Hacker News Reader

You really think this is comparable to bring it up ?

Worst case a few sats get lost or the booster doesn't land correctly. As long as they test this on their own sats first (which are rather cheap) I do not see the issue.

They will want to test to breaking point after all.

View on HN

From the article: certifying Falcon 9 boosters for up to 20 flights for Starlink missions

So yeah, seems that they want to reduce their starlink cost

Rocket blows up on the pad? Needs self-destruction after launch and the self-destruct doesn't work?

Still, there aren't any people hanging out at the pad during a launch.

There is a pretty good reason why they launch rockets over the ocean or large expanses of empty land. If an RSO terminates a flight with a perfectly functional system, the debris will still spread over the surface for some distance, depending on the altitude that the flight was terminated at, of course. Launch trajectories are designed in such a way that the portion where the altitude would allow substantial debris to return is usually placed over uninhabited regions or the ocean.

The recent SpaceX explosion had debris that fell on towns and inhabited areas.

For the most part it was a dust and maybe a few tiny rocks. This was mostly because because the wind carried it in that direction.

No people were hurt and no windows were broken.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com