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Comment by imaginenore | Hacker News Reader

The most interesting hypothesis I've heard is intentional sabotage, like with a sniper rifle shot. Snipers have been known to hit human targets from 1.5 miles away. It seems like a huge rocket can get shot from a much larger distance.

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It's possible, and there could be motive from competing companies, but frankly it seems a bit far-fetched.

Not just companies, countries like Russia. SpaceX is eating their space lunch.

There's also the whole conspiracy theory with Israel not wanting the launch to go through because it was a condition for the sale of the Israeli Spacecom to the Chinese, and Israel wanted to maintain control of their space industry.

The Israeli government approved the sale, they could've said no if they wanted too.

If some one doesn't want Israel to transfer satellite technology to China it's not really the Israeli government.

Also Spacecom is just a satellite operator, the satellite was built by IAI and other contractors, IAI is a state owned corporation which builds Israel's satellites and space launch vehicles.

For the most part Spacecom doesn't have anything of real worth the transfer (other than their commercial operations), they do not operate Israel's military satellites they do not even operate Israel's commercial dual-use earth observing satellites.

Even more far fetched, someone shorting a large amount of SpaceX stock. That would make for a decent movie plot though.

SpaceX isn't publically traded IIRC, so shorting the stock isn't really possible.

That could certainly be done, but I don't think it could be done in a way that wasn't obvious to investigators.

How big is the upper-stage cryogenic helium tank? I imagine not very large, and it's not obvious to me exactly where it is placed. The hypothesized saboteur would have to be an amazing shot!

The volume of a rocket is predominantly composed of fuel. And even if a puncture doesn't cause an anomaly at sea level, it most certainly will upon some flight condition.

You don't shoot the rocket in a static fire I'd you want it to explode in flight, though.

They don't have to hit just the helium tank to cause the explosion. Any fuel tank would probably do.

If the failure has been isolated to the helium tank, that further debunks the 'sniper' hypothesis, right?

In what way?

Well, if any tank failure would cause an explosion, wouldn't the hypothetical sniper aim at a big tank? Not a tiny flask located inside another tank.

The hypothetical sniper could have been aiming at a large tank, missed, and luckily hit the helium tank. Hypothetically, of course. :P

If the smaller tank is contained within the larger tank, that seems like an impossibly lucky shot.

They're not that large, about the size of a person;

https://i.imgur.com/K3H7mdY.jpg

A sniper could hit that from 1 km distance.

I'm not saying that's what necessarily happened. I'm saying a sniper could very well do that.

You do realize they are launching from a military base right?

What is it with HN and belief in various absurd conspiracy theories? Is it an American thing?

It's a human thing

Nit: the contention that the world's leaders are shape shifting alien reptiles is an absurd conspiracy theory. This one is just extremely unlikely in the absence of direct evidence.

Musk is the new Jobs on HN. His company is beyond failure for he is a holy figure to be worshipped and everything his company does is not the result of the employees, but of his blessing and ability.

Interestingly, I have noticed a tendency for positive stories and statements about SpaceX (and, if I wanted to be contentious, I could even call them 'fanboy' originated) to refer to him as 'Elon', whereas negative or neutral commentary uses the less familiar 'Musk' instead. I'm not quite sure what conclusion to draw from this, though. As for the 'ElongatedMuskrat' user on Reddit, I have no idea...

You're confusing a hypothesis and a belief.

I think there is a big cultural element. Not to say other cultures are immune to conspiracy-theory thinking, but something about American exceptionalism seems to encourage it.

Aren't religions (at least Abrahamic ones) just one big conspiracy theory? People believing in some kind of series of events with little to no evidence? If so I think people globally are apt to believe in dubious claims, aka conspiracy theories.

Alright, everybody, start looking for the grassy knoll...

Well with the rifle there is a problem that bullet would be left on the stage. Not sure whether would it be possible to do it with for example laser.

How is that a problem? What about the giant debris field left?

With an explosion that large, you would never find the bullet.

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