Analysis: What the supply rocket explosion means for Orbital and for commercial space

The spectacular and tragic loss of an uncrewed Antares rocket Tuesday evening caused a sensation, but the significance of the loss should not be overstated.

While Tuesday was indeed a bad day for a commercial company, Orbital, it should not be seen as a black eye for commercialization.

First, however, let's start with the good news: no one died. Orbital Sciences followed its safety procedures and despite the carnage at the launch pad, no one at the site was injured or killed.
And although the six astronauts aboard the International Space Station will miss the fresh fruit in the supply ship, they will be fine. NASA's managers of the space station, led by Michael Suffredini at the Johnson Space Center, have prepared for just such an eventuality.

"We manage the station to protect for just such an event should it occur," Suffredini said.
The station has food, water and other consumables to last through March. Moreover NASA has other supply lines to the station, including SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, the Russian Progress vehicle and Japan's HTV.

Perhaps the bigger question is whether this leaves a cloud over NASA's efforts to privatize some of its launches.

It's not yet known what caused Tuesday's failure, but some critics have noted that Orbital's Antares rocket used Russian engines, the NK-33, built in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These engines, however, are all tested at a NASA facility in Mississippi before use and wouldn't fly unless they were certified.

Even if the old Russian engines failed, it's worth noting that no other rocket used to supply the station uses these engines.

For example, NASA's other U.S.-based supplier is SpaceX, which builds its rocket engines in the United States.

Orbital and SpaceX were the two companies NASA chose as part of its "commercial cargo" program to supply the station. Before Tuesday's crash the companies had flown five successful resupply missions to the station, an admirable record for two companies flying new rockets. Moreover they did so at a fraction of the cost NASA would have paid to build such a capability on its own.

Now, however, NASA has raised the stakes with the next step of its privatization program, "commercial crew," which by 2017 should end America's reliance on Russia to get its astronauts into space. The two commercial crew vendors NASA has chosen to fly astronauts to the station, Boeing and SpaceX, also are not reliant on the rocket technology that failed Tuesday. Boeing will launch its CST-100 spacecraft on the Atlas V rocket, which has flown 50 successful missions without a hitch. SpaceX's Dragon capsule will launch on the Falcon 9 rocket. Although SpaceX experienced some failures with its early rocket tests, all 13 of its Falcon 9 rocket launches have safely reached space.

Some in Congress have criticized NASA for going down the commercialization path to send supplies and eventually people to low-Earth orbit, but at this point the space agency has no choice.
NASA's own large rocket and space capsule, the Space Launch System and Orion, won't be ready to bring humans into space until 2021 at the very earliest. And trying to use this powerful system to ferry astronauts to the space station is like bringing a bazooka to a water pistol fight. It's overkill and would cost tens of times more than what Boeing and SpaceX are developing.

The real lesson to be drawn from Tuesday's failure is that spaceflight remains a risky business, and that NASA and its commercial providers need to remain focused on safety.

"As we push the frontiers of space there will be setbacks," said Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, a former astronaut, after the crash. "But our commercial space ventures will ultimately be successful."
If anything the Antares failure validates NASA's plans to have multiple commercial partners delivering supplies and, one day, astronauts into space. If there's a temporary problem with one launch system, as we're seeing with the space station supplies, there are backup options.

For NASA, and indeed America, the payoff of commercial space is too great to ignore. It offers the space agency vastly reduced costs to access space, multiple supply lines and frees up NASA to develop spacecraft to fly to destinations beyond low-Earth orbit, like the moon or Mars.
"The thing that's important is that we don't overreact to this failure," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's chief human spaceflight official, when asked about Congressional opponents to commercial crew. "This just reminds us how difficult this business is, and how careful we need to be."

But in an age of social media and spectacular disaster photos plastered all over the Internet, and on the eve of Congressional elections, is it possible for America not to overreact?

We're about to find out.