&gt; I had seen many launches before, so I had no expectation that they could go wrong.<p>This mindset is interesting.  Issues like plane and train crashes grab headlines and are typically catastrophic, but end up being far more rare than, say, a fatal car crash.  Similarly, the Space Shuttle had two major incidents in 30 years, and the Concord had only one, but they were very public and very catastrophic.<p>Is it the rarity or severity that make them such big news?