(Israeli firm will be compensated for launchpad explosion by IAI, SpaceX)

This is not the plot of a Bond movie although it very well could be, it has all the hallmarks of a cold war spy thriller. Already, the conspiracy-minded folks are having a field day with this, my inbox overflowing with emails proferring potential scenarios, most of them with a distinctly extra terrestrial flavour.

Well, let me disappoint everyone, this was a strictly terrestrial, explainable event where no aspect requires an esoteric, alien or other-worldly theory to explain away.

Let's begin with the actual explosion itself and what that could teach us about the event. I noticed right away that the explosion of the rocket was not a conventional molecular explosion, the white hot plasma ball was the give-away that this was a nuclear explosion: