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At 10:56 p.m. EDT Armstrong is ready to plant the first human foot on another world. With more than half a billion people watching on television, he climbs down the ladder and proclaims: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

'One Small Step for Man': Was Neil Armstrong Misquoted?

...you mean that we likely already have one.

http://www.space.com/30245-x37b-military-space-plane-100-days.html

Thank you for a very informing post. As the OP for this thread, I do think there is more to the discussion that we usually see. I've actually bookmarked your comment here, so I can read those reports you mention, as far as I can. I'm not a scientist, I'm a computer tech, so I'm sure much will be beyond me.

My contention with the demotion of Pluto isn't that a group of scientists have (again) changed a long standing definition, and I simply don't like change. My issue was how the vote was done. A group with an agenda stayed at a IAU convention as everyone else was leaving on the last day. They called a vote when they were the only large block present, and voted their opinion into existence despite what the other IAU members may have wanted. In essence, 424 members disenfranchised 10,000 members.

http://www.space.com/2791-plut...
http://www.space.com/2862-inte...

If the issue had been hashed out with the full membership, and then a vote was cast, I could accept it. Even if it only passed by 1 vote, I could accept it. But to have such a small group with an agenda make such an important decision is ridiculous. Quite honestly, the issue should not have been brought to a vote at all with such a small number present. Imagine if the US Congress was able to pass laws that way; whoever held the seat of power would call midnight votes when only their five closest allies were awake. Even if it was a law I agreed with, I wouldn't want it passed that way.

Thank you for a very informing post. As the OP for this thread, I do think there is more to the discussion that we usually see. I've actually bookmarked your comment here, so I can read those reports you mention, as far as I can. I'm not a scientist, I'm a computer tech, so I'm sure much will be beyond me.

My contention with the demotion of Pluto isn't that a group of scientists have (again) changed a long standing definition, and I simply don't like change. My issue was how the vote was done. A group with an agenda stayed at a IAU convention as everyone else was leaving on the last day. They called a vote when they were the only large block present, and voted their opinion into existence despite what the other IAU members may have wanted. In essence, 424 members disenfranchised 10,000 members.

http://www.space.com/2791-plut...
http://www.space.com/2862-inte...

If the issue had been hashed out with the full membership, and then a vote was cast, I could accept it. Even if it only passed by 1 vote, I could accept it. But to have such a small group with an agenda make such an important decision is ridiculous. Quite honestly, the issue should not have been brought to a vote at all with such a small number present. Imagine if the US Congress was able to pass laws that way; whoever held the seat of power would call midnight votes when only their five closest allies were awake. Even if it was a law I agreed with, I wouldn't want it passed that way.

Why not use it until it's completely broken?

This[1] article says almost $100 million per year for the Hubble. So they'll have to compare how much science they could get per year for $100 million if they spent it on other projects.

But as long as it's fairly functional I imagine they'll keep it up there.

[1]: http://www.space.com/20799-hubble-space-telescope-23-years.html/

Wrong. http://www.space.com/26551-us-military-launches-russian-rocket-engines.html

Provided that if the Sun were to become a black hole, its diameter would only be 6 km ... (ie 200,000 times less), the thing that gives a current-Sun size black hole is gigantic! (one two).

Are the waves smaller than expect, thus harder to detect?

Indeed. They're very small. We're talking about a shift in space the size of a very small fraction of a proton. So yes, with the current detectors they're pretty hard to detect.

Can you post some links to some scientific papers about the actual Earth itself flipping around? Not the magnetic poles, but the entire planet itself? There's a huge difference between a pole flip and a physical flip...I did some searches, all I can find is about the magnetic poles and some Bible quotes. I'm assuming you didn't actually read the links I provided that say "The Moon keeps the Earth from wobbling violently as it spins", The moon's gravitational pull may have been key to making Earth a livable planet by moderating the degree of wobble in Earth's axial tilt", and so forth.

When I said unstable, I meant unstable as in the way of massive climate shifting as the Earth turns on it's side, ice caps melt, flood, refreeze, on vastly compressed timescales. Or rather, that's what all the research points to. The article about frictional forces has some actual numbers about the cooling that would have happened with the moon; you should read the links instead of just dismissing the science.

