SpaceX speculation

Elon Musk says the failure of today's first launch of the Falcon rocket, from a Pacific Ocean atoll, happened during the first-stage burn. The rocket crashed into the ocean not long after liftoff. Musk says his company will release more details as soon as the team is done analyzing all of the data from the flight.

The best analysis of the on-again, off-again launch video I've seen is at Spaceflight Now, where Justin Ray has a blow by blow of the liftoff and some of the off-nominal events he spotted from the webcast feed. The video was tough to follow, and cut out a great deal, especially just after liftoff. That made diagnosis tough. It's clear Justin had the best look of anyone who wasn't actually there.

Otherwise, there's plenty of speculation out there on what caused the accident and potential implications for SpaceX and the launch industry. Seems a bit early and we do not exactly have a lot of great imagery or data to evaluate. Of course, that will not stop everyone from guessing.

So, if you're a rocket geek, you might want to troll through the ongoing conversation at nasaspaceflight.com. Just keep in mind that people are guessing, even if it's educated guessing.

Worth noting: it's not unusual for new launchers to fail on the first try. And Musk has said he would not give up because of just one failure. And, it just doesn't seem like his nature to quit.