[MadIvan]

I leave the comparisons between French rockets and their automobiles to you lot. ;)

Regards, Ivan

[MadIvan]

Bump!

[Poohbah]

Coming from an Englishman...I would watch the automobile slams.

If Britannia rules the waves, why can't her cars cross a puddle?

[deadlywithapen]

Ten minutes after the blast the french army surrendered.
;-}

[Billthedrill]

No explanation for the loss has yet been given by officials from Arianespace...

First thing I'd suspect would be that explosion, but hey, I'm just an amateur...

[KarlInOhio]

I would rather compare French rockets to their aircraft carriers. Did the prop fall of the rocket?

[RightWhale]

This is horrible. It's French and all, and their loss is the gain of their competitors, mainly Atlas, Delta, Russia, Japan, and China, in order of gross domestic space product, but this is bad news anyway.

[Itzlzha]

The Ariane 5-ESCA blasted off from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana at 1921 (2221 GMT) local time and blew up three minutes later.

In a tersely worded press release, the French Government announced that the rocket had "surrendered to gravity"...

[Moose4]

So were the engines made by Citroen, Peugeot, or Renault.

Must've been Renault. It's the "Le Rocket!"

}:-)4

[Southack]

"The Ariane 5 launcher lost on Wednesday was carrying a double payload: a Hotbird TM7 for the European telecoms consortium Eutelsat, and Stentor, an experimental communications satellite for the French space research institute CNES."

Goodness, the new French spy satellite communications bird didn't make it to orbit, who woulda thunk it...

[Squawk 8888]

Not the first time an Ariane-5 blowed up real good. Back around '94 they lost the first one because the guidance computers were loaded with Ariane-4 software.

[mhking]

"It blow'd up REAL good" ping!

---

"Hold muh beer 'n watch this!" PING....

If you want on or off this list, please let me know!

[Ole Okie]

leave the comparisons between French rockets and their automobiles to you lot. ;)

Any country that can produce the Renault Dauphine can't be all good, Ivan.

[PAR35]

Do you know whether or not the French space program contracts with Lucas for its electrical systems? I recall well the reliability of British Leyland made cars with Lucas electrical systems.

[Brett66]

Boeing and LockMart are waiting in the wings with their new launchers. (already successfully launched)

[Willie Green]

Maybe Suriname shot it down to test their Star Wars defense system.

[100%FEDUP]

Shouldn't it be a (HOL MOI ESCARGO ALERT)?

[Frohickey]

The boss of Arianespace, Jean-Yves Le Gall, immediately apologised to his two customers.

Arianespace's boss' boss, immediately surrendered to whoever was around. :)

[Toirdhealbheach Beucail]

Shouldn't this be a "Hold muh cheese" alert?

[crypt2k]

"The setback will now put an enormous question mark over Europe's upcoming science mission Rosetta, designed to put a lander on Comet Wirtanen.

The Rosetta craft was due to launch on the next Ariane 5 flight on 12 January. Its eight-year journey to the comet requires the probe to be swung around Mars once and Earth twice to get it in the right position to catch the comet..."

Hopefully, they have a backup plan. Looks like this mission will be in mothballs for awhile.

[The_Media_never_lie]

The debris would have fallen into the Atlantic Ocean. The satellites were likely to have been insured.

The boss of Arianespace, Jean-Yves Le Gall, immediately apologised to his two customers.

"At this stage it is too early to give precise reasons for this failure," he said.

All they need to do now is plan to equip the rockets with nukes aimed at the U.S., and Loral will help them troubleshoot.