Scientists who have attempted to quantify the human contribution to the current temperature rise have found that anthropogenic sources account for between 80% and 150%. See Tett et al. 2000, Meehl et al. 2004, Stone et al. 2007, Lean and Rind 2008, Huber and Knutti 2011, Gillett et al. 2012, Wigley and Santer 2012 , and Jones et al. 2013. It may be unintuitive to think that humans may have cause more than 100% of the current warming, but remember that natural factors have generally been forcing planet towards another glacial period. We've just had the weakest solar cycle in over 100 years. If solar variability is a strong contributor to global mean temperature then other forces have not only caused all of the warming that we have recently observed, but also caused enough additional warming to offset the cooling caused by the sun.

People may well do a lot of things and so what? It wasn't that long ago we didn't have airlines ffs.

Unless you are more than 100 years old, you have never lived during a time when there were no commercial airlines.

http://www.space.com/16657-wor...

SpaceX has repeatedly had delays also and pretty much nothing they do is on time to the point where people jokingly refer to "ElonTime." The Falcon Heavy for example was supposed to originally fly in 2012 and it still hasn't flown yet. So it isn't clear that Dragon will be ready when they say it is either. There was a flag left at the ISS to be taken back by the next American manned spacecraft to go to the station. http://www.space.com/12335-shuttle-astronauts-flag-model-space-station-tribute.html The race in the 1960s was to plant a flag and that race was between two countries. Now the race is to retrieve a flag and it is between two corporations.

The idea that I had read before was that the new universe is inside the black hole. Not sure if that is consistent with these ideas from Lee Smolin:

The idea is that the universe evolved in a way which is very analogous to natural selection in a population, say, of bacteria. To do this the universe needs to reproduce itself, and I took over an older idea by John Wheeler and Bryce DeWitt, who were pioneers of quantum gravity. Their idea was that black holes become the seeds of the birth of new universes. [5 Reasons We May Live in a Multiverse]

John Wheeler had already speculated that when this happens, the laws of nature are reborn again, in the new baby universe; he called it reprocessing the universe. What I had to add to this to make it work like a model of natural selection, was that the changes passed form parent to child universe are very slight so there can be an accumulation of fitness. This hypothesis leads to the conclusion that assuming our universe is a typical member of this population of universes as it develops after many, many generations, that the universe is going to be finely tuned to produce many black holes. That leads to the next hypotheses that if you change the laws, and the numbers that specify the laws, then typically you're going to make a universe that makes less black holes, and that's something that leads to predictions that can be tested.

That's the theory that I call cosmological natural selection.

Four out of 18k NASA employees disagree with, well, everyone else in the world. NASA's official statement on the matter is highly skeptical. The Eagleworks paper has yet to make it through peer review, and it's highly improbable that it will do so. There is no evidence to date that either Einstein or Maxwell were wrong. Until there is extremely strong empirical evidence that suggests otherwise, there is no more reason to believe that photons have a rest mass, and to do so is not scientific. Anyone may theorize anything, and with sufficient logical or mathematical twisting that theory may approximate reality. That is why science is empirical: observational evidence is assumed to be true, to the limits of observational error. The problem is that right now, the experiments for this Emdrive either suffer from severe methodological error, results within the margin of error, or both. Until they and/or Stueckelberg come up with some pretty hard evidence, and preferably an explanation of why every other experiment has failed to detect photon masses, and preferably a theory which correctly predicts that photons should have mass (that doesn't violate other known physical laws wholesale), it cannot be considered to be factual.

I am a skeptical empiricist. I have read all the available papers on the subject, and various interviews with various authors. It would be nice if this phenomenon were real. I'm not a logical positivist, so I'm not going to say that a lack of evidence makes it untrue, but frankly, there is more evidence for FTL travel than for this device, and I am pretty sure that I will see that definitively proved impossible in my lifetime.

This will cheeryou up if you didn't know it already
http://www.space.com/28445-spa...

"is currently" is the correct phrase. Kepler is in an Earth-trailing orbit with a 371 day period. So it is constantly moving further from the Earth (at least until it reaches opposition, after which it'll start to get closer). The orbit reduces interference from the Earth (RF, thermal, and gravitational) while requiring less energy than reaching the L2, L4, or L5 Lagrange points.

