US private space ship blows up on lift-off

[struggle4progress]

Two young men have vowed to keep trying to launch a manned rocket into space although their craft, with three test dummies aboard, blew up shortly after lift-off over the US Pacific coast.

Phillip Storm and Eric Meier, presidents of Space Transport Corporation, are vying for a $US10 million Ansari X Prize, for the first group to send into space a privately-funded craft carrying three people twice within two weeks.

The front-runner in the competition is SpaceShipOne, an US aircraft that a pilot flew into space in June.

The 26-year-old pair's Rubicon 1 rocket exploded on Sunday shortly after take off. It was the rocket's first attempt.
<snip>

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200408/s1172665.htm


Let's form a private consortium to colonize Mars with leading Republicans before the end of this decade.

[Ducks In A Row]

1. it will work next time

:)

[grytpype]

2. Not Mars, they might survive there.

I suggest Venus.

[htuttle]

4. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun

(Pink Floyd, 1968)

:)

[Parche]

5. launch

If they launch now, they might get to the Dark Side Of the Moon

[havocmom]

8. Yeah, and Venus rhymes with

that word that makes the wingers so crazed :evilgrin:

[Jackpine Radical]

10. Clenis?

[Trajan]

3. I thought SS1 would meet that fate ...

Having worked on manned space hardware, I am familiar with the EXTREME likelihood of failure of any such mission ...

EVERY part can either fail or work properly ... The MORE parts added to a system, the more exposed the mission is to failure ...

Propblem is: the task of 'launching space vehicle' requires a level of complexity that automatically exposes the venture to failure ...

Don't be fooled by success ... It is HARD to launch a successful mission ....

Good for them that no one died ...

[benburch]

6. SS1 was built by aerospace professionals.

There is a vast difference in knowledge and methodology here.

[truthisfreedom]

7. i think that was supposed to say 3 test rethugs aboard.

i may be wrong, but thats a typo there.

[gristy]

9. Reminds me of a song I heard last week

Goes something like this:

Fly Bush to the moon and let him play among the stars
Let him see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.
In other words, go away.
In other words, we won't miss you.
You'll be happy out in space, you'll be the king of all you see,
You won't have to deal with people who insist on being free.

[daleo]

11. A Canadian group is supposed to try in October

I hope they have better luck, even though I am a skeptic about the whole notion of "privatizing" space.

[quaoar]

12. We're going to launch

A spacecraft to Pluto in a few years.

That might be far enough to send them all.