Yesterday, I
witnessed my first rocket launch from a boat. I also witnessed my
first rocket failure, along with the loss of many science payloads
that were being shipped to the International Space Station. One of
those projects, Meteor, the first project proposal that I reviewed
when I started working at CASIS, has now been lost twice – during
last October's Orbital rocket incident and again yesterday. Bad luck!
I've taken a day to
measure how I feel about what I saw. It would have been different if
there had been a naked-eye visible explosion with a giant boom, as
there would certainly have been if this were a movie. But the way it
happened – the rocket was there and then it disappeared – was so
subtle that I missed the event entirely and didn't know that a loss
had occurred until several minutes later when I regained internet
connection. I had to consult my photos to confirm that I had indeed
been looking at the sky around the time of the incident, though I'm
not sure what my camera captured was actually the explosion and
debris. Better trained eyes than mine can judge.
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| Rocket debris or cloud? I'm not sure. - June 28, 2015 |
I've seen video of
one of the last rocket launch failures that the Space Coast
experienced, a Delta II in 1997 that dramatically exploded and rained
debris down on the land, causing brush fires. The last launch
failures that this area has seen were in August 1998, a few weeks before I
began taking high school physics living outside of Philadelphia. Even
Space Shuttle Columbia's landing wasn't an incident for us in Florida
to witness, but to miss. Aside from the videos I've seen, I don't
know what it means to lose a rocket during launch.
The day was
picture-perfect. Friends Ryan and Jen offered to give me a ride on
their sailboat to see the launch from Banana River, the lagoon that
lies next to Cape Canaveral and flows to the Atlantic Ocean. Not only
had I never seen a launch from on the water, I had never even been on
the water in that area. We sailed past the larger boats into the no
motor area, surrounded by silence and a few dolphins in the distance.
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| Their dog wanted to watch the launch, too. - June 28, 2015 |
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| It was a beautiful launch, initially! - June 28, 2015 |
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| The SpaceX Falcon 9 soaring off the pad. - June 28, 2015 |
I got emotional
during every space shuttle launch, especially after the Columbia
incident. Each time we light one of those astronaut-carrying rockets,
we put human lives at risk. I still say a prayer for uncrewed
rockets, but the emotional weight isn't the same for me. If I had a
payload that I spent years on strapped to a controlled explosive, I
might feel differently. But material goods are replaceable; people
are not. I was more upset over last October's Virgin Galactic test
failure that lost a pilot than I was about the Orbital Antares CSR-3
failure.
Having worked on
International Space Station payloads, I do mourn the loss of
Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) mission supplies and experiments.
It's a shame about Meteor, it's a shame about all those student
experiments, it's a shame about the new equipment that was lost. As a
scientist, I've experienced small experiment losses. I fried a few hundred
dollar laser the first time I used it a few years back. Most of the
lost equipment are orders of magnitude more expensive and harder to
replace. But they are replaceable. They will rebuild. Some of these
experiments may even be refined to become better than they were.
SpaceX will bounce
back from its Falcon 9 failure, despite political pressures and
industry nay-sayers. Rocket failures are inevitable. SpaceX
experienced quite a number of them in their early years. In the
United States especially, we take for granted that our experienced
engineers will get the rockets successfully off the ground every
single time. We can't get any mode of transportation to work
perfectly 100% of the time, and we can never fully account for human
error. This is hard work, and I have a great deal of respect for
those who dedicate their lives to it.
Hats off to you,
SpaceX, for attempting the ambitious time and time again. You go,
scientists, students and professionals alike, who are undeterred by
experimental setbacks. Kudos to you, engineers and support staff, for
working long hours to launch and working long hours to analyze the
launch. Let's keep moving forward!
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| The Falcon 9 will soar again. - June 28, 2015 |
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