I heard Buzz Aldrin (one of the few people to have walked on the moon) on DC news radio the other day talking about moon monoliths. I thought he was talking about Earth's moon, but some googling shows he's talking about a monolith on one of Mars' moons, if that's what he was referring to. He explicitly talked about off-world life forms - aliens - as well.

So that's interesting - Hillary talking about extraterrestrial life, as well as Aldrin talking about it, around the same time.

I do think there's extraterrestrial life (Stephen Hawking has said trying to contact extraterrestrial life is a bad idea), but conventional wisdom says it's impossible for it to have found us, as our understanding of physics and engineering says it would not be possible to traverse interstellar and intergalactic distances in reasonable timeframes.

Five dimensional black hole maybe?

http://www.space.com/32008-fiv...

it is a big world ya know

spreading more ignorance

Constellations have nothing to do with astrology.

Space.com disagrees with you.

Astrologers use 12 of these constellations as signs of the Zodiac, omitting Ophiuchus, to make predictions. [Unlike astronomy, astrology is not a science.] Signs differ from constellations, bearing only a loose reference to one another. The sign of Pisces, for instance, corresponds to the rise of the constellation of Aquarius. Ironically, if you are born under a particular sign, that constellation it is named for is not visible at night. Instead, the sun is passing through it around that time of year, making it a daytime constellation that can't be seen.

http://www.space.com/15722-constellations.html

http://www.space.com/26713-imp...

NASA themselves has tested it and said that, impossible as it is, this type of rocket engine works

Reference and another

Take the right grass and/or companion microbes to break down cellulose into something we can digest and you can even eat the grass while waiting for your more nutritious crops to grow

Not on Mars you can't. Martian soil is highly toxic and will have to be processed and separated before use as farmland.

Exactly! Our microbiomes are the new frontier of health for all sorts of things, obesity being number one for the general western population.

It's only a matter of time, and IP law, that engineered bacteria will be sold as designer probiotics to counter all sorts of maladies. Could we easily create a grassroots organization to distribute colon flora? Sure! But the fat, sterile westerners will say "Ew, gross!", but happily pay for Monsanto Microbiome Enhancement Plus for a premium. (it's a fictional drug to counter the bacterial imbalance created by eating processed, industrialized food.)

Just as the finding of lead in our environment is bad for humans, perhaps so will antibiotics from medicines to soaps, along with polymers such as BPA (commonly found in most thermal paper receipts that people handle on a daily basis), be found to cause harm to our microbiome.

If you count cells in the human body, there are more bacterial cells than human cells; of course the human cells are much larger, but human individuals are complex organisms living with lots of other living "things".

I thought it was generally accepted that painting an asteroid would be a good way to deflect it to a safe distance. It makes a whole lot more sense than using a nuclear weapon.

Are you sure? Here's one mentioning the plan to look through an eyepiece at a Magellan but not the giant honking thing they're making now:
http://www.space.com/31079-gia...

I was under the understanding that even the large ones had had an eyepiece attachment. I'll take your word for it (I just pulled that one up from Google) as I am not an astronomer. I just worry that you might not actually know about them and that they actually *do* have 'em. Buggered if I know but I've heard them mentioned in numerous documentaries and recordings of opening ceremonies. (Pretty much the only things I watch are educational in nature, usually documentaries and the things those may lead to by suggested videos.)

it'd be a waste of time, the best ground based telescopes (read: largest) can still only obtain a resolution down to 500m. You're not spotting the landing stage of A11, but under certain conditions (local sunset) you can make out the long shadow it throws. here is a shot from the Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter from an altitude of 15 miles of the A11 site. Note the lack of shadow from the flag - it was blown over by the exhaust from the ascent stage.

For those who don't want to visit Forbes, a site with a history of malware in their ads but insists that visitors disable ad blockers (and script blockers like Noscript)...

