Virtually every mission into space has experienced some safety related incidents. With space agencies now selling space station trips to wealthy tourists to cover costs (California investment fund manager Dennis Tito became the first space tourist in April 2001 when Soyuz TM-32 delivered him to the International Space Station), engineers and safety experts worldwide are under increasing pressure to constantly review goals and practices in an effort to prevent future catastrophes.

The nature of space technology continues to determine what can and cannot be done to reduce the risks of going into space. Rockets remain necessary to escape the Earth's gravitational pull, airtight capsules to survive in space, and some sort of heat-deflection technology to return to Earth without burning up.

Famous Launchpad Disasters

The Chinese were shooting off small rockets at least seven hundred years ago but the history of space rocketry is really...