The commercial space industry has been left reeling from a catastrophic week which saw two separate disasters befall the burgeoning field. With the explosion of the Antares Rocket on Tuesday followed so quickly by the deadly crash of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo on Friday, new concerns have arisen over the viability and safety of private space ventures for both government-sponsored projects as well as within the potentially lucrative realm of tourism.
However, historians note that the dual disasters serve as painful reminders of the difficulty in developing new spacecraft and are, sadly, only the latest additions to a long history of such disasters, regardless of whether they are funded by a government or a private enterprise.