Recently a private company rocket was attempting to re-supply the International Space Station but things did not go as planned….
A rocket that was supposed to deliver supplies to the crew aboard the International Space Station exploded in spectacular fashion just six seconds after liftoff this evening, reports CNN. The good news is that nobody was aboard, and NASA says nobody appears to have been killed on the ground at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. (“No indicated loss of life,” in NASA-speak.) The rocket’s cargo ship held about 5,000 pounds of supplies and science equipment for the six people now on the space station, reports AP.
The Anteres rocket was launched by Orbital Sciences Corp., one of the two companies (along with SpaceX) hired by NASA to make supply runs to the space station. No word yet on what went wrong. NASA reported “100% favorable weather” and “no technical concerns” just prior to liftoff.
Truthfully, I was going to let this disaster go but…..I cannot now….the media is spending so much time covering it that I just have to interject my thoughts…….
The media reports are speculating on just what went wrong with the launch……the first culprit according to the media is the motor……..
The cause of yesterday’s rocket explosion over Wallops Island, Va., remains under investigation: While a tweet from Orbital Sciences refers to a “vehicle anomaly,” other reports have focused on aging rocket engines. They were built in the 1960s and 1970s to send Soviet cosmonauts to the moon, the Guardian reports.
The ‘experts’ are speculating that it could have been a biol;d-up of pressure….then there is the possibility of something mechanical or even electrical……
I can save them a lot of time investigating……could it be as simple as the rocket was a piece of CRAP?
Think about it…..thanx to the damn silly program of privatization the space program is being out sourced to corporations that are in it for the profit. Now how do corporations turn a profit? by making the product as cheaply as possible. ERGO….a piece of CRAP!
As far as the engine thing….it is old…okay…. but is not the Russian program using old technology to re-supply the ISS?
You truly want to know what happened? Putting the future of our space program in the hands of profit seeking companies….this will not be the last problem they will face.
I really hate to disagree with you, but in a sense, there is nothing new in this form of procurement by NASA. Northrup, Boeing, Rockwell, Lockeed Martin and countless other companies supplied major components to NASA and JPL throughout the space programme.
At the time of the Challenger disaster, people tried to blame Thiokol and Rockwell as putting profits before safety. Whereas, both companies warned NASA not to launch that morning because of the sub-zero temperatures at the Cape. NASA leaned on the companies to give their recommendation to launch, which eventually they did. The “O rings” sealing joins in the rocket engines failed because they had shrunk due to the cold and the duel leaked and ignited. The reason that NASA pushed so hard to launch the delayed flight was that their funding was under sever threat and they only way they could secure their future was to guarantee the military they could place their satellites into orbit – on time! Nothing to do with profit.
John Glenn said that when he was waiting atop his Atlas rocket to fire up on the pad, he pondered that everything that was below him was bought from the lowest bidder.
Lack of funds and oversight……Sorry but everything has to do with profit…turning over the program completely to a corporation is just scary….at least to me….