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SpaceX Falcon 9 Blasts Off From California
An anonymous reader writes "SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket completed a successful first launch today, taking off from California and putting a Canadian science satellite in orbit. 'The beefed-up Falcon 9 that blasted off on its maiden flight from Southern California's Vandenberg Air Force Base, carrying a small Canadian government communication and research satellite, went through a seemingly picture-perfect countdown and performed on ascent as engineers hoped. The changes to the rocket are aimed at improving capacity and reliability, while simultaneously speeding up manufacturing. Historically, the initial launch of a new rocket has as much as a one-in-two chance of failure. Early this month, Elon Musk, the company's founder, chief executive and chief designer, seemingly tried to play down expectations by sending out a Twitter message emphasizing that the revamped rocket 'has a lot of new technology, so the probability of failure is significant.''"
"so the probability of failure is significant"
After all of these years of rocketry experience, one would think that much new technology would be added to decrease the probability of failure, yes?
Time Bomber the Book coming soon.
You wouldn't know what gay was if Poison, Motley Crue, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard and the Quire Boys jumped out of your wardrobe whistling the Archers theme tune, shouted "rodeo" and gave it to you up the bum all night so that you could never sit down ever again.