Slashdot Mirror
On Fourth Launch Attempt, SpaceX Falcon 1 Reaches Orbit
xp65 writes with the just-announced success of Elon Musk's SpaceX's long efforts to reach orbit with a privately-developed launching craft: "T+0:08:21 Falcon 1 reached orbital velocity, 5200 m/s Nominal Second stage cut off (SECO) — Falcon 1 has made history as the first privately developed liquid fueled launch vehicle to achieve earth orbit!"
dbullard adds "This was a completely new vehicle — it's not using any previously developed hardware. All developed from scratch. No government supplied hardware, Russian engines, or old ICBM motors. My hat's off to the employees of Space X — all 550 of them. (Note — no 'cast of thousands,' just 550).
They've got video of the entire launch."
I've been waiting for their success for the past 5 years or so, and I'm absolutely ecstatic.
They have a couple more Falcon 1 flights scheduled for this year, with their first Falcon 9 flight next year. The Falcon 9 is considerably larger, and is the vehicle SpaceX plans to use for delivering cargo and crew to the International Space Station.
I imagine that there's been a number of announcements waiting in the wings for SpaceX's first successful flight. Perhaps we'll be hearing soon about a more formal arrangement between SpaceX and Bigelow Aerospace with their private space station plans?
I had no luck finding exact numbers, but Musk was worth about $200million when he started this, but there have been some launches paid for by Uncle Sam, so the exact funding gets murky. The test launches cost between $7 to $12 million. I'd think it would be quite safe to say the total budget so far has been under $500 million, that would be Elon Musk's total fortune, plus matching funds from the government, plus considerable outside donations. $500 million is 1/32nd NASA's annual budget for comparison.
We are all just people.
Especially when they've purchased a large quantity of the required technology from Russia.
Why am I being so rough? Slashdotters seem more than willing to jump on Elon Musk's "entrepreneurial" cock but at the same time make racist statements when the Chinese government achieves a far more significant space milestone. Don't expect everyone to fall at the feet of this guy simply because he fits in with your ideological predispositions; he is quite far behind.
Vulgarity aside, you miss the point entirely. True, the Chinese have accomplished quite a bit. But they've had thousands of people working on it and spent hundreds of billions of yuan on it. Musk has only a few hundred and hasn't even spent a billion dollars. His project has accomplished a first for humanity -- a privately-financed launch platform. Praising him does not diminish the Chinese accomplishment, but Musk deserves credit for seeing this through to success. His objective was not to duplicate government launch abilities, it was to change the economics of launching. If his success continues, SpaceX -- and others like it -- will change all of humanity by vastly lowering the cost of getting into orbit.
If anything, you could apply your argument to the diminution of the Chinese. They've accomplished nothing that Apollo and Soyuz didn't already do forty years ago. Using your measuring stick, they have a tremendous amount of catching up to do. I don't subscribe to your measuring stick, mind you, but I thought you might easier see your argument's fallacies from a different perspective.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Not only that, but women are better psychologically suited to endurance missions: we're biased toward consensus, flexibility and efficient group dynamics, where men are biased toward rigid hierarchies and a "winner-take-all" mentality at the expense of the group. There were even a set of studies done by the US Navy (can't remember the citation off the top of my head) that recommended that all SSBNs be crewed by female sailors for just that reason - given the tours assigned to ballistic missile submarines, in which sailors must spend several months submerged and completely cut off from the surface world, all-female crews were thought to be less prone to psychological "breakage" under those conditions.
First rule of trauma: Bleeding always stops.
That's vaguely funny, but completely wrong. The fat being transformed back to energy is quite inefficient: it's far more effective to send up the fat as food, and not pay the water and oxygen and space costs of storing it as live fat in the body, especially because it will change the size of their space suits. Also, a lot of midgets have a lot of other medical issues, and limited body strength. Sending up all that spare organ space just to get a really short pair of arms up there seems pretty inefficient.
Now, people with their legs chopped off might be more effective. I bet there are quite a few military veterans right now who'd be happy for the ride, and have a lot of upper body strength to bring to their efforts.
$7.9M for 420 kg
I reckon thats enough mass for a partly reusable single person capsule. Add two million for the capsule and operational support and you are still at half the price of a trip to the ISS with the Russians.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
He sure seems to have a streak for investing in 'nice' companies as well as being successful.
I'm very happy to see him succeed.
MP3 Search Engine
we're biased toward consensus, flexibility and efficient group dynamics
A couple of quotes by women, about women:
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
I would say that it is in just about EVERYbodies interest to see him succeed. Solar City is singlehandly lowering the costs of solar PV installs. Likewise, Tesla motors has renewed the interest in Electric cars AND serial hybrids. In fact, GM says that if not for Elon and Tesla, they NEVER would have done the volt. Of course, they still might not. :) . Unlike Bill Gates, this man is creating all new industries. Even now, Spacex will make bigelow possible. The two should lead to other rockets being finished, for example, Scaled Composites SSIII. That is suppose to be LEO for ppl. But the ONLY way that will be of use is if there is a destination. If simply a rocket ride, then SSII is far far cheaper. Bigelow is the destination. But Bigelow would not happen WITHOUT spacex (or some form of cheap LV).
And WRT Spacex, Musk is changing the game. Many ppl on this site certainly hate him. Surest way to tell if somebody works at lmart, raytheon, Boeing, etc is to find a rocket science guy and ask what they think of spacex. If they work at one of the standard companies, they will RIP spacex. If not, the love them (conditionally). And if person is not rocket science, then they just seem to love them unconditionally
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Aha! It was all Janet Reno's fault! I knew it! And those endless generic subdivisions in Phoenix and Las Vegas were meant for black people.
Seriously though, that is a very selective and limited analysis. There was more than enough encouragement from the deregulation happy Republicans. And adjustable rate mortgages pushed by a Fed subservient to a spend-your-way-to-success *Republican* White House are what has brought millions of Americans to brink of foreclosure and thus screwed Wall Street.
And lets not forget the role of the absurdly low capital gains tax rate in encouraging risky behaviour and an 'asset bubble' in the financial industry.
But I know, blaming minorities has always been a fun and profitable strategy for right wingers.