Launch Signals New Space Race .

[Capt Worley PE]

The world's first commercially developed space capsule was successfully launched into orbit and then recovered at sea Wednesday, signaling a historic move toward an era of privately operated rockets and spacecraft.
Barely eight years after Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk opened makeshift offices in suburban Los Angeles, his company accomplished something that none of the world's aerospace giants—and so far only five national space progams—have been able to achieve.

Closely held Space Exploration Technologies Corp. recovered its unmanned Dragon capsule after more than three hours of a seemingly problem-free demonstration flight, despite immense technical hurdles that many space experts and established contractors believed would take much longer to overcome.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...sNewsCollection

This is good news, especially now that Constellation is gone. From the article, it appears Space X is a lot better at quickly solving and fixing problems than NASA is.

 

[Master slacker]

When you're held accountable to stakeholders, and not just tax paying citizens, you have more motivation to solve problems.

 

[Greg_Marmalard]

Elon Musk is an Omega... no Delta could ever pull that off...

 

[Dexman PE]

When you're held accountable to stakeholders, and not just tax paying citizens, you have more motivation to solve problems.

while still providing research data to help develop future products...

 

[Dleg]

Yeah, that NASA space program was teh suxx. From no manned space program to landing men on the moon in a span of 8 years. Lame. I'm sure this guy could have people on the moon in less time than that, huh? Not like those slackers at NASA, wasting taxpayer money, with no motivation.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

Yeah, that NASA space program was teh suxx. From no manned space program to landing men on the moon in a span of 8 years. Lame. I'm sure this guy could have people on the moon in less time than that, huh? Not like those slackers at NASA, wasting taxpayer money, with no motivation.

Actually, the space program started with the German V-2s that we reverse engineered, so it was mid 1945-mid 1969. It took a lot to get a man on the moon and we did it.

Then we threw it away for a space bus that couldn't leave orbit.

Nixon killed the space program to fund Johnson's Great Society, which was two mistakes rolled into one. He did throw NASA a bone with the space shuttle, but everything it did could have been done cheaper, and more expediently with the launch vehicles on hand.

I give NASA credit for what they did, which was a lot. And I'm glad to see private industry picking up where NASA, their fault or not, dropped the ball. I'd rather the gov give money to Space X to take stuff (and eventually peope) to the ISS, than give money to foriegn nations.

There are a good number of companies eyeing this market. I think we'll be amazed by what they come up with.

 

[cableguy]

The SpaceX engine test facility is probably 10 miles from my house (or less). I hear them test fire the engines fairly frequently. Between them and the Fort Hood firing range, it can get pretty rumbly in the evenings here.

 

[Dexman PE]

...it can get pretty rumbly in the evenings here.

I would recommend laying off the chili for lunch then...

 

[Master slacker]

I'm not saying NASA is a steaming pile of rampant spending, however, I'm positive they'll make more progress now that there is independent and private competition.