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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."
It may be possible to certify the man rating of the Dragon spacecraft before the Falcon launch rocket. So the Dragon may be able to return astronaughts to earth FROM the ISS before it is used to bring them up there (since no ride on the rocket would be required if the Dragon is sent up empty).
Well, come on over, then. We need more people with a can-do attitude. Visa applications are avaialble at your local embassy...
For those who don't know, Elon Musk was born in South Africa, and left to avoid Military Service in the 80's (which propped up the Apartheid government). He came over here, built paypal into a powerhouse (thorugh a merger, he didn't found it), founded Tesla motors, and he built a rocketship. Hell yeah.
Nice to hear they are all metric.
> Thanks to a South African entrepreneur
No, thanks to an AMERICAN. He immigrated here, accepted citizenship and is now an American. I welcome people like him. If he ever shows up at my doorstep, I'm grilling burgers for him -- anyway he likes. :)
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
Another way to look at it is that once manned space flight is a reality for private firms, the resulting complications that arise from conflicting interests will result in NASA being re-engineered at least in part as a law enforcement agency. And, once that happens, they will be in a veritable arms race with private concerns. That will drive all sorts of new research and development.
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.
The US should vastly increase legal immigration. The anti-immigrant attitude is based largely on the idea that "immigrants take our jobs" which, in my arrogant opinion, is outrageously idiotic. Each immigrant does take a job, but he also creates wealth and spends money on the American economy, thus creating additional jobs. And if immigrants did increase unemployment, then additional Americans (USA-born) would increase unemployment by the same logic. Therefore the greater the population the bigger would be unemployment. Therefore tiny island countries would be unemployment-free worker paradises, which AFAIK does not happen.
And even if the immigrant sends money to his family overseas, those dollars will eventually be used to buy American goods, thus increasing exports.
Increasing legal immigration, would reduce ethic tension, illegal immigration, crime and tax evasion, thus benefiting the USA. It would also benefit immigrants, who just want a nice honest job.
Can anyone explain to me how immigration harms America?
The SLS is estimated to cost $41 billion for R&D and four launches, and is expected to have a cost-to-leo of $8500 per pound. SpaceX is claiming that the R&D on their Falcon Heavy will be ~$2.5 billion, and they'll have a cost-to-leo of $500-1000 (with the lower figure depending on them getting stage recovery working).
Why does the SLS need to exist? It won't be able to do anything that projected private sector products won't be able to do for a fraction of the cost.
Let me put it in perspective: the Falcon Heavy is projected to put cargo into orbit for 3% of the cost of the shuttle (~1/30th the cost).
Just to be pedantic -- Elon Musk has said he could design the Falcon XX for $2.5B. Bigelow Aerospace can put up a "Mars Mission" space station using BA-300's for less than a Billion dollars more. Assuming six launches of the Falcon XX to put those six BA-300 segments into an interplanetary transfer orbit at $150M each (SpaceX's estimated cost per flight of the XX) and you have a total of right around $4.5B. Now, Apple has a warchest of $80B in cash, so Apple could launch not one, but about 30 missions to Mars and remain solvent.
Whether they'd get a return on their investment is a tough question, since I'm not sure whether FoxConn will set up slave labor camps on Mars to make iPads or not.
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.