SpaceX Successfully Launches Commercial Rocket into Orbit - Privatizing Space

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Berto

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Since many of us are politically oriented geeks, thought you'd enjoy this:

SpaceX commercial craft heads into space - CNN.com

This morning, SpaceX successfully launched their Falcon 9 rocket and accompanying Dragon capsule into orbit. This was COTS Demonstration I, which means they are showing to NASA that they are capable of launching and maneuvering cargo into orbit and to the International Space Station, as the Space Shuttle program is being discontinued and we're going to have to rely on Russian Soyuz rockets to get astronauts and cargo to the ISS.

SpaceX performed this feat with just a FRACTION of the budget and failures that other government entities and larger companies have had. They are showing that privatizing works when done right. Put a bunch of geniuses in a room with a good vision and a fiscal goal to achieve, and this is what happens.

I am extremely close to many people at SpaceX, as they were one of my primary customers in my old sales job. I still keep in touch with many of the employees as personal friends. Every time I walked into that building, I was the dumbest guy in the room. They are simply amazing, do so much with so little, and I can't say enough good things about them or the missions they've accomplished.

SpaceX is founded by Elon Musk, who was the co-founder of PayPal and also runs Tesla Motors. Elon is 39, tomorrow I turn 29. I have exactly ten years to be as fucking cool as that guy.

Congrats to SpaceX. Today was a great day for America and our founding principles.



* Bit of SpaceX trivia: In Iron Man 2, remember Hammer Industries factory floor? That was SpaceX's manufacturing floor, right here in LA.
 


Nice.... about time. This could get interesting... as there is a lot of space to privatize :ugone2far:

"NASA spent $5 million on building a pen with which they could write in space. The Russians used a pencil instead."
 
About fucking time. When funding depends on profits as opposed to printing more money, efficiency will prevail. These commercial companies will probably be able to do twice the workload in half the time for the same amount of money... or less.
 
DanWesson said:
Cue countdown clock on government regulators "closing the loophole" that allows private entities to violate space.
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I don't know about this... Obama is supportive, and SpaceX (and Orbital Sciences, to a lesser degree right now) are bailing the US Government out of a bit of a pickle here.

note: not totally sure about this info
Even with SpaceX, the US still has a gap where we cannot fly manned missions ourselves after Atlantis is decommissioned. We will have no safe shuttle!!!! SpaceX can't bring an astronaut to space for 3 more years, which probably means 4.

Sure, we have companies like Lockheed, Boeing, SpaceX, and others that can bring your satellite into space. But if shit hits the fan and we need to do spacewalks to fix things, do we really want to rely on the Russians and Chinese? It's not a good situation if relations go downhill, which isn't out of the realm of possibility.


Either way, NASA shit the bed, I don't see the government shutting this down now. Astronauts want this, too.
 
Dragon's Splashdown

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I didn't read any of this thread but saw two things:

"NASA spent $5 million on building a pen with which they could write in space. The Russians used a pencil instead."
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suck it NASA
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NASA is all for this. All they care about is awesome space things. Their director/head recently discussed how they want spaceX/private enterprise to take over all "mundane" aspects of "getting to space" and chores such as delivering food/etc so that they [NASA] can focus on doing science once they're up there, etc.
 
g1c9 said:
NASA is all for this. All they care about is awesome space things. Their director/head recently discussed how they want spaceX/private enterprise to take over all "mundane" aspects of "getting to space" and chores such as delivering food/etc so that they [NASA] can focus on doing science once they're up there, etc.
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sounds awfully a lot like, "we can't figure out how to get to space cheaper, shit is too hard for us. we lack the usual business incentives of success or die because tax payers have our back; we lack that motivation. We just want to do cool shit up there like float around doing flips and playing with flasks. Let the private enterprises take care of that BORING stuff LOL!"
 
dreamache said:
sounds awfully a lot like, "we can't figure out how to get to space cheaper, shit is too hard for us. we lack the usual business incentives of success or die because tax payers have our back; we lack that motivation. We just want to do cool shit up there like float around doing flips and playing with flasks. Let the private enterprises take care of that BORING stuff LOL!"
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man you really know nothing about nasa
 
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