Frank Morring says they were coincidence, and that failure is inevitable. I made the same point at PJMedia last week:
…it is important to understand that there was absolutely no relationship between OSC’s and VG’s accidents, other than they were both commercial activities. It was pure coincidence that they happened within a span of three days. But in both cases, response was rapid.
Nonetheless, a lot of ignorant people will try to use these events to shut down commercial spaceflight.
I haven’t read it deeply, but here’s some extensive technical speculation.
How adapted to fat are they? Carbs can be literally deadly to them.
Francis seems to suffer from a lack of imagination:
Space analysts said planning and executing a manned mission to Mars would take years and cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
French wants NASA to head in that direction, and he sees next month’s Orion launch as the inaugural milestone in a long journey.
Still, he’s circumspect.
“Unless we build the rockets and test the spacecraft needed to get into deep space, sending humans to Mars will remain a dream for centuries to come,” French said. “Whether Orion will be the vehicle, and whether it will survive the brutal budgetary cycles of Washington politics for the many years ahead that it will need to be funded, is impossible to say. It’s hard to imagine any other method succeeding.
Space historians often suffer from this malady.
Mollie Hemingway says it’s time to fight back.
[Update a while later]
[Update late morning]
I think the shirt was a poor choice for the occasion, and that a lot of people overreacted to it, and then a lot of people overreacted to the overreaction. That’s what happens with Social Justice Warriors.
Chris Bergin has the story on current status of modifications at the Cape. Launch “as early as next summer.”
Let’s hope.
[Update a few minutes later]
Related: ESA and Arianespace seem to have settled on the design of their next obsolete launch system.
If this is valid, it would have application not to just life extension, but to space travel as well.
An interview with a climate skeptic.
It is a rejection of climate-change hysteria.
We may work up the gumption to go see it this weekend.
[Update a while later]
Related thoughts from Mark Steyn.
It launched 45 years ago today. It was hit by lightning twice, but ground controller John Aaron quickly told the astronauts how to get the systems back on line. Amy Shira Teitel is doing real-time tweeting of the mission.
[Update a while later]
What it was like to be an Apollo flight controller.