The first untethered flight of NASA’s Morpheus vertical takeoff and landing vehicle ended quickly and badly. And then Morpheus exploded. As explained by the person who posted the following video on YouTube, “It appears to have had a guidance failure.”
Note: If you’ve watched the movie “Forbidden Planet,” you probably know you should not name a project “Morpheus.”
Also Note: This is not the first time something like this has happened. Neil Armstrong had to eject from a runaway Lunar Lander trainer shortly before it crashed and burned back in the 1960s, as you can see from this Discovery Channel video at about the 2:30 mark.
Yes folks, it’s still rocket science. The difference? No software back in the 1960s. Just human piloting finesse.