What space program isn’t rife with failures? It’s the nature of the beast when dealing with non-mature technologies. It’s not like the US space program looks very good right now, when we need to rely on them to put things in orbit.
We put most of our own stuff into orbit using our own launch systems. I’ll give ya that when it comes to manned flight, though, we have to rely on the Russians.
You know we’re sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good, doesn’t it?/Steve Buscemi