8:02 p.m.
`` Turn on your blowers for a second . '' Outside the ship , the fuel crews cleared their equipment away from the pad . The same ripe , heavy odor hung in the warm night air . At 8:02 p.m. , twenty-eight days after the new milks made their first appearance , Major Quartermain blasted off in a perfect launching . At 8:03 p.m. , the two other Melody Mix hulls standing on nearby pads , began to melt . At 8:04 p.m. , the still-roaring engine fell from the back end of Quartermain 's rocket in a flaming arc back towards Earth . Fifteen seconds later , he hurtled his escape capsule out of the collapsing rocket hull .