[saganite]

Bigelow was incredibly lucky. He launched using a converted Soviet SS-18. His launch was flawless but yesterday an SS-18 blew up with 18 sattelites on board. Apparently he got the good one.

[Shuttle Shucker]

Regarding this article's title, it would seem the feds and Congressional pork-barrelers are interested in keeping the [tax-subsidized] red tape intact, at the expense of entrepreneurial space development. Getta load of this:

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=21352

Senate Report 109-280 Departments of Commerce and Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill 2007

STATUS REPORT
Date Released: Friday, July 14, 2006
Source: Senate Appropriations Committee

"The Committee does not provide any funding in fiscal year 2007 for the Centennial Challenges program. Funding provided in previous fiscal years for this program is sufficient for NASA to run a prize based competition, as well as to verify that NASA will see tangential benefits from running such a program. Providing additional funds to a program based on prizes only creates a pot of unused funds while other aspects of NASA's mission are being cut or delayed due to a lack of funds."

For more information regarding why this decision seems outrageous:

http://www.spaceprojects.com/prizes

Surely there are easier ways to pressure NASA to create prizes that can actually be won, than to eliminate further funding for NASA prizes, causing existing ones to remain so tiny that nobody can be adequately incentivized to win them?

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Yeah, those Russian rockets seem to blow up more often than American or European ones (and around the same as Japanese).

However, as for sending people to space, isn't the Soyuz capsule supposed to have a perfect track record? The space shuttle obviously doesn't have that.