Was it hubris or what? One of the senior project directors on the Ariane programme said a few days ago, in reference to the pioneering attempt to put four space craft into orbit at the same time. "We are putting all our eggs into one basket". And like Milton's Satan they fell, if not "from morn to noon, from noon to dewy eve, a summer's day", certainly "from the zenith like a falling star". Yesterday's disaster was a major setback for science, for European co-operation and for the commercial hopes that rose skywards with Ariane-5. But it was also undeniably an epic failure on the human scale.
Not since Challenger fell into the Atlantic 10 years ago, ending a highly publicised space probe carrying seven crew, including a teacher, Sharon Christa MacAuliffe, has the preciousness of research outside this planet's atmosphere been so dramatically demonstrated. Ariane-5, at least, had no humans aboard, and so the element of tragedy is lacking. But it carried 10 years of co-operative effort, and the ambitions of Europe, to be up there competing at the final frontier with the United States, Russia and China for the lucrative technological prizes of the 21st century. The decision to terminate as it veered off course just after take off was unavoidable, but is heavily weighted with consequences not least for the scientists whose experiments were on board.
Much is made of the fact that the success rate of rocket launches, and of those conducted by the European Space Agency in particular, far exceeds the failures. That has been the case at earlier stages in the Ariane programme, and the Ariane-5 is still experimental. At some point, however, commercial criteria must begin to play a role. How much will potential customers be influenced by the delays inevitable after yesterday's debacle and begin to drift away? What was the cause some minor defect or a fundamental flaw? Was too much being attempted? What will be the effect on overall costings? When will cash strapped European governments start to think that the moment has come to pull out?
At this point, before the official investigation's report, the main impact is symbolic. Europe is seen, once again, not to have realised its ambitions. Science has been no more of a solvent than fiscal or commercial policy, raising the question purely hypothetically of whether the real reason for Ariane's disintegration lies in the politics behind the committee designed rocket, a kind of extra terrestrial solid fuel boosted duck billed platypus. (The duck billed platypus admittedly does work.) Whatever the truth of this theory, it is hard to imagine a more spectacular symbolic model of the forces involved in the preparations for EMU, both to prevent its launching on time
Ariane-5 was initially meant to take off last year and to punish any attempt to move precipitately.
Mythology is filled with gloomy warnings to mankind not to press on too fast. Ariadne herself after whom the rocket programme has been named, had a brief moment of glory when rescuing Theseus from the Minotaur, but then came to a sticky end. Presumably there was a more optimistic reason for her name being chosen. Much hangs now on the investigation of yesterday's disaster, and if some relatively minor design error was the cause, then the damage to the programme may be limited. The public's imagination may not yet be fired by the scientific and commercial challenge of such projects but is powerfully attracted by the idea of mastering space.