Launch Escape

Although scheduled for the weekend, weather delays kept pushing back the scheduled test of the escape rockets on a “Crew Dragon” capsule until I had to be out on Sunday morning. On returning, I checked the NASA site where I’d been informed of the previous delays and saw a notice the test had been successful; more than that, there was a link to recorded coverage of the mission. It ran for longer than just the launch itself, but watching it did still manage to produce a sort of attenuated anticipation. Videos of the escape rockets firing during previous tests had been shown at the start of the coverage; the actual high-altitude escape wasn’t quite as flashy, although the unstreamlined rocket blowing up afterwards despite its engines having been shut down made for something of a display. The next step should be launching people into space; the pre-launch coverage showed a dress rehearsal for that, where the two astronauts just happened to be getting into a Tesla SUV instead of the familiar larger vans.