Launch Vehicles

Tom Jones, author and former NASA astronaut

Fifty years after a British rocket last launched a satellite, the U.K. Space Agency is bringing the country back into the space launch business. Paul Marks explores the race to open three new spaceports this year.

Daniel Gillies, 33, Rocket Lab USA, mission management and integration director

It would be a mistake to rush a crew aboard untried NASA vehicles

Optimism is tempered by hard realities

How the U.S. became dependent on RD-180 engines from a strategic foe