There were two failures of launch vehicles this weekend. The 48 inch launch vehicle of Armadillo Aerospace crashed, leaving what was described on their website as “$35,000 of rocket is now a whole lot of primo Armadillo Droppings”. Why the failure? Ran out of propellant. Doh! I’m told there are pictures and video on their website, but since Slashdot is running this story, I suspect it will be several hours before I’ll be able to have a peek.

Eric Meier and Phillip Storm of Space Transport Corp, a much more modest and low budget affair, also had a vehicle failure when their rocket engine exploded at 100 feet. The parachute failed to deploy, and the rocket crashed to the ground.