SpaceX's Falcon 9 Successfully Reaches Orbit

terrymaster69 writes "After an aborted launch attempt last week, SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon9 rocket Tuesday at 3:44 am EST. SpaceX's founder Elon Musk tweeted: 'Falcon flew perfectly!! Dragon in orbit, comm locked and solar arrays active!! Feels like a giant weight just came off my back :)' The Dragon capsule is scheduled to dock with the ISS on May 25th."

Comments

Congratulations

[AikonMGB]

Congratulations, SpaceX; this is a turning point in our space age =)

Re:Congratulations

[localman57]

Congrads indeed... finally we are at the point where NASA was in the 1960's!

And leaps and bounds above where we were yesterday. You fail to factor cost into your evaluation. In the 1960's low earth orbit was about developing the science to make it possible. Today, it's about developing the engineering to make it practical.

Re:Congratulations

[h4rr4r]

NASA launches are already done by Boeing. Why would a different vendor change anything?

This means NASA will get more launches for their budget, if they get anymore cuts they have to have SpaceX just to survive.

Re:Congratulations

[Baloroth]

Am I the only one who doesn't see this as a positive thing? Privatization will only provide an excuse to cut the NASA budget even more. And NASA is already outsourced to the gills as it is. And it could set the stage for the government bailing on space research and exploration altogether (and no private company is going to pick up the slack on projects with no profit behind them).

How is the ability to get to space cheaper and more efficiently a bad thing? For NASA or anyone else. There is zero reason to "slash" NASA's budget because of this: they are already working closely with SpaceX anyways, and will be commissioning them to launch flights. NASA runs the experiments and bigger scientific projects, like Mars rover missions and whatnot. The ability for them to get their projects into space cheaper can only be a good thing.

Really, if the government wanted to bail on space research they already could have. The DoD already has its rockets, the EU and Russia have theirs, really research is the only reason NASA exists anyways and is why they have existed for 20 years or so. This only helps that, by making the cost-to-orbit cheaper.

Re:Congratulations

[caseih]

You're right. A whole bunch of pork-barrel Republicans also see this as negative. I remember the sarcastic comments Republican congressmen made last test flight when they said, "congratulations to Space-X for doing what NASA did 50 years ago." Such ironic comments given Republicans' supposed private enterprise leanings, but easy to understand when you realize that NASA funding traditionally hasn't been about exciting science so much as a means of funneling large amounts of corporate welfare back into the home states of congressmen.

And really if you look back on the last 30 years of the space age, a lot has been accomplished by NASA. But almost all of the exciting science did not involve NASA's crown jewel space flight vehicles such as the Shuttle or Saturn 5 at all, but rather remote probes to the outer solar system, Mercury, Mars, Venus, and of course Earth, almost all launched on privately-made (though some designed with NASA's help) rockets like the Atlas, Delta, and so forth. Hubble is the one example I can I think of a scientific triumph that involved the Space Shuttle. Though with the money spent on the shuttle flights to fix and upgrade Hubble, I think they could have built and launched a couple of hubbles. I also think the Space Station is a success, and really was the purpose for which the Shuttle was built. However design by committee to do too many other things poorly means the Shuttle and the Space Station have cost orders of magnitude more than they should have. Had NASA developed a heavy lift rocket along the lines of the Saturn 5 I think the space station could have been lifted and built much more cheaply, and we probably would not have had a gap in manned flight that we now have.

The Space Shuttle was a fantastic vehicle, and a historic one, but it didn't do any of what it was designed to do that well, at least as far as economics go. Now that the program has ended and we can look back on it, we can safely say that from a program goals and outcomes point of view, the Shuttle was a costly lesson.

As for private rockets, as the other poster said, all rockets have always been developed under contract with NASA by private companies. As was said, Boeing has built a lot of rockets used to launch satellites over the years. The difference here is that NASA is only contracting the end result with Space-X (rocket launches). They did not have a hand in the rocket's design. This is a good thing I think. Space-X is still being held to NASA's strict standards for testing and reliability, but they aren't influenced by pork-barrel spending requirements, or being forced to design it a certain way (say with a solid rocket first stage). This is a very good thing and I hope it starts to spell the end of using NASA by Congress as simply a means of funneling tax dollars to specific subcontractors in specific states. Another real difference here is that Space-X is among the first companies thinking to build man-rated rockets, and feeling like they can do it economically and for less cost than the Russians, and certainly several orders of magnitude cheaper and more efficiently than NASA's own post-shuttle designs.

Re:Congratulations

[DesScorp]

As for private rockets, as the other poster said, all rockets have always been developed under contract with NASA by private companies.

Just as a clarification, the Ariane rockets in Europe are arguably the most successful rockets, launching almost half of all the commercial satellites. These have been developed by a private company, EADS Astrium (a subsidiary of EADS, a big aerospace and defence contractor) since the 1980s and produced/operated by another private company, Arianespace. The latter appears to be jointly controlled (in terms of shares) by EADS and the French space agency, CNES, so it might be considered as semi-private, but EADS is certainly a public company.

Not the same thing as Space X. These companies were created directly by European governments, often out of the remains of European government owned defense companies, many of them nationalized. Saying these companies are corporations is like saying that the US Postal Service is a corporation; technically true, but missing the forest for the trees. They were created specifically to serve their governments. Any private sector business is the cherry on top of the ice cream. Space X, on the other hand, was a private company from the ground up, specifically created for a perceived private space transportation market, the aim being to make a profit off of it for private investors. Government contracts will be part of that, but the aim of this company is to be the premier provider of space launch to private companies. NASA, for all the good it has done over the years, has been suppressing that private market. A company like Space X is long overdue.

Welcome back to Space, America!

[localman57]

Yeah, it's still a little while until we get people up there in one of those things, but it's gonna happen. We're back, baby! Congrats to the Space X team!

Re:Welcome back to Space, America!

[localman57]

Bullshit. In the 20th century, the American Government put rockets into space. In the 21st century, Americans will put rocket into space. Granted, SpaceX's first client happens to to be the government. But there will be other clients as well. Then, eventually, we'll have companies show up who's first client isn't the government. That's a whole new world.

Re:Welcome back to Space, America!

[Alioth]

We're back, baby!

No offense, but we're not even back to 1969.

No, we're further along.

Saying "we're not even back to 1969" is like saying "We're still only at 1959" at news about the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Sure, the 787 does pretty much the same thing as the original Boeing 707, but it moves more stuff for less money, and is a lot less expensive to maintain and a lot more refined. SpaceX's launcher is less expensive to maintain, moves stuff for less money and is more refined than what we had prior to 1969.

And SpaceX also cuts out the pork barrel spending, since SpaceX did all the specifications to make a space vehicle, not specifications to distribute work to various contractors in various politically favorable states, making things still more efficient.

Re:More info and video

[h4rr4r]

By next iteration you mean next pork barrel spending project?

That thing is designed for only one purpose, to keep the shuttle parts suppliers in business.

Humans will be flown on Falcon 9s and possibly Falcon XXs before the SLS even manages to go over budget.

Re:More info and video

[Nebulious]

SLS is joke. It's a rocket designed by congress. The design is intended to keep as many existing Space Shuttle Factories open as possible. The new components it does need get their contracts delivered right to the usual industry giants on a silver platter.

IPO

[vlm]

1) screw the FB IPO thats a pump and dump scheme of the largest scale. I want to buy shares in spacex, they're actually doing something interesting, valuable, and apparently profitable. Which is probably why they're staying out of the stock market (the old saying, bad money always drives out good money...)

2) I wanted to ask for a spacex tee shirt for fathers day, but all I can find is a couple IP violators, people ripping off newswire photographers, that kind of product. Their might be "real" shirts out there... where? I would think a tastefully done black tee shirt sold directly by spacex to wealthy /.ers could be a significant funding source for their operation. Well, honestly all it would probably pay for is free donuts and coffee on Friday, but I'd feel cool contributing to that too.

Re:More info and video

[localman57]

The space shuttle was a flying dump truck. The most awesomest dump truck ever, but still a dump truck. Falcon 9 is a flying dump truck. Just as there's no reason in the current age for the government to produce dump trucks, we're reaching the point where there's no reason for the government to produce a low-earth orbit vehicle.

Going to Mars, exploring asteroids, and other new ventures should now get NASA's focus. Those require the development of new ideas and science, and don't have a clear viable business plan to support private development of a turnkey solution.

Re:More info and video

[daveschroeder]

So do you think the United States should divest itself of government-operated space launch capability? Should the lessons learned, capabilities gained, infrastructure created, and accomplishments of the last over-30 years be abandoned because the legislative, acquisition, and contracting landscape for government space operations isn't perfect? The "industry giants" in government space operations became "giants" for a reason.

SpaceX has shown that private enterprise has a place alongside government, but SpaceX isn't doesn't operate in a vacuum (pun intended!). Every launch on the SpaceX manifest through 2017 is happening via a US government launch complex, and for good reason. Just because existing space contractors benefit from SLS, it doesn't automatically follow that it's the "wrong way" to do things.

Space exploration is a key asset which serves to invigorate the national spirit, and government and private enterprise both have a significant place in the future of US space operations.

Re:RSA rocks

[Infiniti2000]

Thanks to a South African entrepreneur.

Which is just fine by us. We're supposed to be a melting pot. It only makes the case stronger with immigrants succeed so well in the U.S.

A Moment of Silence and Respect please...

[JSC]

According the The Reg, James Doohan's ashes are aboard. Boldly go, Scotty. We miss you

This Is Awesome

[jdev]

This is a fantastic thing. Take a look at NASA's goal.

To reach for new heights and reveal the unknown so that what we do and learn will benefit all humankind.

Being the tow trucks to space has very little to do with that. NASA has done that for more than half a century now and I'm personally very happy to offload that responsibility to private entities.

So what does this mean for NASA now? I'd say it clears up their responsibilities for space exploration. More rovers. More probes. And if we can justify it, more manned space flights. If private entities can handle sending things up to orbit, then I see that as a good thing.