

SpaceX Falcon 9 reaches orbit - aidenn0
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37509776/ns/technology_and_science-space/

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zandorg
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.

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phreeza
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.

~~~
vidar
He recently said he was broke, but that was during a divorce, maybe he is
hiding his loot.

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phreeza
Ah yes... His ex is actually blogging, on livejournal of all places. Cool to
get a view from the other side.

<http://moschus.livejournal.com/141570.html>

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stcredzero
_4\. Seek distraction. Take up a new hobby. Or a really cute personal
trainer._

Cute personal trainer = new hobby?

~~~
philwelch
The whole post stunk of bratty entitlement. This is one of those cases where
hearing the other side of the story actually makes you side with Elon a bit
more.

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billswift
Looking at her earlier posts, there was one in mid-May "Is blogging innately
narcissistic?". I almost left a comment that _Hers_ sure is.

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MikeCapone
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
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.

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angstrom
Supposedly there is also a "Heavy" configuration that uses 2 additional
boosters for a larger mass payload than the shuttle.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9>

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aidenn0
It's untested and has no pricing information or schedule that I've seen
though.

<http://www.spacex.com/falcon9_heavy.php>

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stcredzero
Not so different from a Titan IV heavy lift. One difference: Falcon boosters
are liquid fuel. They are copies of the 1st stage.

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rbanffy
This is, AFAIK, the same route a Delta IV Heavy takes.

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blackswan
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.

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davidcuddeback
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.

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bbatsell
Obama unveiled a plan in February to end the Orion spacecraft program and use
private companies to launch US assets into orbit, for which he received
copious amounts of criticism, from all sides. (He announced a scaled-back
version in April that still relies primarily on private companies to provide
transit to space.) That's what the parent is referring to — it's not just
blind politicization of an irrelevant topic.

~~~
davidcuddeback
Oh, thank you. That does make sense then.

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dedward
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.

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volare
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_Flight_1>

Regimine: Low Earth Orbit

Apoapsis: 155 miles (249 km)

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dedward
Awesome.... thanks!

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asonic
Awesome - big congrats to SpaceX and the team there!!

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fbu
He actually is broke, liquidity issues as I understand it.
<http://www.laobserved.com/biz/2010/06/elon_musk_is_broke.php>

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phreeza
I think this is the first time I have seen an (almost, I know, not complete)
dupe on the front page.

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ugh
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.

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hellosprout
<http://biditserver1.appspot.com/homepage.png>

Isn't this a big enough news???

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tengkahwee
There is a case where we think news that interest us is more important than
anything else. That's why we are on HN, isn't it?

