Unmanned Russian Soyuz Blows Up On Launch

adagioforstrings writes "CNN reports that a 300-tonne unmanned Soyuz-U launch vehicle exploded 29 seconds after take-off from Russia's Arctic Plesetsk cosmodrome late on Tuesday, its blazing debris showering onto the launchpad and its blastwave killing one and injuring eight others. A modified version of this same kind of rocket will be used to carry cosmonauts to the ISS later this month."

Comments

Just one question..

[billcopc]

Why the hell do space rockets blow up ?

When my (previous) car would mess up, it would just stall or the steering would lock up and send me speeding toward a parked car.. but never did it even come close to going kaboom on me. Of course there was no giant flame-throwing jet engine on the back of my car.

Now if the whole thing is blowing up, that means that some overpaid schnick needs to rethink his giant flame-throwing jet engine design LONG AND HARD, because these things cost bazillions to build and they have to get it right the first time, every time, before something even worse happens like blowing up a moon-bus full of civilians. If they're having trouble sourcing 17mm o-rings and they think they can get away with 18mm o-rings, well that's the kind of engineering genius that leads to these ugly screwups. 96% success ratio just ain't good enough, look how the airlines are struggling, and they have hundreds of flights daily with only one or two accidents every couple of years.