American Private Enterprise Enters Orbit

[kstar]

While the Chinese govt. enjoyed a state sponsored space walk this weekend, an American private company, SpaceX, created a rocket from scratch and put it into orbit with the help of just over 500 employees. How about that?

LIVE COVERAGE: SUCCESS SpaceX Falcon 1 Flight 4 (updated 23:31 GMT)

September 28th, 2008

SpaceX wrote history today as the first private financed company to achieve orbit with a rocket. As Elon Musk stated “this really means a lot”, it can be the beginning of significantly lower launch costs and therefore increased number of launches. After three unsuccessful flights, “fourth time’s a charm” Musk said.

The next launch on SpaceX’ launch manifest will be a Falcon 1 carrying RazakSat for Malaysia. This launch if successful will be followed then by the maiden flight of the much larger Falcon 9 rocket in the second quarter of 2009.

http://spacefellowship.com/News/?p=6780

[island911]

Cool

[Neilk]

Awesome!!!

Are they using any new technologies or doing anything really innovative that NASA or ESA hadn't thought of? Quite an accomplishment regardless.

[DasBoot]

No thanks, I'll walk:

The launch company's first undisputed success came after an oh-so-close failure on Aug. 2, when the timing was off on the shutdown of the Falcon 1's first-stage engine. Instead of separating cleanly, the first stage bumped into the second stage and knocked it off course. That led to the loss of three satellites, including a NASA prototype solar sail and small experimental satellites from NASA as well as the Defense Department.

The rocket that failed last month also carried cremated remains from more than 200 people who had paid thousands of dollars to have the ashes sent to the final frontier. Among the dearly departed: Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper as well as James Doohan, who played the engineer Scotty on the original "Star Trek" TV series.

[kstar]

Originally Posted by Neilk

Awesome!!!

Are they using any new technologies or doing anything really innovative that NASA or ESA hadn't thought of? Quite an accomplishment regardless.

FWIW, SpaceX was founded by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, who is also chairman of Tesla.

"This was a completely new vehicle — it's not using any previously developed hardware. All developed from scratch. No government supplied hardware, Russian engines, or old ICBM motors. My hat's off to the employees of Space X — all 550 of them. (Note — no 'cast of thousands,' just 550).

More at /.
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/28/2348205&from=rss

[kstar]

Yes, SpaceX had three failures before this success. I think that compares favorably with most government sponsored programs, AFAIK.

[gostraight]

sweet ...That's where I work!!!

[rammstein]

Go go private enterprise!!!!!!

[id10t]

And a couple of students have established radio communication with the ISS via a home built radio...

[ruf-porsche]

Great

More junk floating in outer space.