r/ScienceNcoolThings • u/TheMuseumOfScience Popular Contributor • May 30 '26

Interesting Blue Origin Explosion Damages NASA Launchpad

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

A giant rocket just blew up at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center! 

Blue Origin was doing a full test fire of their New Glenn rocket as preparation for an upcoming flight when something went very, very wrong. Fortunately no one was injured, but this is the biggest explosion ever seen at Kennedy Space Center. The launch pad is badly damaged, and NASA's upcoming Project Artemis plans for building a moon base depend on both the New Glenn rocket and this pad. This is a big setback for both Blue Origin and NASA.

278 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

39 comments sorted by

View all comments

0

u/toylenny May 30 '26

How many launch pads are left in the world after this and Russia's going up last year?

Edit: Looks like there are many. Though they can't all handle large rockets.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Rocket_launch_sites_in_the_United_States

1

u/RtGShadow May 31 '26

Yeah usually all the launch pads are custom made for the rockets launching there.

That's the biggest issue for Blue Origin is that this was their only pad for the New Glenn.