Two accidents in the commercial space industry this year an unmanned rocket that exploded shortly after launch in the fall and an experimental suborbital craft that broke apart during flight shortly after are almost sure to come up the next time a congressional committee discusses the private spacecraft market. But, experts say the incidents wont have much of an effect on the sectors increasing expansion.

I think its going to cause some delays, said Kerri Cahoy, an aeronautics and astronautics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But I dont think itll do much damage to the industry as a whole.

The private sector spaceflight issues started with what NASA is calling a mishap in October, when an unmanned Antares rocket operated by Orbital Sciences Corp. under a contract to bring supplies to the International Space Station blew up shortly after takeoff from NASAs Wallops Island launch facility in Virginia.

Later the same week, a test flight of Virgin Galactics rocket-powered SpaceShipTwo resulted in the death of co-pilot Michael Alsbury when the spacecraft detached from its carrier aircraft in mid-air. Both incidents are still under investigation.

Thus far, members of Congress, who have largely cheered the development of the commercial space business, havent jumped on the incidents as a reason to clamp down on the industry. After the Orbital Sciences explosion, Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson said, space flight is inherently risky, but commercial space ventures will ultimately be successful. He expressed similar thoughts on the Virgin Galactic accident.

Im deeply saddened by the loss of one of the pilots, Nelson said. This has been a tragic week for our commercial space sector. But Im confident that we will learn from the investigations of these two accidents and take steps to prevent them from happening again.

Experts are hoping other lawmakers take similarly deliberative approaches; some have expressed frustration about the way the recent accidents have been reported.

I find a lot of the discussion about the implications for commercial space flight miss the mark, said Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at The George Washington University.

Pace and some others who study space travel say though the timing was unfortunate, comparing the two accidents is unfair and possibly misleading. The Orbital Sciences accident involved an Antares rocket using two decades-old, Russian-built refurbished engines, with the intent of bringing cargo to an orbiting station a relatively routine mission with routine technology. But an accident involving such a mission isnt unheard of, whether its a government launch or a commercial one, experts say.

We obviously have seen launch vehicle accidents from every program implemented by the U.S., the Soviet Union, the Russians and the European Space Agency, said Jonathan Lunine, a space research professor at Cornell University.

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