SpaceX giant rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas
South Padre Island, Apr 20: SpaceX's giant new rocket exploded minutes after blasting off Thursday on it first test flight and crashed into the Gulf of Mexico.
Elon Musk's company was aiming to send the nearly 400-foot (120-meter) Starship rocket on a round-the-world trip from the southern tip of Texas, near the Mexican border.
It carried no people or satellites.
Images showed multiple engines weren't working on the 33-engine rocket as it climbed from the launch pad, reaching as high as 24 miles (39 kilometers.)
The flight plan had called for the booster to peel away from the spacecraft minutes after liftoff, but that didn't happen.
The rocket began to tumble and then exploded four minutes into the flight, plummeting into the gulf.
After separating, the spacecraft was supposed to continue east and attempt to circle the world, before crashing into the Pacific near Hawaii.
Throngs of spectators watched from South Padre Island, several miles away from the Boca Chica Beach launch site, which was off limits. As it lifted off, the crowd screamed: "Go, baby, go!"
Musk, in a tweet, called it "an exciting test launch of Starship! Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months."
In the weeks leading up to the flight, Musk gave 50-50 odds that the spacecraft would reach orbit.
The company plans to use Starship to send people and cargo to the moon and, eventually, Mars.
NASA has reserved a Starship for its next moonwalking team, and rich tourists are already booking lunar flybys.
It was the second launch attempt. Monday's try was scrapped by a frozen booster valve.
At 394 feet and nearly 17 million pounds of thrust, Starship easily surpasses NASA's moon rockets past, present and future.
The stainless steel rocket is designed to be fully reusable with fast turnaround, dramatically lowering costs, similar to what SpaceX's smaller Falcon rockets have done soaring from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Nothing was to be saved from the test flight.
The futuristic spacecraft flew several miles into the air during testing a few years ago, landing successfully only once.
But this was to be the inaugural launch of the first-stage booster with 33 methane-fuelled engines.
SpaceX has more boosters and spacecraft lined up for more test flights. Musk wants to fire them off in quick succession, so he can start using Starships to launch satellites into low-Earth orbit and then put people on board.
Starship Super Heavy has experienced an anomaly before stage separation! 💥 pic.twitter.com/MVw0bonkTi
— Primal Space (@thePrimalSpace) April 20, 2023
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
HC rejects plea seeking permission for protest against Gaza `genocide'
CPM decries court's view
_vb_77.jpeg)
Mumbai (PTI): The Bombay High Court on Friday rejected a petition filed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) against Mumbai police's refusal to allow a protest against the alleged genocide in Gaza, and advised the party to focus on domestic issues.
The CPI(M) criticised the court's remarks, claiming that it ignored constitutional freedoms and India's traditional support for Palestinian freedom and statehood.
The party moved the court after the police last month denied the All India Peace and Solidarity Organisation a permission to stage a rally at Azad Maidan ground in south Mumbai to protest the "genocide" in Gaza.
A bench of Justices Ravindra Ghuge and Gautam Ankhad dismissed the petition, stating that the party should concentrate on problems affecting the country instead of focusing on issues thousands of miles away.
Advocate Mihir Desai, appearing for the CPI(M), told the HC that police denied permission on the ground that it could lead to a law and order problem.
But citizens have the right to demonstrate at a spot designated for such events, and the possibility of law and order situation could not be a reason to deny that right, he contended.
The court, however, did not accept the argument.
In a statement, CPI (M) criticised the court's stand.
"The Polit Bureau of the CPI (M) strongly condemns the observations of the Bombay High Court bench while rejecting an application by the party to challenge the Mumbai Police's refusal to allow a protest action against the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza," it said.
While rejecting the plea, the court called into question the patriotism of the party, the CPI (M) claimed.
The HC also opined that the party does not understand `what this could do to the foreign affairs of the country' and, instead of taking up issues such as garbage dumping, pollution, sewerage and flooding it was protesting about something happening far away on foreign land, the CPI (M) further claimed.
The HC appeared to be unaware of either the provisions of the Constitution which enshrines the rights of a political party, or the "history of our country and our people's solidarity with the Palestinians and their legitimate right to homeland," the party said.
The HC observations appeared to be "in line with the central government," the CPI (M) said.
Mahatma Gandhi, the national movement and "subsequent foreign policy of independent India" had not flinched from supporting the cause of Palestinian people's right to freedom and homeland, the party said.
The HC also did not take into account "unequivocal condemnation globally against Israeli action and the stated positions of the UN bodies and the International Court of Justice," the CPI(M) said.
