A Bad Week In Space

This past week (Oct. 26-Nov.1,2014) was a bad week in space. First on October 28th an Antares rocket with a Cygnus cargo spacecraft operated by the Orbital Science Corporation was aborted in a fiery explosion at its launch site off the coast of Virginia. The vehicle was carrying 5,000 pounds of material for the International Space Station when it exploded. NASA and the contractor say that the material was not vital, and that ISS astronauts have enough supplies to last them into the future. Just three days later another spectacular crash occurred over California’s Mojave desert. This time the vehicle was the Virgin Galactic Space Ship Two, operated by Virgin Galactic, a subsidiary of the Virgin group. One pilot was killed and another seriously injured. The vehicle was completely destroyed, and debris was seen littering the desert.  While these two incidents were disappointing and in one case tragic, they are not unusual in the rocket business. Those with long memories will look back to the late 1950s and early 1960s when rocket after rocket exploded or was destroyed in the early days of unmanned space flight. The real question is what can be learned from both of these incidents, and how can such occurrences be even further minimized in the future. Please log in and give us your thoughts.