Originally posted by Halo
(Sounds like a big problem with three dead and they still "don't know exactly yet what caused it" and "we are having delays in the rocket engine development. We just don't know how long they will be."
Read it more carefully. It was a cold flow of nitros oxide, which according to industry conventional wisdom *should not* explode for no reason. Cold flow means they were basically testing the plumbing.
Of course they'll have delays, because yea some people died and the investigation into the causes will pretty much halt everything except background design twiddling. But this doesn't point towards any sort of problem with the basic engine design at all, any more than having your toilet clog up points towards a basic design flaw with your bathroom. You fix the clog, determine why it clogged, and don't do that again. You don't (typically) rip out your entire bathroom or cease crapping entirely just because your toilet clogged once, no matter how unpleasant the clog was.
Yes it's a simplistic analogy and people dying is obviously different than a toilet clog (heh) but this is a hazardous endeavour and when this sort of thing happens, you figure it out, fix the problem, and press on. But pointing to an explosion during a test that didn't even involve firing off the rocket, and saying there must be some huge problem with the rocket motor, doesn't make ANY sense.
