Monday, August 29, 2011

Just in from NASA: ISS situation doesn't look pretty

NASA says it may have to evacuate the International Space Station after the failure of a Proton rocket carrying supplies to the station. The Proton had an outstanding record for reliability, but failed at the worst possible time: when NASA had just shut down the Space Shuttle program and was assuming our astronauts could get there on Russian rides. The question is, how soon can Proton ISS flights resume, and how much confidence will NASA (and other nations sending up astronauts) have in the rocket when they do?

ADDED: The future plans for access took a hit, too, with the loss of a Blue Origin prototype to a control failure. Jeff Bezos, though, is determined to press on. We forget sometimes that it's ok for a test to end in a failure - that's why we test.

http://www.blueorigin.com/letter.htm

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