Real space crawls back into the column as for the moment Trek is gone (long live Trek!). I had hoped to highlight the successful rocket launch of the Cosmos 1 Solar Sail, a joint international effort between the Russian space agency and the U.S. Planetary Society. Unfortunately, supposedly a spontaneous shutdown of the first stage lifting the payload into orbit brought the craft back with it; despite early suggestions of survival the Russian space agency has since declared the craft lost. Several years ago a simpler two-bladed sail failed when it did not deploy from its booster. As then, today's loss is a tremendous disappointment. It's bad enough when we can't hit Mars. But when we can't even hit "out there," somehow it seems worse.

Solar sailing is an interesting concept, using the infinitesimal but collective pressure of photons on a featherweight surface to induce propulsion. (It's also way cool when launched from a nuclear submarine!) The plan was to place the sail into orbit to enable subsequent experiments with controlled flight. As a test of a practical, "fuel-less" technology it was one to keep an eye on. Oh well, such things happen.

As on the ISS, beset with problems of its own. Not the least of these is the recent final malfunction of the Elektron oxygen generator. The failure of the Elektron unit meant the crew had to fall back on reserves, pre-pressurized tanks and oxygen-producing canisters, which fortunately was not a problem. The station has several back-up sources; the crew is not found wanting for air!

In fact the latest Progress ship arrived at this week at Alpha to resupply it with air and other needs. In addition to forty new "oxygen candles" it brought spare parts and supplies, personal items, half a ton of water, and a new camera to inspect the heat tiles on Discovery during the upcoming STS-114 mission (God willing) in July. Along with the other cargo the ship also brought sixty snails intended for biological experiments. Heh. We're racing into the space and the snails are keeping up with us.

But! I'm not trying to sound pessimistic. Nobody said it would easy to get into space. It just looks like we'll be struggling with quite a few toeholds from the very first, forward. One year after SpaceShipOne lofted us into a brave new era, even if our progress must be measured at a snail's pace, this is no time to get discouraged or lose momentum. This is no time to stop for gas.