How much do aerodynamic forces come into play at 35000m. Sure there's probably not much air at this altitude but that rocket is really moving. Could there not also be a relative vacuum generated between the two stages just as seperation takes place similar to the effect of blowing across the top of a straw lifts the liquid. Think also NASCAR, F1 tailgating to sit in the relative vacuum created by the leading car. F1 cars actually overheat if they do this for too long, thats how big the difference in air density is.

I was surprised that a hydraulic impulse is enough to complete stage seperation. I would have thought something a little more pyrotechnical would be in order. Think of that famous footage of the Apollo stage tumbling flaming away, brilliant !!! Good PR. SpaceX should have given us footage of the thing hitting the ocean. Every 10yr old in world would know who SpaceX is tomorrow.

Byron,
Different methods of recovery would be dependent on altitude of the problem. However of the failures which occur most of the time this isn't feasible because 1- its destroyed because the rocket goes BOOM!
2- it gets into space, just not into the originally planned orbit. Therefore, it isn't functional, but nothing could really be parachuted directly back to Earth. Eventually it will return and burn up in the atmosphere, since it isn't protected for re-entry.
In the small percentage where it may be feasible to recover, it would cost extra money for the recovery system, and add weight which cannot be afforded.

Cheers!

Ian

Thanks, Ian

More like 21.7 Miles??

The Falcon 1 separation anomaly at an altitude of 217 km

SpaceX Surprise Launch of Falcon 1, Suffers "Anomaly" at an Altitude of 35 km,

unless this machine can coast for over 150km after seperation, in which case this would make it a wonderful machine.

Perhaps their track record will greatly improve but i for one would wait for investing in an expensive payloads until they flip their success ratio around by a LARGE margin

The thing was in free-fall in a vacuum, but didn't you know that Space Reporters aren't allowed by their Union to write "free-fall" in place of "zero-gee"?

It's the first thing any space-nut learns – that gravity doesn't have limited range and "zero-gee" is really free-fall – but it's a handy shibboleth to distinguish between all us space-nuts and Joe-Public.

Hehe…space = zero gravity? Since when? Gravity is everywhere.

This seems to be all about an unaccounted-for pressure differential. Sucks that their tolerances were so close and this caused a problem. They'll get it next time.