Unmanned NASA Rocket Antares Explodes in Midair Seconds After Launch

The tale of the engines that propelled the Antares rocket, which exploded in a spectacular ball of flame in Virginia Tuesday night, begins four decades ago, thousands of miles away, in the land of communism and Sputnik. There, in the Soviet Union, rocket scientists conceived and built dozens of rocket engines meant to power Russian astronauts into the cosmos. But it didn’t work out that way.

Instead, all four launches of the mighty N1 Soviet rocket, which used an earlier iteration of the first-stage engines used in Thursday’s launch, failed between 1969 and 1972. And as the Soviet Union abandoned the idea of putting cosmonauts on the moon, those engines languished in Russia “without a purpose,” reported Space Lift Now.

That was until they were snapped up by Dulles-based Orbital Sciences, which built the rocket that exploded.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/10/29/antares-rocket-explosion-the-question-of-using-decades-old-soviet-engines/

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Antares rocket explosion: The question of using decades-old Soviet engines

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Antares rocket explosion: The question of using decades-old Soviet engines

 

I suppose you could add this to a "Thanks Obama!" meme on Tumblr.

Seriously though, do people have to make a political argument about everything? My first reaction was "My god! I hope it was unmanned!" Thank God it was. Everything seems unmanned nowadays. Which is a good thing for people not having to die and stuff.

 

We had to use decades old Soviet engines, because the sanctions forbid us from buying new Russian engines.
Of course, no-one in America wants to actually do any work anymore, so it's out of the question that we would ever build our own rocket engines. Blame whoever you want. Who dumbed us down to this level?

 

The government accepted the lowest bid which is standard practice. The company that won the bid was able to offer the lowest cost due to buying old Soviet Union rockets. These rockets were unreliable and canned by Soviet Union. They were supposed to be destroyed but instead they were kept stored all these years.

 

Ouch. Damning evidence. Good grab.

 

The government gave the contract to the lowest bidder. There were other bids with companies that used new rocket technology. So instead of contracting quality companies, government policy is to award contracts to the cheapest bidder. That's where the problem is.

 

Privatization can't, and won't, get us any farther out than $2,000,000,000 earth orbit junkets for the truly soul-sucked.

 

They were the lowest bidder due to using old unreliable Soviet Union rockets. The government's policy is to award contracts to the lowest bidder. So instead of award a contract for a quality product, taxpayers buy cheap products.

 

Precisely. Libs keep ignoring this point. If the free market were to step in, we'd have nothing but top notch products.

I blame Obama.

 

He doesn't. Let him rant for a while and then we'll clue him in.

 

Well, there you go. Without the subsidy, the launch would not have been contemplated by a 'private' company.

 

Yes. If we had left it to free market principles, this private company would cease to exist. But they continue to suck on NASA's tits.

 

Ares I[edit]
Main article: Ares I
The Orion spacecraft would have been launched into a low Earth orbit using the Ares I rocket (the "Stick"), developed by Alliant Techsystems, Rocketdyne, and Boeing.[21][22][23] Formerly referred to as the Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV), the Ares I consisted of a single Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) derived from the boosters used in the Space Shuttle system, connected at its upper end by an interstage support assembly to a new liquid-fueled second stage powered by an uprated Apollo-era J-2X rocket engine. NASA selected the Ares designs for their anticipated overall safety, reliability and cost-efficiency.[24]


The launch of Ares I prototype, Ares I-X on October 28, 2009
NASA began developing the Ares I low Earth orbit launch vehicle (analogous to Apollo's Saturn IB), returning to a development philosophy used for the original Saturn I, test-launching one stage at a time, which George Mueller abandoned in favor of "all-up" testing for the Saturn V. As of May 2010, the program got as far as launching the first Ares I-X first-stage flight on October 28, 2009 and testing the Orion launch abort system.

I'm still sneering....

 

Are we talking about the same failed launch that was supposed to carry 5,000 lbs. of supplies to the ISS?
Don't worry. Russia fixed that, with a delivery of 3 tons.

 

We've been behind the lowly French in top notch rockets for 20 years now. If people want to put something into the space, they usually hire the French and their Arianne rocket. Behind the EU and the Russkies in top notch fighter aircraft for about the same period. This is what happens when we start turning things over to the private sector. The F-35 is going to be just another turkey unless the Israelis can rescue it.