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SpaceX Falcon 9 reaches orbit

174 points| aidenn0 | 16 years ago |msnbc.msn.com | reply

45 comments

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[+] zandorg|16 years ago|reply
I've been waiting for this for months. Go Elon!

The funny thing is everyone calls him a 'Internet billionaire'. But he's never BEEN a billionaire! He only got $200 mil from Paypal. It's a bit ridiculous to throw that term around.

[Additional] Heinlein would have been proud to see this.

[+] phreeza|16 years ago|reply
I am always fascinated by Elon Musk. A little bit like a Bond villain.

Even if he has "only" $200 mil, I think he will be a billionaire soon, with the SpaceX thing working out, and Tesla,too.

[+] huherto|16 years ago|reply
It is fascinating. I can't believe this is the same guys that is "broke", and is doing Tesla at the same time and co founded pay pal. Any of this would be a fantastic achievement. Unbelievable guy. I'm sorry I wasn't fully aware of him until recently, this is probably old news for many of you.
[+] MikeCapone|16 years ago|reply
This is fantastic news! Hopefully this means that the price of taking things to orbit will fall rapidly (relative to what governments could achieve, at least), allowing all kinds of new developments that couldn't otherwise have happened.
[+] aidenn0|16 years ago|reply
A little over $50M to put up to 10000kg in LEO: http://www.spacex.com/falcon9.php

Similar prices for GTO of up to 4500kg, but presumably a lot of that is going to be fuel to move from GTO to GEO; since the Delta IV can (and does) take multiple satelites to GTO at up to 12000kg, I'm not sure how favorably that is going to compare (nor do I have any first hand knowledge of launch prices for something as big as a delta IV.

[edit] Just noticed the footnote on above page that at $45M for <3000kg to GTO they want to book a co-passenger, so presumably the ~4500kg limit is enough for at least 2 satelites + fuel.

[+] stcredzero|16 years ago|reply
I read that there's a contract with the government for $1.6 billion for 12 flights to the ISS. I think this means they have NASA and the Shuttle beat by a factor of 7.
[+] physcab|16 years ago|reply
I don't really buy this argument. The price of taking things to orbit is reflected in the reliability of the launcher. If you have a launcher that fails unreliably, your cost of launching is going to be rather uncertain. No company is going to risk putting their cargo into space at this early stage of development. The only entity that has the cash to burn is the government, which is why NASA is footing the bill [1]. Oh, and by the way, NASA doesn't like failures all that much and they are going to send out their team of inspectors and demand a bunch of revisions be made to the launcher in the event that it fails. Guess what happens to the cost of launching? Yup, goes up. Pretty soon you're going to end up with another company just like all the other ones operating at exactly the same cost. Then NASA will find a new "SpaceX" in 10 years that satisfies their "entrepreneurship" specifications in their contracts and the whole process begins anew.

The only way to break this cycle and bring down costs is to 1) Not deal with the government and find a private company willing to take on the risk of development. 2) Change the model of the program entirely and operate like the Russians--i.e, Pick one launcher and make that one as efficient as possible.

[1]. http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=20081223

[+] blackswan|16 years ago|reply
This is really amazing considering that Atlas took 13 launches before it reached orbit successfully.

Edit: It's also good for Obama's space plan - putting a new rocket into orbit on it's first launch is a pretty powerful way to demonstrate competence.

[+] pjscott|16 years ago|reply
It helps that the design is similar to that of the Falcon 1, which has already been successfully launched a few times. It uses the same engines, and I think it has a lot of the same electronics. (Fun fact: they use Ethernet for their avionics, replacing what would have been horrible tangles of wires in older rocket designs.)
[+] tvon|16 years ago|reply
Atlas was also 50 years ago.
[+] davidcuddeback|16 years ago|reply
I don't see how this has anything to do with politics, since SpaceX is a private company. Also, it's not SpaceX's first launch. It may be the first launch of the Falcon 9 rocket, but there have been others that SpaceX has undoubtedly learned a lot from.
[+] rue|16 years ago|reply
> This is really amazing considering that Atlas took 13 launches before it reached orbit successfully.

Not at all. They have data from those 13 launches and the rest of the space program, 50 years' worth, to work from.

The people footed the basic research, now it is time for the private sector to cash in.

[+] dedward|16 years ago|reply
I'm a little puzzled from the news - while good, it doesn't really seem to clearly state that they put the thing into orbit. Did it go up and circle the earth at least once? Did it just obtain a given altitude (because orbital altitude != orbit)....... they seem to be saying it was "hitting an orbital bulls-eye" and "close enough" and that kind of thing... so it sounds like an engineering success, but it didn't actually go into orbit.
[+] asonic|16 years ago|reply
Awesome - big congrats to SpaceX and the team there!!
[+] phreeza|16 years ago|reply
I think this is the first time I have seen an (almost, I know, not complete) dupe on the front page.
[+] ugh|16 years ago|reply
A justified dupe. The older one was originally a link to the live stream, now it’s a link to a YouTube video of the launch. This report contains additional details you won’t get by just watching the stream or video.