[Lx]

This:

No other rocket currently flying has this ability," privately owned SpaceX said in a statement.

Is actually what I was talking about.

I thought other rockets had this capability?

[hoagy62]

Usually...it's dependent on several factors. The Saturn V's that lost engines had enough thrust to do their jobs, and (if I remember correctly) the center engine was the one to go, which meant they didn't have a problem with asymmetrical thrust.

The thing is....with the Falcon 9, they said it's designed to keep flying with an engine gone, and they mean any engine. What impressed me was the fact that the sucker kept going when the engine in question exploded. When you look at the video of this most recent launch, there's no other conclusion you can come up with.

I daresay that if something like that happened with a Delta IV, you'd have catastrophic failure of the whole vehicle.

I have to say that after witnessing a rocket stay together even after the explosive failure of an engine, I feel a heck of a lot better about them man-rating the thing for ferrying people to orbit.