Posted on 12/02/2013 8:28:05 AM PST by Jack Hydrazine
After cleaning and replacing engine components, SpaceX is gearing up for another try to launch a Falcon 9 rocket Monday on a crucial mission to deliver the SES 8 commercial television broadcasting satellite to orbit. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral's Complex 40 launch pad is set for 5:41 p.m. EST/2:41 p.m. PST (2241 GMT), the opening of an 86-minute launch window.
They are beginning to dominate the launch schedule, too.
They are even beating the Chinese on price and the Chinese can’t figure out how.
Replay of the launch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXEJLhAh-Kg
Thanks JH. Kudos on pointing out that SpaceX has the lowest cost per pound to orbit *in the world*. The engineering going on there is making more headway in solving aerospace problems than anyone has since the Von Braun era. One article mentioned how they’d gone to other companies with experience to see if they’d build this or that needed component, and the prices were crazy high (by SpaceX standards); as the gubmint customers went into hiatus, the same companies went back to SpaceX and offered to do it for a lower price — too late, we’ve done it ourselves, and at our target cost. The reaction outside SpaceX has been, well, these problems are no so easy to solve and they must be cutting corners, it will come back to bite them in the ass.
This proves again that those companies that are on the government dole innovate the least and charge the most while small, free enterprise aerospace businesses are leaders in innovation and design.
This post-Thanksgiving launch goes hand-in-hand with the holiday because they both show state capitalism/collectivism loses to individual, free enterprise capitalism every time.
Slave labor doesn't work well for rocket science.
This was a spectacular sight...after sunset at sea level and sunshine above for the flight.
Sound took about 4 1/2 minutes to reach me but was substantial and added to the second stage flight.
I love living here!!
It will get even better once they have a fully reusable first stage.
Jeff Bezos of Amazon is flying under the radar as well building a reusable launch vehicle. He, and the British SABER space plane, are the only competition right now.
Wish I could have been there!
There’s also the man who *has* no competition:
He retired (sort of) just a couple of years ago.
http://www.burtrutan.com/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Burt-Rutan/76644178784
>>>>>Thanks JH. Kudos on pointing out that SpaceX has the lowest cost per pound to orbit *in the world*. The engineering going on there is making more headway in solving aerospace problems than anyone has since the Von Braun era. One article mentioned how they’d gone to other companies with experience to see if they’d build this or that needed component, and the prices were crazy high (by SpaceX standards); as the gubmint customers went into hiatus, the same companies went back to SpaceX and offered to do it for a lower price — too late, we’ve done it ourselves, and at our target cost.<<<<<
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The company was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets.
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