Click here to view the embedded video.

I had a meeting out of town and missed the launch, so I thought I’d put it up in case you did too.  I like the imagery from the rocket.

Some were trying to do their best to make the launch a failure because of a partial parachute failure for the booster section as it returned.  Partial = one of three parachutes and the one that failed actually deployed first.

The parachutes are being checked out this weekend and it could be a failure of he suspension system and not of the chute material.

It may be a moot point.  The Obama administration may be heading towards ending human spaceflight anyways.  Some will cheer this news I suppose, I don’t exactly cheer the “dumbing down” of America any more than we have.  Even from an economic standpoint it’s not a great move either, unless  putting thousands more out of work is good.

Course, the argument is well we can leave these things to someone else and just get what we need from them.  Them being somebody else, anybody else.  Yep that is true, and look how good that’s working for us in general.  In the whole country we don’t even have a single manufacturer for the flu vaccine for crying out loud.  We have allowed ourselves to be at the mercy of everybody else because we have lost the ability to do for us.

It’s a disgraceful situation.  Oh and for the record, the handling of he H1N1 thing is an embarrassment, good thing it’s not a more serious flu we’d really be up the creek.

Here’s the video source.