Elon Musk Became Fixated on the Idea That a Sniper Shot His Rocket, Causing It to Explode

After a Falcon 9 rocket exploded violently and unexpectedly on the launch pad in 2016, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk became suspicious that the cause was something almost unimaginably dramatic: a "sniper" on the roof of a rival's building. Footage of the event shows the rocket erupting into a gigantic ball of fire in an instant, reducing the mounted Amos-6 Israeli communications satellite into scorched debris. A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed with the Federal Aviation Administration by Ars Technica's Eric Berger around two years ago has now revealed that SpaceX engineers thoroughly investigated whether a shooter could've caused the rocket to rupture and explode. According to Berger, Musk — who was asleep at his home in California when the blast occurred — immediately gravitated toward the theory himself, perhaps giving a glimpse of what's now become his dominantly paranoid worldview. The space firm investigated whether the round could've been shot by a sniper from the roof ... Read full article.