[RealJustme]

(CNN) -- A NASA-contracted rocket exploded early Tuesday evening along the eastern Virginia coast.

According to NASA, the Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo spacecraft were set to launch at 6:22 p.m. ET from the Wallops Flight Facility along the Atlantic Ocean. It was set to carry some 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments to the International Space Station. The cost of the operation was estimated to be $1.8 billion.

After the explosion, the launch director said on NASA's feed that all personnel were accounted for and that no injuries were reported.

He added the spacecraft contained "classified ... equipment," and that there was a need to maintain the area around the debris field for investigative and potential security reasons given what was on board. "We will conduct a thorough investigation immediately to determine the cause of this failure and what steps can be taken to avoid a repeat of this incident,"

Obama, what more can you say.

[Malcolm]

.....Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment, ranging from “classified cryptographic” gear to school science experiments, was destroyed in a giant fireball on Tuesday evening after technicians detonated a self-destruct mechanism six seconds after launch because of a “catastrophic” equipment failure.

Though stressing the exact cause of the failure was unknown, an executive at Orbital lamented the lack of more modern alternatives to its rocket engines, which were built in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the failed aim of putting Soviet cosmonauts on the moon.

He also indicated the problem involved failures of the first stage of the Antares rocket, powered by a refurbished Aerojet engine left over from the NK-33 program when the Soviet Union abandoned its moonshot.

“The asset stopped, there was some, let’s say, disassembly of the first stage, after which it fell to earth,” said Culbertson, in a deadpan description of an explosion that could be seen for miles and terrified observers.

The technology has been ridiculed by commercial rivals but used regularly by Orbital to resupply the ISS in recent years, despite growing criticism in Congress of Nasa’s reliance on commercial partners to maintain a human presence in space.

“Their rocket honestly sounds like the punchline to a joke,” said Elon Musk, founder of rival SpaceX, in an interview in 2012. “It uses Russian rocket engines that were made in the 60s. I don’t mean their design is from the 60s — I mean they start with engines that were literally made in the 60s and, like, packed away in Siberia somewhere.” ... :shock:

[tvd]

That's true.

[johnforbes]

The purpose of the military is no longer to win wars, but to provide promotion opportunity for minorities.