Here are a few links with more information than you'll get from Ethan's article, plus they don't require disabling ad blockers:
http://www.space.com/31079-giant-magellan-telescope-groundbreaking-travelogue.html
http://gizmodo.com/the-giant-magellan-telescopes-fourth-mirror-melting-is-1736954773
http://www.gmto.org/resources/

The technology is pretty damn cool, especially the adaptive optics to deal with atmospheric turbulence. It's worth a read, especially when you don't have to try to visit Forbes.

I really wish the Slashdot editors would stop letting this crap through. But because they do, it's a good service to everyone if users can provide alternate links that are better. In this case, there's a hell of a lot of good information on the actual GMTO site.

Like I said, NASA says you're wrong - and they're the ones doing the actual research on survival on Mars. Get over it.

Apparently, you can't even be bothered to read your own sources: "But now that we know it's there, I am confident we will be able to design around it," he said. "I have a lot of co-workers here at Johnson Space Center who work in the human exploration side of things, and none of them seem to think perchlorate is a showstopper.

Mining asteroids only sounds great in theory - until you get down to the cost/benefit equation, or if you never intend to earth. Ever. Get over that too while you're at it.

NASA and private investors disagree with your Luddite beliefs, both spending a lot of money on making asteroid mining happen. I would point you at pages for the relevant projects, but that is pointless, since you are obviously incapable of comprehending anything longer than a headline.

People from NASA in this interview disagree about the risks. So does NOAA, and if you look further, so does the DOT. It's not benign.

A mission consisting of a 180-day cruise to Mars, a 500-day stay on the Red Planet and a 180-day return flight to Earth would expose astronauts to a cumulative radiation dose of about 1.01 sieverts, measurements by Curiosity's Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) instrument indicate. To put that in perspective: The European Space Agency generally limits its astronauts to a total career radiation dose of 1 sievert, which is associated with a 5-percent increase in lifetime fatal cancer risk

That's with little shielding on Mars. A permanent colony could get equivalent shielding to that on earth by being under about 10-20 ft of water or rock. If you send older astronauts, radiation becomes even less of an issue.

It seems the radiation might be managable: "Astronauts could endure a long-term, roundtrip Mars mission without receiving a worryingly high radiation dose.... A mission consisting of a 180-day outbound cruise, a 600-day stay on Mars and another 180-day flight back to Earth would expose an astronaut to a total radiation dose of about 1.1 sieverts (units of radiation) - See more at: http://www.space.com/18753-mar..."

Re 'we just afford to can't replace them"
"GPS upgrade set to launch on replacement mission" (February 20, 2014)
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...
""We have a lot of satellites that are well past their design life,""
" "We're trying to prevent any sort of outage and (have) some backup capability on orbit.""
""We've really gotten remarkable performance out of them, but they are aging, and there are some components that simply wear out," s"
"US Air Force Launches New GPS Satellite" (February 21, 2014)
http://www.space.com/24767-gps...
"In this particular case, the satellite we are replacing is over 16 years old and its design life was 7.5 years."

Mostly true, but every kg that is needed to land, needs about many times as much for it to get lifted off in the first place. This is why it gets increasingly difficult to do the same for the second and third stage. (And a 'completely reusable rocket' is what Musk said he wants).

This is not about the cost of the fuel, which is only a minor part of the costs, but, as you correctly point out, a loss of capacity for the maximum payload. To propel 1 pound of mass would require 9.39 pounds of propellant. This means, that if you need 35000 kg extra to land the thing (which is what SpaceX needs), you'll need 9 TIMES as much to get it up. That's why, if one didn't realise this, that SpaceX never lands the first stage when it has to deliver a heavy geostationary satellite in orbit: it's because they need all the fuel to get their payload up there. Ergo, the fuel they spend on it, needs more fuel to lift it, and that inveriably reduces the amount of weight of the payload they can send up. There is no way around this.

And that is only for the first stage. The second stage - and if they want to be 'like airplanes', you'll need to recuperate all stages - is going to be much, much more difficult to recuperate. But worse, this, in turn, will need, again, extra fuel, to transport the fuel tht will be needed to land it. WORSE STILL: since now the second stage is much heavier, that weight will need to be lifted by the first stage too, so that will need even MORE fuel, which in turn will need 9 times more fuel to lift this up too. Then we come to the third stage. Rince, repeat. It needs extra fuel to land, thus it gains weight, thus the second stage needs ectra fuel, plus it needs extra fuel to lift that extra fuel, plus the third stage who has to lift all the other stages up needs extra fuel to do so, and it needs extra fuel to lift that extra fuel.

