Another SpaceX Commercial Rocket Explosion; Are Civilians Trapped on Earth?

You would think with all the advancements in technology, sound progress in commercial space flight would be had by now.

While some has, with rockets completing unmanned missions to the International Space Station and returning to Earth a few times… somehow, stuff just keeps blowing up.

Earlier this morning, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded on the launchpad during a test at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. According to reports, the Amos-6 communications satellite owned by Israeli company Spacecom was also destroyed. At least no one was hurt, but buildings could be felt shaking miles away.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg planned to use the satellite to expand internet access in Africa. He was there promoting the initiative when news broke of the satellite’s destruction.

Commercial space hardware just keeps “randomly” exploding to the point that even the 700 millionaires who have prepurchased $250,000 tickets on Virgin Galactic’s commercial spaceship to be the first civilians to go into orbit have got to be wondering if they would make it off the launchpad in one piece, let alone into actual space (without exploding).

Virgin Galactic’s manned test flight in October 2014 ended in the death of one of the pilots after the SpaceShipTwo craft broke up over the Mojave desert. That same month, a private Orbital Sciences rocket exploded during its launch. SpaceX has had multiple successes, but multiple failures ending in the destruction of their rockets, including a fantastic explosion two minutes after takeoff June 2015.

Space might be hard, but it has been done for decades by governments all over the planet… so why is the commercial side, which would finally open up space flight to civilians, fraught with so many deadly explosions like we’ve traveled back in time to the Cold War and we’re starting all over from scratch?

It’s almost as if something is keeping average people from going to space.