Could they have crashed it because of security/safety concerns for President-elect Trump, who was there as a surprise guest, watching the launch with Elon?
Per NYTimes: “It was pretty epic on Attempt 1,” Kate Tice, a senior quality engineering manager at SpaceX, said of the last test flight’s tower catch on the company’s livestream. “But the safety of the teams and the public and the pad itself are paramount.”
Not sure what would have changed compared to the first launch, other than Trump’s presence - and they haven’t described any anomalies.
A launch is one thing: lots of explosive potential, but the kinetic energy is quickly dispersed.
The KE of a botched landing of what’s essentially a ballistic missile would be a whole lot more concentrated…
Or maybe they just didn’t have time to file a modified flight plan for it to enter even-more-specially-restricted controlled airspace.
As far as I’ve seen when airspace is restricted, it’s restricted, there are no “levels of restriction”. If a spaceship is launching, no one can fly - if the president-elect is there, no one can fly. Also, I believe star base is over two miles away, so I doubt this was a concern.
Per NYTimes: “It was pretty epic on Attempt 1,” Kate Tice, a senior quality engineering manager at SpaceX, said of the last test flight’s tower catch on the company’s livestream. “But the safety of the teams and the public and the pad itself are paramount.”
Not sure what would have changed compared to the first launch, other than Trump’s presence - and they haven’t described any anomalies.
A launch is one thing: lots of explosive potential, but the kinetic energy is quickly dispersed.
The KE of a botched landing of what’s essentially a ballistic missile would be a whole lot more concentrated…
Or maybe they just didn’t have time to file a modified flight plan for it to enter even-more-specially-restricted controlled airspace.