Ergo: it gets exponentially more difficult to launch a rocket where all stages are recuperated. Or let me refrase that: it becomes exponentially more difficult for it to be economically viable, compared to a system where you'll only need a fraction of the mass to put the same payload into orbit.

That is why, as I said in another post, there is definitely an economic point to be made to use other systems, like that of Adeline. ( http://www.space.com/29620-air... )

Of course, that doesn't mean that 10 years from now, one already has far better systems to land the whole stages. It just means the current system (using engines/fuel) isn't probably going to cut it in the long run compared to systems that don't use this approach, economically speaking.

I said this before with the SpaceX story not long ago (and got some pretty nasty responses by fanboys), but the question remains whether IN THE SHORT RUN and *only comparing the current whole-1ste-booster stage return versus partial systems* like Adeline ( http://www.space.com/29620-air... ) or that of the ULA don't make more *economic* sense.

Do note the domain where I'm talking about (capital letters/ asterix). I'm NOT comparing a "rocket that is like an airplane" (costwise) with a one-time usable rocket.

Now, I'm looking pretty favourable at newcomers like SpaceX and Blue Origins, and I think it's great what those companies do, and their CEO's are visionaries imho. But still, that doesn't mean one should be blind to other things. One can say it's because the others are 'getting behind' and try to dish a potential threat, but I think it's more than that. I might be they have a point, especially for rockets that have to get into an orbit. It's exponentially difficult to get the second and third stage to be 'recoverable' as well, and, certainly with the current system of using the engines (and thus fuel), it doesn't seem viable in an economic sense, compared to Adeline-esque systems.

NOT because of the cost of the fuel, as so many think I'm arguing (but which is a relative minor cost), but because it reduces the maximum payload. It's all there in the link, so please read *before* giving ignorant replies, thank you.

A nuke would not be very destructive at all, our sun is 1,300,000 times larger than the earth (so about 11911 times the surface area) a dyson sphere is larger than the star. When they say we have enough nukes to destroy the earth many times over they don't mean blow it into tiny pieces just destroy all life on earth.

Also a structure that size would have to withstand large astronomical objects hitting it from time to time.
if a large 16km asteroid it the earth it would be equivalent to a 200 Million megaton impact(http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q975.html) the biggest nuke ever made is only 50 megatons, that is 4 million times more. Even a 75 meter asteroid has a 100 Megaton impact. Basically if we could send a nuke that far into space the kinetic energy would probably be more than the explosion. And an object that size would be already dealing with things much bigger than a nuke on a regular basis.

also from here http://www.space.com/51-astero... asteroids can reach up to 940 km across, not 16km.

It looks like the most economical way to do that would be to use materials from the moon.

Did anyone read this article?. "Geoff Marcy, a leader in the field of exoplanet research, has resigned from his position as a professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, following an investigation that found he violated the school's sexual harassment policies."

Or how about this one? "Results from a recent AAS survey were reported at the last week's plenary session on harassment, defined as unwelcome conduct that is based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetic information. Some 82% of astronomers have heard sexist remarks from their peers; 44% heard sexist remarks from supervisors; 9% experienced physical harassment from peers or supervisors."

Those articles do not read like SJWs and the do seem to indicate some sort of a problem.

That is assuming none of the recent breakthroughs in technology actually work. EM Drive, for instance. There are also flaws in the article. Conventional fission is 1% fuel efficient, but a breeder reactor with reprocessing is 99.5% fuel efficient. A fusion reactor like the one the Skunkworks is working on is also a possibility (because it would be small enough for a spaceship). There are already fusion and fission fast mars concepts as well that should work fine for interstellar travel.

That doesn't even touch on theoretical stuff like the Alcubierre drive, and wiki doesn't even have some of the workarounds to certain problems such as using metamaterials to divert Hawking radiation. There still are some other serious problems that need to be addressed with that one.

