doesn't mean it's definitely sabotage, but there is clearly some evidence that points in that direction.

Link to video?

>sniper rifle
>bullet making shadows

no one?

"SpaceX had still images from video that seemed to show a shadow, then a white spot on the roof of a nearby building belonging to ULA"
The video isn't public. This isn't something SpaceX has announced, it's something a reporter dug up because SpaceX people asked questions at ULA, then the Air Force got involved.

And don't bring your strawman greentext shitposting into a serious discussion.

>>Tesla autopilot causing accidents (and a death)
>"It's the driver's fault"
it was the truck drivers fault for making an illegal turn.

>sorry no actual evidence yet

ZERO

ZZZZZEEEEERRRRROOOOOOOO!!!!

Ah, the human garbage is here, with an obsessive mental illness who came to Veeky Forums after getting banned from reddit for being garbage.

There's exactly the same amount of evidence that there was someone snipering the rocket to explode as there is someone was playing patty cake on top of a ULA building.

Think about that for a long moment.

>There's circumstantial (emphasis on circumstantial) evidence in the difficulty of finding a source of the explosion in the fault tree analysis.
Absence of evidence isn't the same thing as evidence of absence.

>Washington Post clickbait
>serious discussion

Veeky Forums has never heard of "K.I.S.S." it seems.

Not an argument.

ignoring obvious evidence

That's not evidence.

>it's a reddit kiddie spacex fan tries to find any other reason for the accident besides spacex's obvious incompetence episode

>it's an Elon Musk shill thread

Watch this video.

This is the public one that all the UFO and Drone kooks are going nuts over. Watch closely to tall the dark objects buzzing around the camera lens far before the rocket explodes. Then compare those to the same thing that flies just above the rocket before it explodes. It is all the same, just insects flying near the camera.

youtube.com/watch?v=20bIILqz-gU

Yet, all the kooks are calling it a UFO or Drone sniper.

Sabotage by a certain powerful group who doesn't want us to escape this planet. Expect an attempt on Musk's life in the near future if he doesn't stop.

What group is that?
Why do they not want people to "escape" this planet?

Don't they realize that humanity will never colonize any other planet and O'Neill Cylinders won't be made? There is no escaping.

>Our rockets aren't shit, someones sabotaged it!
Obviously this is just a false narrative.
It's their second fuckup this year, it's a PR disaster. With this they can make it seem like their rocket isn't at fault.

>Washington Post says explosion was due to sabotage
>WP is owned by Jeff Bezos
>Bezos also owns Blue Origin
k

...

China? Because the Chinese are the ones creating a false flag for about 70% of all anti-Jewish sentiment in order to destabilize the West. The other 30% is realzzz because fuck the 1% amitrite, loser?

>>> evidence... ZERO
>>>>[describes the actual evidence]
>>>ZZZZZEEEEERRRRROOOOOOOO!!!!
>>Ah, the human garbage is here
>Not an argument.
Human. Garbage.

...

Once again, pining the blame on anyone but himself or his company.

>Tesla cars do shitting mileage to battery charge and occasionally light on fire
I-i-it's that idiot Jeremy Clarkson! And all of Top Gear! And the BBC! THEY'RE to blame, not us!

>people consistently show his Hyperloop idea is basically the Monorial episode of the Simpsons
P-people just don't believe in me! I-I'm a dreamer, a visionary!

>his shitty rocket blows up
S-sabotage! They want to destroy my vision!

What a faggot.

September 3, 2016, 7:53 PM (IDT)
"the reason for the destruction is far from technical and may never come to light"

That's a fucking insect you moron.

You can hear a *pop* coming from the thank about 5 sec before the explosion. Which is more likely related to the explosion than that stupid black dot.

>insect
ITT: The blindness of tribal psychosis.

You can see a lot of these UFOs before it exploded, too. And the explosions starts long before it is at its closest to the rocket.

Not an argument

You are anti-science.

>>SPACEX WAS SAYBOTAGD ERHMAGERD
nowhere in OP's post does he say this or suggest that this was the case

fuck off retard

source on 0 evidence?

i didnt know you worked for spacex bud.

There is zero evidence that it wasnt Crab People on the ULA roof, therefore, my money is on them. Framing ULA is the perfect crime

you started good but ended retarded

...

