Rockets are bombs, and after 60 years spaceflight remains a nascent, experimental enterprise

Space lies a mere 60 miles above the planet’s surface, so tantalizingly close. It shouldn’t be that hard to reach, right? After all, humans have sent rockets into space for nearly six decades. Yet as American (SpaceX), Russian (Progress) and American-Russian (Orbital Sciences) industry have found out during the last eight months, with rocket and spacecraft failures, […]