Dec 4: Unveiling of the Falcon reusable orbital rocket!

Hi everyone,

I had the great pleasure of being able to attend the unveiling of the fully-built Falcon rocket in Washington DC on December 4. The Falcon is built by SpaceX, a new rocket company funded by Elon Musk. It was almost surreal: a 70ft rocket lying horizontally in front of the Air and Space Museum! The two-stage, 1400-lb payload Falcon will first be launched in March.



This development is very exciting. Although Elon is not an X-Prize competitor and will only launch satellites at first, his goal of bringing down launch costs will be very positive for the space tourism industry.

During the reception, I was able to talk to some folks from Space Adventures, who were saying how, by replacing the second stage with a large capsule, the Falcon might become a very reliable suborbital tourism vehicle.

At the reception, Mr. Musk also announced his follow-on plans for the next rocket, the Falcon V, which will be as big as Delta II. Supposedly, he intends for that rocket, available in 2005, to be safe enough and big enough to launch people.

Overall, very interesting. Check www.spacex.com for more info.

Visited their website before, I think they have a great chance of making a great commercial company offering manned space flights, like they are planning in 4 years.

Got some articles from them when I registrated in google news alert for X Prize news. Maybe it isn't a bad strategy to be not the first, but short after the first with manned space flight.

Sigurd
http://hhboard12.free.fr/Sigurd/index.html

Did they get trapped in the snow storm?

For Elon Musk's SpaceX to succeed, it must reduce its real costs below that of the NASA's subsidized price for its commercial launches and still produce a profit. Congress could help by prohibiting subsidies for inefficient NASA launches.

Let the free market prevail and space exploration will develop more quickly. Put another way, let the best ideas win and let the worst bureaucratic ideas fail.