SpaceX blew up a rocket and this time it’s great news

The intentional sacrifice of the reusable booster—which had flown three previous times—was the price paid for the best possible data about how to keep future astronauts safe in a worst-case scenario. In 2018, a similar system saved the lives of an astronaut and a cosmonaut launched by Russia’s space agency on a Soyuz rocket. The test of the Dragon’s launch escape system was the final milestone in SpaceX’s years-long path to fly astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA.