
SpaceX launches 1st commercial rocket into orbit - jasonlbaptiste
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iF-6npNsKa0n_7aLm8tJvuHWt4JgD93G1LC00
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zandorg
I watched flight 3 (live webcam) and on this one I was even more tense. It was
like watching a football match for space pioneers. Would they win?

Yes they did, and Elon Musk was hilariously incomprendible, probably from
relief.

Screw the Chinese, let's hear it for assembly line space travel.

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quickpost
This is AWESOME. It could change everything, space-wise. No more being held
hostage by the Defense Contractors or the Russians to get to orbit.

I think the Falcon 1 is about 1/10th to 1/7th the cost of the nearest
competitor at $3million to orbit (compared to ~26million for Pegasus).

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netcan
What we need is a good, practical economic reason for any of this.

I wonder how far space tourism can take us? It's a good place to start because
it'll put a lot of pressure on making it easy. Training periods, prices,
competence levels will have some downward pressure.

If a decent little space tourism industry evolves, it'll be a great base to
build on.

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DabAsteroid
Historically, people have colonized just for the change of scenery.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown,_Virginia>

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PieSquared
The moon isn't too rich in breathtaking views and beautiful flora and fauna...
not to mention the lack of oxygen :P

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Raphael
Isn't the view of Earth breathtaking?

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whatusername
I guess the argument is that you can see that from space anyway.. But The view
of Earth from the moon would be better than any hotel on the planet!

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yters
We also need a good way to clean up all that junk up there. I've head that its
possible to start a cascade effect: smash one satellite, the others are so
fragile that the shards will smash many more, and so on.

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DanielBMarkham
Finally some good news from SpaceX!

Way to go guys!

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zandorg
One thing to wonder is who's going to come up with the law to determine how
often the price per kilo to orbit halves? Assuming it's now been lowered to
10% over government 'efforts'.

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tom_rath
That's a huge assumption. Let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet: Orbital
Sciences thought they could create cheap launches with Pegasus too. As
failures occurred, customers requested more and more safeguards and testing
and the cost per launch rose correspondingly.

SpaceX has done an awesome job, but there's a ways to go before the system is
confirmed as reliable with consistently reproducible performance.

(For what it's worth, I think they'll do it in time, but it may cost quite a
bit more yet)

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zandorg
Thanks for the update on previous attempts. I do think that you could send
habitat modules and oxygen tanks up without a huge cost if the rocket blows
up. With people, safety becomes crucial. With satellites, less crucial, but
still expensive if it fails.

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tom_rath
Folks (myself included) have been "thinking" that since the 60s. If you put
some commercial numbers on that problem, you'll see it's a lot harder than it
looks.

Satellite launch failures alone can cost in the hundreds of millions of
dollars -- and that's not even touching the issue of revenue lost to the
broadcast company who bought the thing (and waited 3-4 years to see it
constructed and launched). Although awful regulation has played a role in
preventing launch vehicles from becoming a truly commercial market, The Man
hasn't been the only issue keeping launch costs high -- this stuff is hard!

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DabAsteroid
_Satellite launch failures alone can cost in the hundreds of millions of
dollars_

Satellite costs are driven partially by launch costs. If launches are
expensive, then satellites need to be highly reliable. If launches are cheap,
then satellites need not be so reliable, and therefore can be cheaper.

Insurance averages out the costs of launch failures.

Dropping the costs of satellites improves the market and introduces the
possibility of mass-production, further dropping the costs and further
increasing demand, which further drops the costs through economies of scale,
etc.

    
    
      .
    

We know what can happen, economically, because we have experience with mass-
launchings in the form of the V2.

<http://www.google.com/search?q=v2+rocket+%2413000>

 _A Rocket a Day Keeps the High Costs Away

Then, starting with the US$13000 marginal cost of a V2, we arrive at a cost of
...

One analogy in particular regarding V2 rockets, Nazis, and ignoring the use
... The recurring cost was $13000 a launch for those vehicles. ..._

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tom_rath
That document is specious. Getting something to orbit is a lot harder than
launching a whack of V2s (holding nothing but an explosive payload) across the
English Channel and the huge market for rockets foreseen in 1993 (when that
paper was written) disappeared with the bankruptcy of the Iridium, Orbcomm,
Globalstar, Odyssey, etc. communication constellations. Today we can mass-
produce missiles which are much more effective than the V2, but we still
cannot create cheap orbital vehicles.

Mass production and cheap launches would be a sure-fire money-maker, right?
That it hasn't happened in a half-century of western rocket technology should
raise a bright red flag that something other than willpower or a global
conspiracy is keeping it from happening.

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kul
Was that ice on the screen at about 5m?

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DabAsteroid
Video (09:59):

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To-XOPgaGsQ>

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froo
I only have two words for this video.

Awe Inspiring.

I had to send it to everyone I know, Thanks for the link.

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DabAsteroid
You're welcome. Here is the 40-minute version that includes Elon Musk's post-
launch address to the SpaceX employees in Hawthorne, California, and post-
launch interview:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FQhtMrUQlE>

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froo
Thankyou again.

