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SpaceX's Fourth Launch Attempt RSN
jcgam69 writes "SpaceX's Falcon 1 is on the pad in the South Pacific Kwajalein Atoll ready for its fourth launch attempt, according to a blog post over the weekend from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. The countdown is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 23, between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. PDT, though the launch window will extend through Thursday if need be."
I'm all for learning from my mistakes, but how much do these things cost to build and launch? You have to admire the dedication though - sinking that kind of money from your own pocket into something like this takes some guts. If he pulls it off, he might have something.
-=- I tried going insane, and it was fun for a while, but I got bored and decided to go sane. -=-
I couldn't disagree more. I'm interested enough that I might watch it live, but would never hear about it anywhere else. Please post to Slashdot a few hours before they launch!
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
What does that mean? It's not defined in the summary or the article and google returns crap for "define:rsn" and "spacex rsn".
If it's "Real Soon Now" as acronymfinder suggests, then the summary writer and editor both suck.
On the one hand, their whole approach to this endeavor screams failure. They have insisted on relearning the lessons of the past 60 years the hard way. Predictably, they've paid for it. I simply don't think a private corporation can afford the learning curve.
However, I truly hope they pull it off. I fear that failure by SpaceX would dry up entrepreneurial space efforts in a big way.
well, first off, all of NASA's research and technology should be freely available in the public domain. that would make it much easier for commercial space travel to take off. i mean, why are we funding public research if it's not going to be public?
i wonder if the patents NASA is auctioning, or has auctioned, off would make SpaceX's task easier. i mean, i don't care if private corporations start taking over space exploration or if space travel is commercialized. it doesn't even matter if private corporations profit from tax-funded research--so long as _everyone_ has access to that research and is allowed to do the same.
but now it's like if we'd taken all the money used to fund NASA over the past few decades and instead just given it to a handful of private corporations. they alone get to profit from research paid for by the American public and then charge everyone else for access to the technology that our tax dollars already paid for. it's almost like the situation with the telecoms where the infrastructure we paid for is being privately controlled and we're charged extortionate rates to use.
To be fair, this is not their failing. That type of experience simply doesn't exist much any more. This is a fact which has constantly repeated it self over time.
Lacking experience is the constant component which simply disappears. This can be observed in many technical areas.
o Military contractors are constantly relearning lessons well known since WWII and Korea.
o It now takes 20%-40% longer to build aircraft which have changed little since the 60s. This is believed to be directly attributable to both the change in accepted work practises but also the lacking expertise which was commonly available from WWII, Korea, and Vietnam era workers.
o Contrary to popular myth, rocket scientists with actual developmental experience are exceedingly rare. For the most part, all of these guys have retired. Ignoring the current rocket engineering resurgence, for the most part, there hasn't been any new rocket engine engineering taking place since the space shuttle. Don't forget, most of that took place in the 60s. With some simple math, it's easy to figure out most of these guys have moved on, retired, or dead.
To make matters worse, Corporate America no longer values experience. This fact is underlined, bolded, and well documented. The outsourcing of America is in it self validation of this fact. Ignoring outsourcing, and it's still well documented. These days experience is equated to mean, expensive and having no value.