Too bad your TA didn't work on that Russian rocket that crashed a year or two ago... IIRC the accelerometers were installed upside down so as soon as it took off it incorrectly thought it was pointed straight down. The rocket flipped around until it thought it was "up" and slammed into the ground.

>> My entire physics lab watched this happen live.

Now imagine how people felt back in '86 when the challenger exploded with 7 people on board including a teacher. Shuttle launches were common by then but a lot of people were watching live due to the teacher on board aspect. It brings a whole different set of emotions to the event. Nobody made a joke that day.

Of course they didn't. We all knew this flight was unmanned, so it was easy to laugh off such an event. Like other posters have said: 1) A shame for the scientists and engineers who worked many hours to put this together. 2) An unfortunate loss of tens of millions of dollars. BUT 3) We're human and make mistakes, just in the case of aerospace the smallest error is make or break. Aviation wouldn't have made progress to the point we're at now without learning lessons.

What's 'a'?

Acceleration

Acceleration?