It's Been a Bad Week

...for flying things including two helicopters, the Dow, and the people at the Mojave branch of Scaled Composites.

The record NASA has for flight safety has been bought at the expense of speed. NASA cancels flights more often than it makes them anymore. Three astronauts died while sitting on the launch pad, including Gus Grissom. Fourteen have died from Shuttle disasters, including the seven of Challenger who started upward and failed; and including the seven of Columbia who died during a reentry accident.

Three accidents in almost 40 years indicates a caution so far beyond normal, I wonder why people don't speak of it more often.

I hope that the people at Scaled Composites don't lose heart of what amounts to a pretty normal industrial accident.