TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.transterrestrial.com/admin/mt-tb.cgi/10372
11 Comments
Robert Winmill wrote:
He did it, He did it. Now private space has taken its greatest step to date. And we have Elon and his Space X crew to thank. Nothing can take this GREAT milestone from them.
The video drop out around 7 minutes into the second stage got my heart stopped for a wee bit.
Bob wrote:
F*$#in A! Outstanding!
Habitat Hermit wrote:
Made a small comment over at RLVnews but I wanted to join in here as well: congratulations to Elon Musk and SpaceX!
Jeff Mauldin wrote:
I'd like to reiterate a comment I made about this earlier (which I'm not sure I successfully posted).
I think this is (possibly) a great example of how private space development can work much better than government. If a government program had 3 unsuccessful launches, even if the engineers learned a lot, the program would have been shut down, fingers pointed, hearings held. As it is, they were able to keep their heads down and fix the problems, not just spend time lobbying and doing PR.
And if it kept not working they would have run out of money and given up--unlike government programs which never die no matter what.
Larry J wrote:
I think this is (possibly) a great example of how private space development can work much better than government. If a government program had 3 unsuccessful launches, even if the engineers learned a lot, the program would have been shut down, fingers pointed, hearings held.
This may be true today but fortunately, it wasn't true back in the late 1950s and early 1960s when so much fundamental rocket technology was developed. They had many, many failures back then and kept pressing on. Sure, there were the pressures of the Cold War and Space Race, but perhaps they were also made of sterner stuff back then.
DensityDuck wrote:
Elon Musk is a twenty-first century Howard Hughes, with interests in solar-cell production, electric vehicles, private-venture rockets, internet business...hopefully he doesn't complete the picture by getting all weird, but he's one of the lights leading us into the flying-car future.
Anonymous wrote:
They sort of 'cheated' by launching from so close to the equator ... they were 200 miles an hour closer to orbital speeds than we are when launching from Florida. The accomplishment even received a huge grant in the millions from NASA, so it wasn't like a bunch of guys did this from a farm shed. All the same, I'm very excited about this launch, and look forward to another one recently so secret that even former NASA insiders who had thought the X-40 had been cancelled were surprised when it was recently announced that the military's reusable unmanned spaceplane will be going up on an Atlas 5 in November, and landing at Edwards Air Force Base (more likely)or Mojave's Spaceport strip (less likely) an unknown number of orbits later.
Leave a comment
Note: The comment system is functional, but timing out when returning a response page. If you have submitted a comment, DON'T RESUBMIT IT IF/WHEN IT HANGS UP AND GIVES YOU A "500" PAGE. Simply click your browser "Back" button to the post page, and then refresh to see your comment.
About this Entry
This page contains a single entry by Rand Simberg published on September 28, 2008 5:20 PM.
He did it, He did it. Now private space has taken its greatest step to date. And we have Elon and his Space X crew to thank. Nothing can take this GREAT milestone from them.
Robert Winmill
This is just the beginning.
Definitely congratulations. Great job!
Hell Yes!!!!!
The video drop out around 7 minutes into the second stage got my heart stopped for a wee bit.
F*$#in A! Outstanding!
Made a small comment over at RLVnews but I wanted to join in here as well: congratulations to Elon Musk and SpaceX!
I'd like to reiterate a comment I made about this earlier (which I'm not sure I successfully posted).
I think this is (possibly) a great example of how private space development can work much better than government. If a government program had 3 unsuccessful launches, even if the engineers learned a lot, the program would have been shut down, fingers pointed, hearings held. As it is, they were able to keep their heads down and fix the problems, not just spend time lobbying and doing PR.
And if it kept not working they would have run out of money and given up--unlike government programs which never die no matter what.
I think this is (possibly) a great example of how private space development can work much better than government. If a government program had 3 unsuccessful launches, even if the engineers learned a lot, the program would have been shut down, fingers pointed, hearings held.
This may be true today but fortunately, it wasn't true back in the late 1950s and early 1960s when so much fundamental rocket technology was developed. They had many, many failures back then and kept pressing on. Sure, there were the pressures of the Cold War and Space Race, but perhaps they were also made of sterner stuff back then.
Elon Musk is a twenty-first century Howard Hughes, with interests in solar-cell production, electric vehicles, private-venture rockets, internet business...hopefully he doesn't complete the picture by getting all weird, but he's one of the lights leading us into the flying-car future.
They sort of 'cheated' by launching from so close to the equator ... they were 200 miles an hour closer to orbital speeds than we are when launching from Florida. The accomplishment even received a huge grant in the millions from NASA, so it wasn't like a bunch of guys did this from a farm shed. All the same, I'm very excited about this launch, and look forward to another one recently so secret that even former NASA insiders who had thought the X-40 had been cancelled were surprised when it was recently announced that the military's reusable unmanned spaceplane will be going up on an Atlas 5 in November, and landing at Edwards Air Force Base (more likely)or Mojave's Spaceport strip (less likely) an unknown number of orbits later.