Heads Will Roll

You wouldn't want to be a North Korean rocket scientist tonight. Their much-heralded launch of a long-range, multi-stage rocket was a failure. See the CNN article for details. The launch failure is an embarrassment for the new North Korean dynastic leader, Kim Jong-Un.

The U.S. knows how this failure-for-all-to-see feels. Shortly after the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite to orbit the Earth, the U.S. Navy tried to put up a rocket. It failed dramatically and embarrassingly, on TV for all to see. As a result, the Navy lost its role in the U.S. space program.