That is assuming none of the recent breakthroughs in technology actually work. EM Drive, for instance. There are also flaws in the article. Conventional fission is 1% fuel efficient, but a breeder reactor with reprocessing is 99.5% fuel efficient. A fusion reactor like the one the Skunkworks is working on is also a possibility (because it would be small enough for a spaceship). There are already fusion and fission fast mars concepts as well that should work fine for interstellar travel.

That doesn't even touch on theoretical stuff like the Alcubierre drive, and wiki doesn't even have some of the workarounds to certain problems such as using metamaterials to divert Hawking radiation. There still are some other serious problems that need to be addressed with that one.

Actually SpaceX's Grasshopper accomplished what Blue Origin only just did back in 2013. Try again.

There's no way to keep a person healthy after a voyage that long

Why don't you tone down your negativity a bit. There are plenty of valid reasons, you don't have to invent easily refutable ones.
Round trip time is estimated to 400 - 450 days.
That means that a one way trip is about 200 days.

Space station crews, also known as Expeditions, typically stay in space for about 5-1/2 months.

Living aboard Mir from January 1994 until March 1995, Polyakov set a record that still stands today for the single longest space mission: 438 days.

So clearly it is not out of the question to keep a crew healthy in space for 200 days.
The Mars probes took measurements while going there and it was concluded that the radiation during the trip also won't cause any health issues.

I would also add "Dark Matter" and "Dark Energy" are the aether of the 21st century.

Dark matter is a highly scientific and technical term that means "We don't know"

Seriously.

Why is nonsense like this modded insightful?

If we "don't know", then dark matter and the theories around it would make no useful predictions. But seeing how they do make predictions, are backed by observations, and have so far held up to scrutiny then your claim of "fancy term for we don't know" doesn't hold a lot of water.

How about you toddle off to your local college/university and dig up a few research articles on the subject. There is a whole lot more to dark matter than what you've been exposed to on Slashdot.

While I respect your right to reject it, There are many things that we do not know for certain. And whether you like ot or not, The real physicists will tell you exctly what I wrote.

http://physicsandphysicists.bl...

Here http://science.howstuffworks.c...

Here http://www.space.com/20930-dar...

and a slew of other places.

Because the only way you can call it nonsense with any degree of veracity is to in the following sentence explain exactly what dark matter is.

"Dark Matter" is merely a couple words that are used to describe the effects of something that is having an action that is observable, but not explicitly known as to exactly what it is.

Is it neutrinos? Maybe. Is it some other particle as yet unknown? Possible. Is it cosmic silly string? Not likely, but possibly.

What we do know is that there is something going on that is difficult to explain using current cosmology. Since we do not know what that is, but do know that something is going on, we come up with a term.

And "dark matter" is that term.

Hmm... What sensing equipment does New Horizons have on it that can perform tests to find dark matter filaments? I guess they could go old-school and do the camera thing?

Anyhow, assuming you're serious:
http://www.space.com/16412-dar...
http://www.americaspace.com/?p...

Did you RTFA? I'm not normally one to defend /. editors with their crappy proofing and duplicates, but in this case the click bait comes from outside /.

The original article and a few others:

• Diamond Nanothreads Could Support Space Elevator [2015-11-23]
• Diamond nanothread rivals graphene as the next big wonder material Now scientists want to build a space elevator out of it. [2015-11-27]
• We may soon be riding up to space in style in elevators made of diamonds [2015-11-23]
• Our Future Space Elevator May Be Built of Diamond [2015-11-21]
• Diamond Nanothreads Could Support Space Elevator [2015-11-19]
• Scientists Say We Could Build a Space Elevator Using Microscopic Diamond Chains [2015-11-19]

There is no gravity in orbit, nub.

Wow, you really don't have a clue!

Yes, there is gravity in orbit

I don't understand what you mean. The Falcon 1 did have a useful first stage.

There's no inherent size limit to what can be orbital and what can't. The Falcon 9 can put up a pretty hefty payload to orbit. The New Shepherd isn't nearly as powerful, but if the capsule was replaced with a small second stage and a smaller payload, there's likely a configuration available that could get something orbital.

