Falcon I Launch Fails

SpaceRef is reporting that the maiden launch of the Falcon I rocket has failed. The future of space exploration will have to wait a few more months, I suppose. Hopefully this won't be too much of a setback. They don't call it rocket science for nothin'...
SpaceRef reports:

The Falcon I rocket was launched today at 5:30 pm EST from Omelek Island and climbed upward for around a minute.
On board video failed less than a minute into the flight.
Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's Vice President for Business Development, has confirmed that the rocket has been lost.
Just before the onboard camera went dead the webcam pointing back at Earth (see below) seemed to show some gyration of the vehicle.

SpaceX Reports:

Falcon 1 Maiden Flight Update: Posted March 24, 2006 3:00 pm
We had a successful liftoff and Falcon made it well clear of the launch pad, but unfortunately the vehicle was lost later in the first stage burn. More information will be posted once we have had time to analyze the problem.

---Elon

Sounds like the vehicle started to lose control and the launch safety official hit the self-destruct button (or the vehicle self-destructed on it's own). I surfed around and found some other recent rocket failures:

12 March, 2000: Sea Launch Fails to Deliver ICO Satellite

"I can only express sincere regret to Hughes and ICO for this event," [Sea Launch president and general manager, Wilbur] Trafton said. "Weve got a good rocket and weve got a great team, and as someone once said, this business is not for the faint of heart."

Maiden Launch Failures:
Ariane 5 Flight 501 Failure

On 4 June 1996, the maiden flight of the Ariane 5 launcher ended in a failure. Only about 40 seconds after initiation of the flight sequence, at an altitude of about 3700 m, the launcher veered off its flight path, broke up and exploded.
...
Ignition of the Vulcain engine and the two solid boosters was nominal, as was lift-off. The vehicle performed a nominal flight until approximately H0 + 37 seconds. Shortly after that time, it suddenly veered off its flight path, broke up, and exploded. A preliminary investigation of flight data showed:
...
The origin of the failure was thus rapidly narrowed down to the flight control system and more particularly to the Inertial Reference Systems, which obviously ceased to function almost simultaneously at around H0 + 36.7 seconds.

Dec 21, 2004 : Boeing Delta IV Heavy Achieves Major Test Objectives in First Flight
or did it?
Delta IV Heavy Launch Failure Investigation Continues

Of course there are plenty of other examples (the launch success rate for most space-capable nations is at about 90%.)


UPDATE:
Fuel leak blamed for rocket failure

SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who also co-founded the PayPal Inc. electronic payment system now owned by eBay, wrote on his Web site earlier this month: "No major surprises were uncovered in the course of the investigation." The company plans two more Falcon launches this year, according to its Web site.

NY St. Pat's chairman compares gays to neo-Nazis

"If an Israeli group wants to march in New York, do you allow neo-Nazis into their parade? If African-Americans are marching in Harlem, do they have to let the Ku Klux Klan into their parade?" Dunleavy was quoted as saying.

The main difference being that the two groups he refers to lynched and murdered hundreds to millions of people, while the group he banned just loved each other...

150 Places To Live Rich

I like the sound of this idea (from Forbes):

We've all heard about the wonders of the broadband Web. You can stream video, surf at lightning speeds, search for God-knows-what, get your e-mail in a blink. Here's what you may not know: It can let you live far richer than you probably live now.

Let me explain: For most of us, our biggest expense is the monthly mortgage payment that buys our house. The median house in America costs $210,000. Let's put in a new kitchen, redo the bathrooms and place the house in a good school district. Bingo, $300,000. For this money, you'll get a 2,300-square-foot house on a quarter-acre.

Does $300,000 sound cheap or expensive to you? Depends entirely on where you live, right? You'd say ridiculously cheap if you happen to live in Boston, New York, Washington, the Florida coasts or anywhere in California.

What if you want to live in a grander fashion? Say a 4,000-square-foot house on an acre.

What would that cost you? In Palo Alto, Calif., Greenwich, Conn., Washington, D.C.'s Georgetown or San Diego's La Jolla, easily $4 million. In just as lovely Bend, Ore., where the sky is blue and dry, the Deschutes River trout jump year round and Mt. Bachelor winter powder is bitchin’, maybe $700,000. You'll get more than an acre, too.

I guess I've got a few more years in the rat race before I can afford that $700K thing, though...

UPDATE:

I went ahead and read more, and found out I already live in one of the 150 places to live rich!

Bohemian Bargains:

Baltimore, MD
City Population: 651,000
Metro Population: 2.6 million
House Price: $369,000

Baltimore got its groove back, baby. Pride sparkles in the bold designs of the skyscrapers and museums that surround the Inner Harbor, boast civic leaders. You can see it in the smiles of Little Italy's restaurant hosts and in buffed-up neighborhoods such as Fells Point. Baltimore also boasts the second-highest concentration of professional and technical workers in the United States. The city is a price bargain compared to nearby Washington, D.C.

NASA's Cassini Discovers Potential Liquid Water on Enceladus

This image from the Cassini-Huygens Multimedia Collection, JPL/NASA, may show evidence of liquid water on Saturn's moon Enceladus. This is, of course, a major discovery, since scientists have always been able to find life wherever liquid water exists (on Earth, anyway).

NASA's Cassini spacecraft may have found evidence of liquid water reservoirs that erupt in Yellowstone-like geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus. The rare occurrence of liquid water so near the surface raises many new questions about the mysterious moon.

"We realize that this is a radical conclusion -- that we may have evidence for liquid water within a body so small and so cold," said Dr. Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader at Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. "However, if we are right, we have significantly broadened the diversity of solar system environments where we might possibly have conditions suitable for living organisms."

The future of space exploration?

Us space types have had our eye on the new Falcon 1 launch vehicle from SpaceX for quite a while. The maiden launch is tentatively scheduled for March 21-25, after a few months of troubleshooting on the pad.

SpaceX is one of those new-fangled aerospace companies trying to provide cheaper access to space. Founded by Elon Musk of PayPal (sold to Ebay for $1.5 Billion) and Zip2 (sold to Compaq for $307 Million) fame, SpaceX is "Revolutionizing Access to Space" by providing, among other things, "a long term reduction in cost by a factor of ten."

In addition to their new launch vehicle designs (photo above), SpaceX is designing the Dragon, a vehicle that could become "America's First Privately Financed Manned Orbital Spacecraft."