NASA-Launched Rocket Explodes After Liftoff

An unmanned rocket carrying two NASA experiments exploded about 27 seconds after a 5:10 a.m. liftoff this morning on Wallops Island, just off the Virginia coast.  NASA actually aborted the takeoff, self-destructing the rocket.  No injuries or property damage reports have been made so far.  NASA did issue a warning for falling debris, but thought most, if not all, of the debris would end up in the Atlantic ocean.  NASA is investigating the cause, but is currently calling the issue an "anomaly." 

The Alliant Techsystems ALV X-1 rocket was carrying HYBOLT, a NASA experiment testing temperature and pressure during hypersonic flight, which is anything over Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound. It also carried SOAREX, a new design for more efficiently delivering astronauts or equipment through the atmosphere on Earth or Mars.

Too bad for NASA.

[Daily Press]

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NASA to Test Plasma Rockets on ISS

Plasma rockets are the rockets of the future, forget all the liquid oxygen mixtures or other solid rockets.  As Discovery explains, rather than heating chemicals and directing the resulting gases through high temperature metal nozzles, plasma (VASMIR) uses radio waves to create and speed up free flying electrically charged particles.  Those charged particles are then herded through nozzles made of magnetic fields.  How is that for your Friday science lesson?

The plasma rocket was designed by Frank Diaz, a former NASA astronaut, and it will use solar energy to produce the energy needed for movement.  This makes it green and reusable for moving things from low-Earth oribit (from the ISS) to low-Lunar orbit.  NASA intends to test this rocket engine in 2011 or 2012 from the ISS platform.  Should be pretty awesome considering both the sun and stars are made up of plasma.

(Discovery News)

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Rocketman in Action

This looks really fun.

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