Consider the cubesat launch platform that's basically just a big-ass missile hanging off a fighter jet. The New Shepherd could certainly lift that missile as an orbital second stage, if it replaced the passenger capsule. Possibly even something much bigger.

So, from that standpoint, the difference between New Shepherd and Falcon 9 is one of scale (which still make things very, very different) but it isn't pure orbital vs. suborbital. It's big suborbital booster versus small suborbital booster.

the atmosphere really is .... too thick to light a retro rocket at high speed.

SpaceX claims that their SuperDraco thrusters are capable of igniting during Mars EDL, at supersonic speeds. Of course, we won't know for sure until they actually do it, but given their accomplishments to date, I see no reason to doubt them.

So far they haven't managed to come in and land successfully on Earth, much less Mars, which is going to be much harder. http://www.space.com/29119-spa...

However... the really impressive thing about SpaceX is that when they fail, they try again.

In early 2008 Barack Obama campaigned publicly for the support of educators by pointing to his plan for education which on page 15 explicitly said:

"The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years"

Everybody with a brain knew that would end Constellation and all the people transitioning from Shuttle to Constellation would lose their jobs (given that none of the vendors would be able to keep employing those people for 5 years with no cash flowing in from the customer (NASA).

Democrats in the "swing state" of Florida were panicky over this, and aware that space advocates might know about it since the long-standing Obama plan had been reported in space advocate circles as early as fall of 2007, so they setup a big space event for Obama in Florida to fool the space workers. In August 2008, assisted by his go-to guys for fooling space advocates (Senators Glenn and Nelson) Obama went to Titusville and said this:

"Today we have an administration[Bush43] that sets ambitious goals for NASA without giving NASA the support it needs to reach them. As a result, NASA's had to cut back on research, trim their program, which means that after the space shuttle shuts down in 2010, we're going to have to rely on Russian space craft to keep us into orbit. So let me be clear: we cannot cede our leadership in space. That's why I'm going to close the gap, ensure that our space program doesn't suffer when the shuttle goes out of service. We may extend an additional shuttle launch. We're going to work with [Senator]Bill Nelson[D-FL] to add at least one flight after 2010 by continuing to support NASA funding, by speeding the development of the shuttle's successor, by making sure that all those who work in the space industry in Florida do not lose their jobs when the shuttle is retired because we cant afford to lose their expertise." - Barack Obama

President Obama won Florida in 2008 by only a 2.8% margin. Space workers are obviously not enough to make up that entire margin, but they were PART of that margin, which is what "community organizing" aided by "micro targeting" is all about - rounding up lots of special interest groups and pushing the right emotional/political "buttons" to get each group to turn-out and vote even if some groups are turning out having been told this will support interest X and others are turning out having been told it will oppose interest X. Some Obama supporters now try to pretend that Obama meant something other than Constellation as the successor to Shuttle, but at this time in history, none other was proposed by any candidate or policy so Space Workers were clearly supposed to assume Constellation, particularly given the line about preserving ALL their jobs.

By 2012 when Newt Gingrich was talking about a moon colony, even 60 minutes, hardly a right-wing news outlet, had to admit to the dishonesty of the 2008 campaign visit to Florida.

It's a sad truth that many of the space advocacy groups are far more into partisan politics and helping politicians fool their members that they are into actual space policy; Space policy pays nothing, but you can make a good living consulting for and organizing groups of supporters for, national political campaigns. AFAIK none of the people who setup that 2008 event in Florida have ever apologized to any of the thousands of Space Coast workers who were fooled into voting for Obama and then lost their jobs (and in many cases l

US aerospace is notorious for using regulation and bureaucracy to obstruct space activities. I have heard, for example, that one of the last Atlas II (operated by Lockheed Martin (LM)) launches in 2004 had been delayed for a few days by a bogus concern about battery issues. Apparently, the same company then proceeded to interfere with two Atlas III launches by expressing recycled concerns about the RD-180 rocket engines used on that rocket.

SpaceX has also had some of their earliest launches delayed due to games played by LM (story discusses a SpaceX Vandenberg launch first getting delayed in turn by a delay in a Titan IV launch operated by LM and then being kicked out of their launch facilities because LM was occupying a nearby launch facility).