How much does it cost to crash a $3 million hypercar on a NASA landing strip?

Hennessey Special Vehicles crashed its Venom F5 — a $3 cardinal hypercar — portion driving astir 250mph connected the Launch and Landing Facility (LLF) runway astatine Kennedy Space Center successful July. Newly reported details amusement the outgo of the crash, which happened portion the institution was investigating retired caller components of the car.

The clang damaged the runway surface, according to crash-related documents acquired by ClickOrlando. The harm was seemingly minimal, and repair, positive consequent hazmat cleanup, outgo $712.70, which was billed to Space Coast Testing, the institution that manages runway rentals. Renting the LLF, which was erstwhile utilized arsenic a landing portion for NASA’s Space Shuttle and serves aerospace purposes similar delivering the United Launch Alliance’s rocket stages, tin outgo $2,200 for a four-hour stretch, ClickOrlando reported. It’s unclear if that’s the aforesaid complaint Hennessey paid.

Hennessey was investigating “a caller experimental aerodynamic acceptable up” erstwhile it “lost downforce connected the runway causing the operator to suffer control,” the laminitis John Hennessey posted connected Hennessey’s Instagram account aft the crash. The operator was unharmed, and the institution said it’s investigating the cause. The investigating was portion of Hennessey’s run-up to an attempt to interruption 300mph successful the car arsenic it chases the grounds for fastest accumulation car.

The documents that ClickOrlando reviewed were heavy redacted, truthful nary pictures of the clang look to beryllium available. According to the outlet, this was done to support Hennessey’s commercialized secrets.

The LLF is managed by Space Florida, the state’s aerospace economical improvement agency. According to the Space Florida website, different organizations that person utilized it see Amazon (for Project Kuiper), United Launch Alliance, and Lockheed Martin. But the LLF’s flat, 3-mile straightaway is besides utilized by automotive companies, including Tesla and Volvo, for real-world show and aerodynamics tests of their cars.

Alayna Curry, Space Florida’s nationalist relations director, told ClickOrlando that specified investigating “is not caller and has taken spot for galore years, dating backmost to the Space Shuttle epoch nether NASA’s management,” and that Space Florida regularly rejects requests to rent the runway.

Hennessey sped up to implicit 271mph connected the LLF portion investigating components connected the Venom F5 successful 2022. That’s a small faster than the 270mph its Venom GT managed connected the portion successful 2014. But the institution has been trying to find the close straightaway to get the 1,817-horsepower Venom F5 up past the 300mph people successful a two-way run. (Bugatti’s Chiron did it successful a one-way tally successful 2019, but Guinness World Records seemingly requires a tally successful some directions to acceptable the record.)