This is what happens when you let your own space program fall into ruin

You go begging, on hands and knees for an inferior space agency to
launch your product. Still think it's cheaper? Instead, NASA is too
busy trying to sell itself to the global warming cabal.

BBC:

1 February 2013 Last updated at 04:07 ET
Russian Zenit rocket with US satellite fails at launch
Jonathan Amos By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent

A Russian rocket carrying a US-made telecommunications satellite has
plunged into the Pacific Ocean shortly after launch.

The Zenit-3SL rocket, which was being operated from a floating pad
south of the Hawaiian islands, failed 40 seconds after the lift-off at
06:56 GMT.

The Intelsat-27 satellite was due to be positioned over the Atlantic
to provide services to the Americas and Europe.

Officials say no-one was hurt as a result of the incident.

Staff from the Sea Launch company, which organised the launch, direct
all missions from a support vessel that sits at a safe distance of
about 6.5km uprange of the platform.

The firm said it would establish a review board to determine what went
wrong.

"We are very disappointed with the outcome of the launch and offer our
sincere regrets to our customer, Intelsat, and their spacecraft
provider, Boeing," Kjell Karlsen, president of Sea Launch AG, said in
a statement.

"The cause of the failure is unknown, but we are evaluating it and
working closely with Intelsat, Boeing, Energia Logistics Ltd and our
Zenit-3SL suppliers. We will do everything reasonably possible to
recover from this unexpected and unfortunate event."

Sea Launch had not long returned from Chapter 11 bankruptcy
protection.

A spectacular rocket failure on its converted oil rig in 2007 forced
the firm to restructure its finances as orders slowed and debts
mounted.

It re-emerged in 2011 and had lofted four satellites successfully from
the Odyssey platform before Friday's loss.

The rig-cum-pad and its command ship are based at Long Beach,
California.

For a mission, the pair move south to the equator at 154 degrees West
Longitude.

An equatorial launch location gives a rocket a boost from the Earth's
rotation, meaning it can lift heavier payloads into orbit.

Sea Launch is owned now by a Russian-led consortium headed by Energia
Overseas Ltd, and is headquartered in Bern, Switzerland.

The commercial market for launching large geostationary
telecommunications satellites is intensively competitive.

It has been dominated for several years by the European Ariane rocket,
operated by Arianespace, and the Russian Proton vehicle, which is sold
by International Launch Services (although the latter has experienced
a number of failures of its own recently).

Once the cause of Friday's loss is identified and any necessary
corrective action taken, Sea Launch will need to re-instil confidence
in the market that its product is a good one.

The Ukrainian-Russian Zenit-3SL vehicle has a generally good
reliability record.

A modified version, the Zenit-3SLB, is operated from land, flying out
of the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The most recent of these
launches was at the end of 2011.

Launch contracts from the Luxembourg-based Intelsat company had been
integral to Sea Launch's return to business after bankruptcy
protection.

Intelsat-27, which weighed some 6.2 tonnes at launch, was to have
provided direct-to-home TV services and mobile broadband connections.

On Feb 1, 6:41*am, RichA wrote:
You go begging, on hands and knees for an inferior space agency to
launch your product. *Still think it's cheaper? *Instead, NASA is too
busy trying to sell itself to the global warming cabal.

BBC:

*1 February 2013 Last updated at 04:07 ET
Russian Zenit rocket with US satellite fails at launch
Jonathan Amos By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent

A Russian rocket carrying a US-made telecommunications satellite has
plunged into the Pacific Ocean shortly after launch.

The Zenit-3SL rocket, which was being operated from a floating pad
south of the Hawaiian islands, failed 40 seconds after the lift-off at
06:56 GMT.

The Intelsat-27 satellite was due to be positioned over the Atlantic
to provide services to the Americas and Europe.

Officials say no-one was hurt as a result of the incident.

Staff from the Sea Launch company, which organised the launch, direct
all missions from a support vessel that sits at a safe distance of
about 6.5km uprange of the platform.

The firm said it would establish a review board to determine what went
wrong.

"We are very disappointed with the outcome of the launch and offer our
sincere regrets to our customer, Intelsat, and their spacecraft
provider, Boeing," Kjell Karlsen, president of Sea Launch AG, said in
a statement.

"The cause of the failure is unknown, but we are evaluating it and
working closely with Intelsat, Boeing, Energia Logistics Ltd and our
Zenit-3SL suppliers. We will do everything reasonably possible to
recover from this unexpected and unfortunate event."

Sea Launch had not long returned from Chapter 11 bankruptcy
protection.

A spectacular rocket failure on its converted oil rig in 2007 forced
the firm to restructure its finances as orders slowed and debts
mounted.

It re-emerged in 2011 and had lofted four satellites successfully from
the Odyssey platform before Friday's loss.

The rig-cum-pad and its command ship are based at Long Beach,
California.

For a mission, the pair move south to the equator at 154 degrees West
Longitude.

An equatorial launch location gives a rocket a boost from the Earth's
rotation, meaning it can lift heavier payloads into orbit.

Sea Launch is owned now by a Russian-led consortium headed by Energia
Overseas Ltd, and is headquartered in Bern, Switzerland.

The commercial market for launching large geostationary
telecommunications satellites is intensively competitive.

It has been dominated for several years by the European Ariane rocket,
operated by Arianespace, and the Russian Proton vehicle, which is sold
by International Launch Services (although the latter has experienced
a number of failures of its own recently).

Once the cause of Friday's loss is identified and any necessary
corrective action taken, Sea Launch will need to re-instil confidence
in the market that its product is a good one.

The Ukrainian-Russian Zenit-3SL vehicle has a generally good
reliability record.

A modified version, the Zenit-3SLB, is operated from land, flying out
of the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The most recent of these
launches was at the end of 2011.

Launch contracts from the Luxembourg-based Intelsat company had been
integral to Sea Launch's return to business after bankruptcy
protection.

Intelsat-27, which weighed some 6.2 tonnes at launch, was to have
provided direct-to-home TV services and mobile broadband connections.

According to our NASA/Apollo era, such missions should be 100%
failsafe and extremely fly-by-rocket efficient. Of course that was a
half century ago, and ever since we lost track of our "paperclip SS
Nazis" that supposedly got us safely and efficiently to/from our moon
(with fuel and payloads to spare), and that was without hardly a hitch
or even any hint of negative impact to their Kodak film.