Friday
Mar132009
Mother Earth Let Down Again
Friday, March 13, 2009 at 11:29PM | Share Article | BlogOnSmog | Stumble It! |
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| Reminiscent of
Orbital Science's Taurus rocket failure to deliver the ORBVIEW-4 /
QuickTOMS to orbit, the launch failure of a similar Taurus rocket last
month left the Orbiting Carbon Observatory drowning in the Pacific
Ocean. This failure will likely end NASA's attempt at evaluating
Earth's carbon sinks. While it is true that hindsight is 20/20,
it is hard to understand why NASA would choose a rocket with a spotty
record for such an important project. The Taurus had only flown
seven previous times while failing to reach orbit one in one of only
two flights since 2001. The failure to launch the Orbview-4
satellite into orbit in 2001 was a blow for ozone monitoring. The
failure this time around is a serious blow for environmental
scientists. The flight in 2001 failed under somewhat similar circumstances (during stage jetison) as the flight in February - during separation of one of the stages. So who will suffer with this latest failure? NASA will continue to get tax-payer money. Orbital Sciences will probably collect another insurance cheque. You guessed it - Mother Earth loses again, along with all those environmental scientists voicing their concerns about climate change. Related links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurus_rocket http://spaceflightnow.com/taurus/t6/010921launch.html http://spaceflightnow.com/taurus/oco/failure.html |
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Reader Comments (2)
Awww. What the hell happened to "if at first you don't succeed.... etc.?" I suppose that only counts in wars, police actions, and occupations.
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very good, i love this section, keep going