Jeff Foust has a piece on yesterday's successful launch of the Falcon 1, and contrasts it with the successful landing of the first Chinese EVA mission:
SpaceX is moving on to launching real satellites, starting with RazakSAT, a Malaysian remote sensing satellite scheduled for launch on a Falcon 1 early next year; the first Falcon 9 launch is now planned for the second quarter of 2009. "We look forward to doing a lot of Falcon 1 launches and a lot of Falcon 9 launches and continuously improving until the point where we're the world's leading provider of space launch," Musk said.
Sunday's launch was not the only space milestone in the last week. On Thursday China launched its third manned mission, Shenzhou 7, on a 68-hour mission that featured the first Chinese spacewalk. The launch, EVA, and landing all captured headlines around the world, and has generated far more attention than the SpaceX launch likely will.
In the long run, though, it may be the SpaceX launch that is more influential. China is following the same path forged nearly five decades ago by the United States and the former Soviet Union: a government-run human spaceflight program that is as much for national prestige as for anything else. Several other countries, including India, Europe, and Japan, may follow in the next decade and beyond. It's a tried-and-true paradigm, but one that has done little to date to open space for new applications and new audiences.
SpaceX, and other NewSpace ventures like it, carry the promise of dramatically changing the space industry with low-cost orbital and suborbital launch options that open up new and potentially lucrative new markets. That promise, though, has remained just that--a promise, not a reality--since SpaceShipOne won the Ansari X Prize four years ago. Sunday's launch was perhaps the biggest milestone since then in demonstrating what NewSpace can offer.
Clark Lindsey has a lot of links to other commentary.
I'm very happy for SpaceX's achievement and wish them nothing but the best for the future. There has been a lot of talk about private space for many years. Elon Musk has achieved the first step. At the moment, it's hard to say what will come of this but I'm reminded of what Winston Churchill said after the British victory at El Alameinin in North Africa:
"The Germans have received back again that measure of fire and steel which they have so often meted out to others. Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
SpaceX's achievement marks the end of the beginning for private space development. There is still a long way to go. If they get their Falcon 9 operational next year, that could well change everything.
Any word yet on whether they were able to recover the first stage?
It took USSR four years to go from first satellite to first man in space, and four years for US as well.
Looking forward to great things happening in 2012.
It took the US/USSR 4 years because it was new territory no one had trod before. The road to manned spaceflight is relatively well worn now, many pitfalls have been marked so that those who follow can avoid them. I will go out on a limb and predict that SpaceX will have a man in orbit well before 2012.
SpaceX provides clear and indisputable proof that the development of orbital ELVs is now "text-book engineering" (i.e. the knowledge and systems required to build them are now available to anyone with sufficient cash).
Scaled composites and Armadillo Aerospace provide clear and indisputable proof that the development of sub-orbital RLVs is also now "text-book engineering".
I suspect we may not have to wait another generation before some other entrepreneur provides clear and indisputable proof that the development of orbital RLVs has also become "text-book engineering".
IMO, the chapter on suborbitals is still wide open. SS1 was not an operational vehicle, and nobody else has come close yet.
And on SpaceX getting man on orbit in next few years.. in theory yes, like the first Falcon could have, in theory flown in 2004.
BTW, i wonder if flying chimps and dogs on first orbital trials is now completely out of fashion ? :) Chinese skipped that step.
BTW, i wonder if flying chimps and dogs on first orbital trials is now completely out of fashion ? :) Chinese skipped that step.
In a sense, NASA skipped that step in 1981 with the first shuttle flight. It was the first time that a space vehicle carried a crew on its first flight (no unmanned Shuttle flights before STS-1 unlike Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo).
We're not at the end of the beginning. Even to say we're at the beginning of the beginning can be misleading.
We're on top of an infinitely tall mountain and we've noticed a shift in the ground beneath us. In centuries there has only been the movement of particles and the occasional pebble barely sliding before coming to a rest. The avalanche might be on its way this time.
""""""Cecil Trotter wrote:
It took the US/USSR 4 years because it was new territory no one had trod before. The road to manned spaceflight is relatively well worn now, many pitfalls have been marked so that those who follow can avoid them. I will go out on a limb and predict that SpaceX will have a man in orbit well before 2012."""""""
Nope. Not going to happen. SpaceX took four years and four tries to get Falcon 1 to work. While the company's successes will come sooner and more often now, they have been a prime example of how the private sector still has to "re-invent most of the wheel" when it comes to space flight. A manned Dragon will fly around the same time as the first manned Orion does for NASA. In the meanwhile, though, unmanned resupply Dragons will have made at least a couple of flights to the ISS.
I would love to be wrong. I would love for you, Cecil, to be able to raz me in 2011 right after a manned Dragon completes it's maiden voyage.
I agree with Roderick. SpaceX has a ways to go. They need first to demonstrate that their vehicles are sufficiently reliable to fly people. 1 out of 4 successful launches obviously isn't good enough. Having said that, humans are another cargo. It's not that hard to go the extra step.
I'm looking at the hatch on the Dragon engineering model
That can't be the final design?
I hereby predict that Ares I will never launch an Orion capsule, while Falcon 9 will launch a capsule.