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When you’re starting out on a new venture, a few premature detonations can be easily forgiven.
So we’re hoping Elon Musk isn’t feeling too embarrassed about the explosion of his Starship – a rocket that’s designed to carry humans to Mars and beyond.
The Mk1 prototype was undergoing a ‘cryogenic pressure test’ at SpaceX’s facilities near the South Texas village of Boca Chica when the spacecraft went kaboom.
Witnesses said the top of the craft shot almost 500 feet into the air and videos show plumes of smoke pouring from the top of the gigantic spaceship.
‘The purpose of today’s test was to pressurise systems to the max, so the outcome was not completely unexpected,’ a SpaceX spokesperson said in a statement.
‘There were no injuries, nor is this a serious setback.’
Musk took to Twitter to tell fans that his firm will now focus its attention on a new Mk3 Starship prototype.
‘This had some value as a manufacturing pathfinder, but flight design is quite different,’ he wrote.
Starship was previously known as BFR (Big Falcon Rocket or the Big F***ing Rocket).
The 50 metre-tall Starship will one day fly atop a booster called the Super Heavy and take astronauts to the moon as well as the Red Planet.
Musk hopes to send a Mk3 version of Starship into space next year, propelled by the mega-powerful Super Heavy.
He now believes humanity will be able to found a permanent settlement on the Red Planet in just over three decades.
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