SpaceX Won't Give Up

From the ground, it didn't really look like an explosion. Standing at a press site about four miles from the launchpad, amid the rippling, crackling sound waves generated by the rocket's chemical propulsion -- a disturbance so great it sent fish leaping from the river in front of us -- all systems seemed to be go.

There was a puff of white smoke overhead. A lengthy silence. And then a NASA rep on the PA, befuddlement in his voice, pronouncing what had happened a "non-nominal" event. For SpaceX, the aerospace startup that had been supplying the International Space Station without incident for some time, the explosion of its Falcon 9 rocket was surely a shock -- all the more worrisome because the company intends to start ferrying humans to space come 2017.