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How do you get rid of a gigantic downed transport plane? Well, you could take it apart piece by piece or move it to a junkyard. Or, if you're feeling a bit more adventurous, you could blow it the hell up. Guess which option the UK Royal Air Force chose?
While space travel is safe for the most part, sometimes things go really wrong. Like last week's NASA's rocket explosion on the Wallops Island, where an ATK Launch Vehicle X-1 exploded only seconds after liftoff, with hazardous debris falling on land and sea. We are used to seeing the fireworks in the air, but what happens when that flaming debris hits the ground is much more spectacular and scary, as you can see in this video.
Way back in the days of 2007, courier company Deadline Express treated their New Zealand patrons to a particularly evocative printed advertisement. It was a US$14,000 billboard that featured a timer counting down to when it would blow up, proving "when Deadline Couriers gives you a time, they actually mean it." We can't speak for the service, but the explosions were spectacular in video:
Holy shit, the Space X guys just scattered Scotty's ashes all over the Pacific Ocean. As in, "beam me up, Scotty" actor James Doohan. From Star Trek the Original Series! Turns out Scotty--er, Doohan--was one of the 208 people whose ashes were placed on board the Falcon 1 rocket by Celestis, Inc., a company that arranges for loved ones' ashes to be shot into space. Astronaut Gordon Cooper was also aboard the doomed launch, which Celestis had dubbed the "Explorer's Flight." I'm no rocket scientist (hell, I'm barely a blogger), but I think they might want to rename the flight something else, considering what happened to the Falcon 1 late last night.
Bad news for private space flight aficionados--SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket lifted off live via webcast last night, and then proceded to blow up spectacularly in the sky over the Pacific Ocean. If you were following along on the official SpaceX website, you probably saw this: "20:38 PDT — We have heard from launch control that there has been an anomaly. More details will be posted to the website as available." The site remains the same this morning, but Space.com has learned that two rocket stages "failed to separate about two minutes and 20 seconds into launch" and the rocket blew itself to smithereens around 11:36 p.m. EDT. The pubs are calling this "strike three" for SpaceX, but it should be known billionaire backer Elon Musk has two more rockets left to prove his private firm is a reliable way to transport satellites to low Earth orbit.
Even while I knew what was going to happen when I saw this video, it shocked me when I saw it exploding the way it did, with no warning whatsoever. To be honest, I don't know if this Saudi fighter jet is a real fighter jet or not. It sounds like one, it looks like one, and it explodes like one, so it must be an aeroplane or a duck. But somehow, some people think it may be an RC model. Still, the idea of the plane just exploding like that reminds you how fragile our technological world is--says the guy taking a plane on Monday. What do you people think? Real or model?
What do you do with a C-130 cargo aircraft that has made a crash-landing in an insecure area of Iraq? If you're the 447th Expeditionary Operations Support Squadron you wire it with explosives and you blow it up. Again and again and again... until it's in small enough bits to load onto a flatbed and ship back to an air base. Apparently it's pretty rare for an aircraft to make emergency landings in the field, which is good news. Though if it resulted in more videos like this, we wouldn't complain. [PointNiner via Danger Room]
Before we completely bid adieu to our nation's birthday, we here at Gizmodo would like to give one more shout out to the fourth of July. Seems like even the stars in the sky can't resist putting up a display for good ol' American freedom. These red-white-and-blue pictures of Supernova remnant SN 1006 are what's left over from a star explosion first observed by humans in year 1006.
Well, we hope you've had a good day off, a great BBQ and plenty of watermelon. Also, we hope that you didn't blow up your face. We'll leave you with one last Consumer Product Safety Commission clip that proves, once and for all, that it is NOT okay to point fireworks at friends and family members. They may end up in a storm of smoke and fire. Happy 4th everybody! [CPSC]
If you're anything like us, you're probably deep into your 12th beer by now. You may think that now's the perfect time to test some of those firecrackers in your kitchen. Well, don't, or you may end up like this guy and his house, both blasted to smithereens by some lousy M-1000s. Take it from us and the Consumer Product Safety Commission and have a happy 4th everybody! [CPSC]
Well, we hope you've had a good day off, a great BBQ and plenty of watermelon. Also, we hope that you didn't blow up your face. We'll leave you with one last Consumer Product Safety Commission clip that proves, once and for all, that it is NOT okay to point fireworks at friends and family members. They may end up in a storm of smoke and fire. Happy 4th everybody! [
If you're anything like us, you're probably deep into your 12th beer by now. You may think that now's the perfect time to test some of those firecrackers in your kitchen. Well, don't, or you may end up like this guy and his house, both blasted to smithereens by some lousy M-1000s. Take it from us and the Consumer Product Safety Commission and have a happy 4th everybody! [