It’s a sad day when the country that has long had a stranglehold on manufacturing just about everything you can think of is also the country that is putting out so much CO2 in the atmosphere.

In case there’s any doubt about that, NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory will be evaluating CO2 across the globe when it reaches space.

*UPDATE: Unfortunately, this morning’s lift-off didn’t gain enough altitude for some strange reason:

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory failed to reach orbit this morning after a 4:55 a.m. EST liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Several minutes into the flight of the Taurus rocket … the payload fairing failed to separate.

You can watch and listen to the takeoff here, but it stops before anything dramatic happens. NPR says “a preliminary investigation shows that a protective shroud around the satellite failed to break free, fatally weighing down the $278 million orbiter”.