>So it turns out that the Falcon 9 was probably sabotaged by a competitor firm.
It's like you can't even read.

see

Oh you are so full of shit.

It just takes one guy with a misplaced sense of loyalty, and there's lots of angry rhetoric around ULA about how SpaceX is a bunch of phonies who are going to ruin the industry and hurt the country.

People don't understand how easy this shit would be. 50 cal sniper rifles are off-the-shelf, uncontrolled items. Special-purpose anti-materiel rounds that could cause this are a little harder to come by, but also the kind of stuff low-rank soldiers handle fairly often, and therefore the kind of stuff that "goes missing" from military bases all the time. It's a long shot, but it's also a very big target.

Even in a relatively secure facility like this, most people just drive in without being searched. They show their badge, nobody looks in the trunk.

...

K.I.S.S

This is, of course, not the video referred to in the news stories.

No one said it was.

>Special-purpose anti-materiel rounds
wat, its a thin layer of aluminum, not armor plate.

The #1 thing that makes this not just an amateur is the fact they knew where to aim to hit the COPV

>0 evidence = evidence

Technically nonzero, just a small multiple of epsilon.

>>Special-purpose anti-materiel rounds
>wat, its a thin layer of aluminum, not armor plate.
Just poking a hole in it wouldn't cause an explosion. There are .50 cal rounds designed specifically to set vehicles on fire when you shoot them in the gas tank.

>knew where to aim to hit the COPV
They're not that small. That could happen accidentally, especially if you aim for the liquid oxygen tank, but really, it could happen if you hit anywhere.

>not just an amateur
You don't need to be a pro to have a pretty good idea where the COPV tanks are. They're obviously at the bottom of the LOX tank, and you can see where that is by the frost on the surface of the rocket.

Not gonna blow up like that if you don't hit the COPV tank

an incendiary round hitting the LOx tank isn't going to cause a fire either.

Being able to aim like that implies an extended period of time on the ULA building, along with a good amount of knowledge of the rocket.

>its a thin layer of aluminum
That description could mean anything from incendiary to designed to heavily fragment, not necessarily armor piercing.

>Not gonna blow up like that if you don't hit the COPV tank
It's not at all clear why it blew up like that even if the helium tank did pop.

>an incendiary round hitting the LOx tank isn't going to cause a fire either.
Aluminum is flammable, especially in liquid oxygen. It's just hard to ignite. Igniting stuff that's hard to ignite (like jet fuel) is one of the things incendiary rounds are designed for.

So you're going to have this spray of burning aluminum in pure oxygen.

Anything else that can burn is going to be burning very shortly, like that big tank of kerosene just below the oxygen tank.

Don't worry, chaps! It's ride or die in November. Don't worry about our wreckless QA procedures, or the fact that we've never had a manned space flight. We're terraforming Mars, bitches. We're gods with our matchbook chemical rockets

The fact that the same part of the rocket (the COPVs in the second stage lox tank) that failed during their last incident makes a sabotage seem unlikely.

And anyone who thinks that the second stage bursting is not enough to start a fire is misinformed. When working with lox, you worry about it reacting with grubby finger-prints, of course it's going to go off in a tank blowout.

See also: a truck with o2 bottles crashing:

youtube.com/watch?v=rrfliY6ylOI

The heat of the impact is sufficient to start the oxygen burning with whatever it can find.

>The fact that the same part of the rocket (the COPVs in the second stage lox tank) that failed during their last incident makes a sabotage seem unlikely.
It wasn't the same part of their rocket, and the failure mode could not possibly be the same.

What failed last time was a strut holding the helium tank in place. And even with its strength, far under spec, it only failed because of the high acceleration as the first stage neared depletion, which increased the buoyant force on the helium tank.

Plus, after that, they changed their strut supplier and instituted a policy of testing each strut individually before installation.

That's steel bottles scraping along pavement for quite some distance. They'll throw off very hot sparks.

>of course it's going to go off in a tank blowout.
No, not "of course". There needs to be contact with fuel and an ignition source. Liquid oxygen will, given time, form sensitive explosive mixtures with all sorts of combustible materials. However, such a prompt fireball seems unlikely if a helium tank just burst.

Also: if you watch the video, that's plainly not oxygen bottles. Some kind of fuel, not oxidizer.