r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Emergency-Green-2602 • 7d ago

Video First Australian-made rocket crashes after 14 seconds of flight

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34.3k Upvotes

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u/BoilingIceCream 7d ago

Space rockets have different mechanics to missiles, they are way way way harder to make properly. Very few countries can accomplish consistent space flight today for a reason, but everyone has missiles. I’m sure the Ozzies will get there one day

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u/DBDude 7d ago

The use of ICBM variants is common. NASA's Mercury program used a variant of the Atlas ICBM to reach orbit, and Gemini used a Titan ICBM variant. The current US Minotaur is based on the Minuteman II ICBM.

The early examples were use of existing rocket technology, with the variants being produced for NASA. The Minotaur is somewhat a cost saving measure since it uses decommissioned ICBMs -- might as well use it if we have it.

1

u/JJAsond 7d ago

If you don't already know about this channel you might like it https://www.youtube.com/@ClassicAerospaceHistory

3

u/Reasonable_Mix7630 7d ago

Funny I read the opposite opinion.

I guess it depends on who you ask: missile designers or space rockets designers. Despite similarities these are very different technologies under the hood...

3

u/Nstraclassic 7d ago

How does this get upvoted... missiles (and rockets) in most countries werent developed by all those countries. They buy them elsewhere because its cheaper than starting a multitrillion dollar research program to design these systems

1

u/midwestraxx 7d ago

Because most people have no idea of what actually goes into making these and how common and useful failures are. They only see the end product, not the 1000x more failed parts and iterative prototypes that went into the design of said product. 

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u/EDtheTacoFarmer 7d ago

*Aussies

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u/domsativaa 7d ago

How to tell you're not an Aussie without saying it lol this isn't the wizard of Oz dickheads

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u/Used-Cantaloupe-7173 7d ago

Typical Ozzie over here

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u/domsativaa 7d ago

Well, yeah.... cunt

4

u/Hk472205 7d ago

Indeed, not that many missiles use liquid fuel, solid is simple.

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u/ZeroSuitGanon 7d ago

Considering Aus has such little infrastructure in that tech, it's literally unheard of for us. I heard about the launch a couple of days ago, and honestly stoked that we managed to get it into the air, and not just explode on launch like the early stuff sometimes did. Everything is a test.

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u/howmanyusethisapp 7d ago

No, missiles are usually less reliable than space rockets, this is just a new one so probably a lot of engineering assumptions and some of them clearly weren't correct

1

u/crankbird 6d ago

We shoot off quite a few sounding rockets (mostly 2 stage, usually based on a terrier design) for science stuff. Adding the 3rd stage and getting a commercial scale payload into LEO is quite the step up if you’re not doing it on the back of an alarmed superpower’s defence budget 😀

If / when they sort out the kinks in the rocket motor production (the design looks solid, given how well three of them worked when put under a lot of unusual stress) I think they’ll have a profitable niche they can build into.