Launch of Elon Musk's Private Rocket Fails; Three Satellites Were Onboard | Hacker News Reader

Launch of Elon Musk's Private Rocket Fails; Three Satellites Were Onboard

nytimes.com

16 pointsdanw14 comments

It's amusing how many tech entrepreneurs use their fortunes for space exploration.

Paul Allen invested in SpaceShipOne. Charles Simonyi paid millions to go to space. Sergey Brin invested in a space tourism company. Larry Page is on the board of trustees for X PRIZE. John Carmack has a aerospace/space tourism startup. And of course Elon Musk.

Am I forgetting anyone?

Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Origin

Mark Shuttleworth, second space tourist.

The message they send is clear:

Not even the sky is a limit!

Anousheh Ansari, first female private space participant, founded and sold Telecom Technologies, inc.

That's too bad. I really want to see them succeed, but it's a whole series of difficult engineering problems.

I'm glad to hear they've got cash to keep them going for a while, but they need to start racking up successes soon.

And it took the Wright Brothers how long to pitch that bucket of sticks and cloth into the sky?

I'm confident the crew will work the kinks out and we'll look back at this phase as "humbled beginnings".

So, do the customers get their money back? Why would any company rely on a yet to be successful rocket to launch them into space?

Don't get me wrong it's a cool idea but wouldn't you want some reasonable assurance of success ie: past success before you forked over your cash?

Irate Customer: "Come on, people. This experimental rocketry stuff isn't rocket science!"

There's no such thing as rocket science. Rocket science is a dozen or more sciences all jumbled up together, each of which has to be executed perfectly just to get into orbit. Then the hard part begins.

Much respect to NASA and the mars lander programs.

Seriously, now there's 208 people's ashes scattered somewhere over the Pacific instead of space..

"The rocket was also carrying the ashes of 208 people who had paid to have their remains shot into space,"

I'm sure they are covered by insurance and I'm confident Musk clearly clued them in to their current success rate. And I'm guessing the rates were heavily discounted.

"Why would any company rely on a yet to be successful rocket to launch them into space?"

2 of the 3 payloads, PreSat and NanoSail-D, were paid for by NASA.

With NASA retiring the shuttle in a 2010, the Falcon rockets are looked upon as the next generation of rockets before NASA's Constellation program begins in 2014.

Bottom line: NASA is re-positioning itself to help private industry succeed even if the risks are high.

PreSat - http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/smallsats/PRESat.html

NanoSail-D - http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/smallsats/nanosaild.html

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