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SpaceX announces new Falcon 1 launch date
mj_1903 writes "In an extremely frank and open post, SpaceX has announced that the maiden flight of their totally private spacecraft will be held no earlier than the 20th of December. They also outline the mistakes that kept them on the ground including leaving a small valve open that allowed precious liquid oxygen to boil off and the difficulties in getting oxidiser to a remote site. More coverage at Spaceflight Now."
...is that they probably don't have the enormous amounts of red tape that NASA projects have to wade through. It's incredible how delayed and expensive NASA's projects get because they spend so much time trying to achieve perfect safety these days. Looking our for your astronauts is laudable, but they're just going too far lately. This last manned shuttle flight... what was it, like two years extra they spent trying to avoid another foam problem... and they had one anyway? Of course, NASA is dealing with millions of funding people (you and I, taxpayers) keeping tabs on them via the news outlets, so maybe the private endevours would fall under the same kind of scrutiny if they ever became super popular.