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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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 Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2008 1:02 am Post subject: USA! USA! |
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http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/space-x-did-it.html
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Orbit
SpaceX has made history. Its privately developed rocket has made it into space.
After three failed launches, the company founded by Elon Musk worked all of the bugs out of their Falcon 1 launch vehicles.
The entire spectacle was broadcast live from Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific. Cameras mounted on the spacecraft showed our planet shrinking in the distance and the empty first stage engine falling back to Earth.
As the rocket ascended, cheers rang out during every crucial step of the launch sequence, and at the final stage their headquarters in Hawthorne, California erupted in excitement. (Wired.com viewed the launch over the Internet on SpaceX's live webcast.)
The tensest moment came just before stage separation. At that critical juncture, the third launch attempt had failed. This time, it worked out perfectly.
Eight minutes after leaving the ground, Falcon 1 reached a speed of 5200 meters per second and passed above the International Space Station.
"I don't know what to say... because my mind is just blown," said Musk, during a brief address to his staff after the successful launch. "This is just the first step of many."
The feat is a giant leap forward for privately-funded space ventures, and follows the spectacular 2004 suborbital flight of SpaceShipOne. (See related Wired Science story: "Space Visionaries Prove Naysayers Wrong - Again".)
Musk seemed almost overcome with emotion. In the coming years, his company will try to make space transportation ten times cheaper and more reliable. |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 12:50 am Post subject: |
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More info on why this is such a big deal:
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/whats-next-at-s.html
First of all, this could save NASA from having to rely on Russia to transport crew to the ISS:
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| There is also the potential for NASA to agree to pay $308 million more for SpaceX to demonstrate the launch of crew to and from the International Space Station. Previously the company had said that if the money was approved this summer, they could fly the first crews to the Space Station in 2012. This would be quite a deal given the frustration many are feeling about the gap in U.S. access to space after the Shuttle retires in 2010. Still without a successful orbital flight, SpaceX had only paper to back up its claims. Now with a Falcon 1 rocket able to deliver its payload to the "middle of the bull's-eye" on orbit, the option to pay for crew transport in addition to cargo may well be back open for discussion. A successful Falcon 9 flight early next year would certainly make it an even more compelling option. |
It makes the cost of going to the moon now less than $10 million:
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| For those who are looking for a low-cost way to get beyond low Earth orbit, SpaceX will be rolling out the Falcon 1e, a special version of the Falcon 1 they are building with the $20-million Google Lunar X Prize in mind. The $7.9 million Falcon 1 can launch 420 kg to low Earth orbit which is not enough to get a spacecraft to the moon. The Falcon 1e, however, will be able to lift 1010 kg and will still only cost $9.1 million (a Falcon 9 lunar launch would cost $46.75 million � more than the prize itself). SpaceX expects to roll out the Falcon 1e by 2010, well before the prize expires on December 31, 2012. |
Compare the cost of dealing with SpaceX to Lockheed Martin:
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After Falcon 9's first flight there are three commercial payloads and two NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation System, or COTS, demonstration flights scheduled for 2009. The first COTS flight will simply fly cargo to orbit, do some maneuvering and then come home. The second cargo mission will demonstrate its ability to safely and accurately maneuver and execute close-proximity operations using the Falcon 9's spent upper stage as a proxy for the International Space Station. The third COTS demonstration flight, currently scheduled for 2010, will fly a full cargo delivery profile, including docking to the International Space Station.
If SpaceX meets all of these milestones they will receive their full $278 million COTS award. To put that in perspective, NASA awarded a $3.9 billion cost-plus contract to Lockheed Martin to develop the pressurized Orion capsule that will carry the crew atop the Ares I rocket. NASA has already modified the contract to Lockheed to add in two additional abort tests and to push back the program two years. The modification alone cost them an additional $385 million, more than NASA will pay SpaceX for the Falcon 9 rocket and pressurized Dragon capsule should the flights prove successful. Quite a bargain. |
That's why it's such huge news. There's no surprise that it hasn't gotten all that much attention because though it's a game changer, it's only so in the sense that the Internet was a game changer too, but its effects weren't obvious until that much later when people started actually using it. |
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