SpaceX Launch Fails To Reach Space

azuredrake and many other readers have written to tell us: "The New York Times reports that the third SpaceX launch has failed following the second-stage ignition of the Falcon 1 rocket. The SpaceX launch had three satellites on board, all of which were presumably destroyed in the incident. This marks the third failed launch for SpaceX — twice they failed to reach orbit, and once the Falcon 1 rocket was lost five minutes after launch. While the company vows to carry on, this certainly raises some questions about the likelihood of successful privatization of the Space industry." Reader Nano2Sol points out a video of the launch from a camera on Falcon 1, and notes a small oscillation just prior to the footage being cut off. Spaceflight Now ran a mission update blog leading up to the failure, and they also have more coverage on the loss of the rocket.

Comments

The sad state of American Education

[Rinikusu]

Come on people. It's not like this is rocket sci----OH. Nevermind, carry-on.

NASA's failures have happened when bureaucracy...

[Ellis D. Tripp]

and outside pressures were allowed to override sound engineering decisions.

Apollo 1 happened because of a combination of "Go Fever" (the pressure to beat the Soviets to the moon) and poor workmanship by a PRIVATE INDUSTRY contractor (North American Aviation).

Challenger happened because Reagan wanted to use the "Teacher in Space" as a talking point at the next night's State of the Union address, and political pressure caused NASA to override the recommendations of the booster engineers who knew about the behavior of the SRB joint O-rings in cold weather, and launch despite their objections.

While Columbia was damaged because of lingering unresolved problems with ET foam shedding, her crew could possibly have been saved if NASA listened to their own engineers, and took high-resolution images of the shuttle while on-orbit. The extent of the damage would have been made clear long before reentry was attempted, and a rescue mission could have been launched.