Wind gusts and sticky fuel valves conspired to keep Nasa’s new Orion spacecraft on the launch pad, delaying a crucial test flight meant to revitalise exploration by humans.

Practice makes perfect they say, and so the US Navy and Nasa have been repeatedly retrieving this spacecraft from the ocean.

The great Noel Kelly retired from rugby league in 1970 after what Americans would call a Hall of Fame career and, 43 years later, the suburb of Goodna in the Queensland city of Ipswich honoured their famous son by naming a street after him.