During the launch of Artemis, the NASA launch pad suffered significant damage.

When NASA's Artemis 1 rocket eventually lifted off from Kennedy Space Center last week, it appears that the launch pad sustained significantly more damage than anticipated.

In response to SpaceNews' Jeff Foust, who on Friday summarised a NASA statement conceding that the launchpad's elevators weren't working because a "pressure wave"

blew off the blast doors, the Reuters reporter noted that "Elevator blast doors were blown right off, various pipes were broken, and some large sheets of metal left laying around."

A years-long stream of drama led up to the Artemis 1 flight, including the craft being damaged by a cyclone right

before launch and the long-delayed creation of the Orbit Launch System that propelled it into space.

Though they maintain that there was "no increased risk" to the mission, NASA admits that debris was detected falling from the rocket shortly after the launch.

Despite those upbeat assertions, reporters discovered that NASA appeared quite keen for them to avoid taking pictures of the Artemis launch tower.

Now that we have these early reports of how messed up it looks to have gotten, we may see why.