Every spectacular spacecraft failure proves the same thing: Space travel is a tough, expensive, risky business. Computers crash, rockets explode, probes miss planets and satellites smack into the atmosphere. And then there are human tragedies -- the Challengers, the Columbias.
Yet for every glitch, space travelers find a fix, for every disaster, they find a renewed determination. Sometimes the solutions happen in mid-mission, sometimes, they aren't found until the accident review board finishes its work.
There are a lot of factors responsible for the disasters in space. …
