Paypal Founder's Merlin Rocket Engine Fires Up

Baldrson writes "Wired News reports that after 2 years of development, Space Exploration Technology Corp ('SpaceEx') successfully test-fired their new LOX/Kerosene Merlin rocket engine for the 160 seconds required for orbit. SpaceEx was founded by Elon Musk from the proceeds of the 2002 sale of his prior start-up, Paypal, to Ebay. According to Musk, 5 Merlins bundled with the first stage of SpaceEx's powerful Falcon V booster will launch 5 people to orbit by 2010, thereby winning America's Space Prize which was endowed by Robert Bigelow."

Comments

and hey, if it doesn't work...

[zonker]

he can just sell the thing on ebay...

Re:Big rockets?

[Tackhead]

> I'm surprised that with a $1.5 billion budget they couldn't find a better way to get people into space. Rockets don't seem like the "affordable" answer to me. Maybe a space elevator, or maybe some new technology that nobody's invented yet. ...but big rockets? They seem so dated...

Rockets are cheap.

Space elevator? Start thinking about building a space elevator when someone has built a carbon nanotube footbridge.

Something not yet invented? The probability of discovering a new physics is not directly proportional to the number of dollars spent.

So - we're back to rockets. Which are cheap.

NASA's rockets are expensive, because NASA doesn't care where the money comes from. (And NASA's funders in Congress don't care whether NASA's rockets even fly, so long as every district gets its piece of the pork pie.)

If you're Boeing or Lockmart, that's fine -- shuttling rich tourists to orbit and back will barely net you pocket change. So you build big expensive vehicles and you sell 'em to people who don't give a rat's ass about the cost of their ride, because they're using other people's money.

Thanks to Rutan, Bezos, and Musk, there's the possibility of a new market niche for those of us who prefer to use our own money.