Failure

by Peter Timko

Back on June 12, Astra, an American launch company, attempted to deliver a payload into orbit. It did not go as planned. While the rocket successfully discharged its first stage of boosters, the second stage engine shut down prematurely. As a result, the vehicle, along with the two multi-million dollar weather satellites it was carrying for NASA, came crashing back down to Earth somewhere over the Atlantic. Such an outcome is generally regarded as a failure. In the coming days and weeks, engineers will probably find all sorts of fascinating technical reasons the rocket failed. However, as an anthropologist, I’m more interested in how such a failure works on a social level.

Failures, disasters, calamities, or as they’re sometimes euphemistically called, “anomalies” have been an integral part of space operations from the beginning. Throughout the 50s and 60s, both the US and Soviet space programs saw numerous rockets detonate on the launch pad. While both states did their best to downplay any missteps, by the Apollo era “things going horribly wrong” was a firmly established aspect of astronautics. In fact, the specter of disaster was so present that the Nixon administration prepared a brief speech to be delivered in the event that the Apollo 11 astronauts could not return home. This macabre bit of anticipation work even dictates the proper “burial” procedure to be followed by clergymen back on Earth.

Luckily, there was never a need for Nixon’s mournful address. Though, it’s worth considering that the text itself doesn’t focus so much on the failure aspect of leaving three men on the moon. Rather, and understandably so, the eulogy emphasizes bravery and sacrifice. It even suggests that having three people die on the lunar surface is, in some ways, a victory all its own: “For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.” It’s not hard to imagine that such a framing could turn this particular fiasco into a galvanizing moment. Consider the aftermath of the Apollo 13 crisis just a few months later. According to some, the deft handling of this mission gone wrong “not only bolstered NASA’s image, but it also may have helped to gain crucial public and congressional support for continued manned space exploration,” (Kauffman, 2001).

Still, circumstances have changed. Companies like Astra can’t easily paper over failure with  nationalistic tropes or a sentimental ode to humanity’s ambition. Really, they can’t even fall back on simple appeals as to the difficulty of launch mechanics—the common cliche “space is hard” now reads a bit as an excuse. Moreover, Astra must face the realities of a marketized space economy where value depends on things going right predictably and consistently. As many space industry workers have told me in interviews, any company hoping to secure future investment and contracts must demonstrate “launch heritage,” or a record of successful orbital deliveries.

With so much at stake, it’s interesting to see how the fallout of a launch failure operates in real time. Twitter, the preferred social medium for many space watchers, provides a window into how failure is received, massaged, or even celebrated (Bertrand et al, 2015). Looking at the fallout of this most recent event, one of the most salient trends is an explicit focus on financial repercussions. As soon as the news broke, feeds were full of riffing about how the market would digest such a failure and what it means for the company’s future. Many users wasted no time on speculating about the value of Astra’s stock—and unsurprisingly, $ASTR took a massive hit. Within a day, the price had dropped more than 25%.

For some, this technical snafu and the resulting financial setback was amusing. Twitter has a reputation for being one of the more anti-social social networks, so some degree of mean spirited gloating is expected. Though, interestingly, many users began cracking jokes about “buying the dip,” an old investment bromide which cryptocurrency investors have adopted as semi-ironic refrain when things go wrong. This is less an endorsement of Astra’s ability to bounce back and more a tacit acknowledgement that for many space is all about the money—while watching humanity strive for the stars is all well and good, the real giant leaps will hopefully happen on the stock ticker.

But, this irreverent attitude wasn’t the only sentiment on display. Just as common were genuine words of support and encouragement, even from other launch companies. Astra’s timeline was filled with messages reminding the company that their efforts are not in vain: “I’m sure you’ll learn from this and better luck next time!” and “Every launch is a step closer to a successful orbit. Space is hard! Everyone at Astra should be proud” There were even a surprising number of very saccharine gifs. In contrast to the snark, these messages suggest that despite the overt competition present in the launch marketplace, many still just want to see space services succeed in general. As Valentine has pointed out in his studies of new space communities, it’s an industry with “remarkable solidarity across divisions,” (2016).