SpaceX Best Bet

        Star City - Currently their are very few launch companies that are capable of carrying supplies to the International Space Station (ISS).  Companies like SpaceX have become vital to re-supplying the ISS With the Russians most powerful rocket the Proton M having a high explosion rate, the future of how the ISS will be reached is in question.  A Russian rocket carrying a $275 million telecommunications satellite failed-to-launch and up, shortly after launch, on Friday, May 16, 2014.  This launch mishap is the latest in a series of setbacks for Russia's once-pioneering space industry.  It was the second failure for Russia's workhorse Proton-M rocket, in less than a year.  Previously, it failed to deliver a European satellite intended to provide advanced telecommunications and internet access to remote parts of Russia.  Previous to that, a Proton-M crashed shortly after launch, in 2011.  The third stage of the Proton-M booster rocket failed, says Oleg Ostapenko, head of the Russian space agency Roskosmos, and said the precise cause of the explosion is unknown. 
     The state-run news agency RIA quoted Ostapenko as saying, the rocket and all debris had burned up in the atmosphere:  "We can say with certainty that nothing reached Earth".  Russian media, however, said, some debris may have fallen into the Pacific or been scattered over Siberia and
Russia's Far East.  No casualties or damage were reported on the ground.  The lost of the Express
AM4R Satellite, worth more than $200 million euros ($275 million), was described by it's maker, Astrium, as one of the most powerful telecommunication satellites currently being built in Europe.  Astrium is a unit of the partially government-owned European aerospace group, Airbus AIR.PA.  The loss of Express AM4R delays a number of commercial projects by three to four years.  Last July, three navigation satellite worth about $200 million were lost when the Proton-M flying them, crashed near the launch-pad, shortly after take-off.  That accident strained relations between Kazakhstan and Russia; and led Kazakhstan to temporarily ban Proton launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome ( the world's first and largest operational space launch facility).  State-run Russian television said, all launches had been suspended from Kazakhstan.
     This crash raises questions, as to whether NASA will consider SpaceX, one of only two United State's companies capable of privately launching vehicles than can reach the ISS, as an increasingly more viable alternative. Some United State's officials are looking for a more permanent solution.  With a seven percent failure-to-launch rate, our most powerful and most used rocket, has a poor reliability record", says Ivan Moiseyev, head of the Russian-based institute of Space Policy think tank, told Komnersant-FM radio.  Moiseyev says, that failure-to-launch rate gives a boost to Russia's European rival, Arianespace, and to the American newcomer SpaceX.  It's a very un-successful picture on the whole, and if you compare it with our competitors in Europe; their last accident was 12 years ago, also says Moiseyev.  See also, www.aviationweek.com.