How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN uses it as evidence that SpaceX iterated through visible failures and is open and humorous about them.
What it is
SpaceX's own compilation of failed orbital booster landing attempts, set to sound, showing the crashes before landings succeeded.
Recommended by 4 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2018 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Recommends Medox · 2018-02 · on “Watch the SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket Launch Today”
Speaking of not being ashamed of failures, I've always liked their compilation of them (with sound it's even better): [this video]
Recommends peterwaller · 2018-02 · on “SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches”
Agree it is strange. I love their "How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster" film. [this video] Watching the countdown net it seemed plausible that they didn't know whether it had successfully landed either.
Recommends codeulike · 2020-09 · on “SpaceX Launch: Starlink 12 [video]”
Everyone is commenting saying how mundane it has become to see the landings. Hence you might enjoy this official SpaceX Blooper reel from 2017 that shows the numerous spectacular failures that they worked through. Innovation is a type of gamble. People forget that. "SpaceX: How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster" [this video] (and regular reminder that these things are 12-storey high explosive tubes)
Recommends jerf · 2021-02 · on “SpaceX SN9 Explodes on Landing”
If you happen not to have seen it, "How Not To Land an Orbital Rocket Booster": [this video] from SpaceX.
Cites vvanders · 2018-02 · on “Air Force Strike Takes Out SpaceX's Floating GovSat Booster”
Take a look at all of the failed landings[1], even after they land on the barge they still go boom(or RUD if you prefer that term) when the structural integrity is lost. [1] [this video]
Cites ncallaway · 2018-02 · on “SpaceX's Falcon Heavy center booster lacked ignition fluid to re-light engines”
It's not like SpaceX didn't break things either: [this video] . The real trick is knowing when it's OK to break things in experimentation and the acquisition of knowledge, and when everything needs to run smoothly.
Cites shirro · 2018-04 · on “New Shepard's 8th test flight [video]”
Possibly booster landings were judged much less reliable than parachute landings when they originated the concept. Nobody had propulsively landed a booster that had been to space until Blue and SpaceX did it at around the same time. Before that things didn't always go so well: [this video] SpaceX were going to land Dragon 2 with rockets and it looks like NASA wasn't interested. Parachutes are still the safe, proven option. With orbital class boosters potentially being landed every couple of weeks and Blue having flown their vehicle multiple times I would guess future vehicle generations will benefit from that experience. SpaceX's BFS is going to combine a second stage and crew/cargo vehicle. If s
Cites Robotbeat · 2019-10 · on “Build Your Own Thrust Vectored Rockets for Vertical Landings Like SpaceX”
I mean, seems pretty hard to be honest. They got the trajectory down pretty close for the vast majority of these (otherwise would be too far away to see with cameras). But so much extremely expensive space hardware destroyed in the pursuit of this goal. They earned it: [this video]