Failure to launch

Professor Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit has been closely following the efforts of private companies to provide space launch capabilities. Yesterday, SpaceX came within a few seconds of a successful launch of its Dragon unmanned spacecraft that was to have rendezvoused with the International Space Station. The launch was to have taken place at NASA's Cape Canaveral launch facilities.

SpaceX is one of several private companies that are seeking to fill the gap left by the downsizing of NASA. Another is Quicklaunch, which is working on the idea of using hydrogen gas launchers to fire unmanned payloads into Earth orbit.