Solid-fuel rockets can't easily be shut down on command.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Rocket science is tough, and rockets have a way of failing.
Whether solid rockets are more or less likely to fail than liquid-fuel rockets is debatable. More serious, though, is that when they do fail, it's usually violent and spectacular.
The rocket had worked perfectly, and all I had to do was survive the reentry forces. You do it all, in a flight like that, in a rather short period of time, just 16 minutes as a matter of fact.
Rocket engines generally are simpler than jet engines, not more complicated.
The armored vehicle manufacturing base is not a light switch that can be turned on and off at will. If we mothball production of systems like the Abrams tank, it will take time and money to get this capability back.
You need to be in the position where it is the cost of the fuel that actually matters and not the cost of building the rocket in the first place.
There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a suitable application of high explosives.
The car is the most regulated thing in the world. It's more complicated to make a car than it is to send a rocket to space.
Because we are in a war situation, this can sometimes be dangerous work. But guys like A.D. Flowers and his technicians just take it in stride and get on with the job. In four years, we've never had a serious accident or injury working with all the explosions.
When you launch in a rocket, you're not really flying that rocket. You're just sort of hanging on.