Second SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Now Being Assembled

Posted by timothy on Friday July 16, 2010 @11:59PM from the sweet-musk-of-success dept.

FleaPlus writes "Six weeks after the first launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, the first stage of the second rocket has finished production/testing, and has arrived at Cape Canaveral for a launch as early as September, depending on the pace of a methodical review of the Dragon capsule systems and minor rocket modifications/fixes being made based on data from the inaugural launch. The rocket will launch the first operational unmanned Dragon cargo/crew spacecraft into orbit, where it will perform tests and then reenter off the California coast. CEO/CTO Elon Musk made the intriguing remark that Dragon's heat shield is strong enough to enable a return not only from Earth orbit, but also lunar orbit or Mars velocities as well."

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Re:Sweet by DerekLyons · 2010-07-17 02:36 · Score: 1, Troll

Many people have raised the non-issue of lack of bureaucracy somehow making their efforts less safe.
Given the trends so far (though granting that even by the abysmal standards of rocket science there is only a small sample) - I wouldn't exactly be praising SpaceX as paragons of safety just yet.

I think that SpaceX are really in business of making affordable LEO deliveries.
And Pets.com was really in the business of selling fifty pound bag of dog food over the internet back before they collapsed as part of the dot bomb. "Really being in the business" of something doesn't equate to being successful at that business. Right now SpaceX is burning through venture capital and government contract money - they're a long, long, way from being profitable.