[supportlocal4h]

Somewhere there is a team that is over the top happy about an incredibly successful explosion. Their job was to make sure that if flight path deviated beyond some threshhold that the whole vehicle would be blown into tiny parts that would become ballistically safe. They were on the edge of their seats on how well that would work.

They saw the lift off team celebrate their success. They saw the booster team fist pumping. They saw the concern from the separation team and their own anticipation spiked. They saw the flight correction team studying realtime data intensely and taking some pride that all that spinning was semi-controlled. The anxiety for the demolition team had to be through the roof. Then, finally, it happened. The system they had spent so much effort to design and integrate finally deployed. It didn't fire prematurely. It didn't fail to deploy. It got everything exactly right.

There is still a ton of data to evaluate, and some improvements to be made. But that unnoticed team from the back of the shed at the back of the lot is celebrating picture perfect execution. Here's a salute to real engineers doing real work, getting it exactly right, and getting no credit. Well done.

[xwdv]

One demolition team member had commented that his butt was clenched the whole time and when he finally saw the rocket explode it was like a euphoric release.

[javajosh]

I have to say, "rocket demolition guy" has got to be one of the coolest job titles in the world.

[moffkalast]

I guess he finally learned how to use the three seashells.

[hackernewds]

This reads strangely like a PR damage control post

[bottlepalm]

It’s not, it’s been 20 years, you think people would be used to SpaceX failing their way to success.

But every time we have the same debate.

[ordu]

Is it possible to say "succesful failure" without sounding like a PR person doing a damage control?

I mean, lets imagine that "test early, test often" is a good engineering practice (it probably is, but lets do not discuss it here, just assume it as a premise instead). Lets imagine that SpaceX blowed up its rocket to gather more data. Is it possible to say "it was a succesful failure" without it looking as a rationalization?

It is an important question, because if the answer is "no" then your observation is not informative.

[sixothree]

This thread is absolutely filled with them.

[dymk]

Maybe some people got bored of being negative blowhards

[PoignardAzur]

Heh. Reminds me of that scene from the Tintin comic where the test moon rocket gets hacked by the bad guys and the good guys go "Holy crap, good thing we secretly installed a remote detonator in there!".