SpaceX launches 1st commercial rocket into orbit | Hacker News Reader

SpaceX launches 1st commercial rocket into orbit

ap.google.com

I watched flight 3 (live webcam) and on this one I was even more tense. It was like watching a football match for space pioneers. Would they win?

Yes they did, and Elon Musk was hilariously incomprendible, probably from relief.

Screw the Chinese, let's hear it for assembly line space travel.

This is AWESOME. It could change everything, space-wise. No more being held hostage by the Defense Contractors or the Russians to get to orbit.

I think the Falcon 1 is about 1/10th to 1/7th the cost of the nearest competitor at $3million to orbit (compared to ~26million for Pegasus).

Re: My comment, I just wanted to say I have nothing against the Chinese except their brutal regime. I don't intend to slut their nation on grounds of any prejudice.

What we need is a good, practical economic reason for any of this.

I wonder how far space tourism can take us? It's a good place to start because it'll put a lot of pressure on making it easy. Training periods, prices, competence levels will have some downward pressure.

If a decent little space tourism industry evolves, it'll be a great base to build on.

I guess that solar energy will offer economic reasons at some time. Also I suppose that the unique properties of space (like less gravity, no earthquakes, no weather) will be of interest for some industries one day. But probably space exploration will only really take off once we have the space elevators.

The other part of the equation is Bigelow habitats. These will likely be used for a space hotel.

I think Mr. Bigelow has the right idea. And Vectran is a great material for space-inflatables.

http://www.google.com/search?q=bigelow+vectran

Historically, people have colonized just for the change of scenery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown,_Virginia

The moon isn't too rich in breathtaking views and beautiful flora and fauna... not to mention the lack of oxygen :P

Isn't the view of Earth breathtaking?

I guess the argument is that you can see that from space anyway.. But The view of Earth from the moon would be better than any hotel on the planet!

Freespace is easier to get to and from, and offers full-g, zero-g and everything in-between.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_habitat

Freespace also can offer low data latency -- low-enough even for realistic telepresence (e.g. sub 400 ms) (http://www.google.com/search?q=%22400+ms%22+conversation+lat...).

The moon probably would not be very popular, except for mining crews.

What about mineral mining, fur hunting, cotton growing & all the rest?

Jamestown was a money-hole until John Rolfe developed a special, sweet strain of tobacco that became the basis of an export economy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown_Settlement

Due to the aristocratic backgrounds of many of the new colonists and the communal nature of their work load, progress through the first few years was inconsistent, at best. By 1613, six years after Jamestown's founding, the organizers and shareholders of the Virginia Land Company were desperate to increase the efficiency and profitability of the struggling colony.

The investors had been tricked into believing that it would be a profitable venture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Company#The_London_Com...

To the disappointment of its investors, the Virginia Company of London failed to discover gold or silver in Virginia.

So you were being sarcastic? The incentive was gold, silver, farming & the other normal colonisation incentives.

There were colonists, and there were investors. These were not the same people. There was no more economic opportunity for the colonists in the new world than there was back home. There was the opportunity to die prematurely and painfully. Perhaps that was an attraction to the adventurous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown,_Virginia#Challenges_...

The settlers who came over on the initial three ships were not well-equipped for the life they found in Jamestown. In addition to the "gentlemen", who were not accustomed to manual or skilled labor, they consisted mainly of English farmers and "Eight Dutchmen and Poles" hired in Royal Prussia.[6] Many suffered from saltwater poisoning which led to infection, fevers and dysentery. As a result of these conditions, most of the early settlers died of disease and starvation.

"opportunity to die prematurely and painfully" Was presumably not the reason they gave to their wife when convincing them to go.

Glassmaking was one of the reasons given. Is it more likely that in their hearts of hearts the colonists believed that:

1. They were going to be able to manufacture, and export to Europe, glass from the New World at a lower price/quality than that from European glass manufacturers.

2. They wanted to believe that, while possessing deeper motives involving change-of-scenery.

Do you believe that you would have been able to make and ship glass cheaper in the New World than to make the same in England? Does nothing sound fishy to you about that?

Do you believe you would have gone to the New World if you would be hungry?

Maybe the idea of danger, excitement, etc. appealed. Maybe it was the motivator. But either way, people went because they thought life would be better.

We also need a good way to clean up all that junk up there. I've head that its possible to start a cascade effect: smash one satellite, the others are so fragile that the shards will smash many more, and so on.

Finally some good news from SpaceX!

Way to go guys!

One thing to wonder is who's going to come up with the law to determine how often the price per kilo to orbit halves? Assuming it's now been lowered to 10% over government 'efforts'.

That's a huge assumption. Let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet: Orbital Sciences thought they could create cheap launches with Pegasus too. As failures occurred, customers requested more and more safeguards and testing and the cost per launch rose correspondingly.

SpaceX has done an awesome job, but there's a ways to go before the system is confirmed as reliable with consistently reproducible performance.

(For what it's worth, I think they'll do it in time, but it may cost quite a bit more yet)

Thanks for the update on previous attempts. I do think that you could send habitat modules and oxygen tanks up without a huge cost if the rocket blows up. With people, safety becomes crucial. With satellites, less crucial, but still expensive if it fails.

Folks (myself included) have been "thinking" that since the 60s. If you put some commercial numbers on that problem, you'll see it's a lot harder than it looks.

Satellite launch failures alone can cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars -- and that's not even touching the issue of revenue lost to the broadcast company who bought the thing (and waited 3-4 years to see it constructed and launched). Although awful regulation has played a role in preventing launch vehicles from becoming a truly commercial market, The Man hasn't been the only issue keeping launch costs high -- this stuff is hard!

Satellite launch failures alone can cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars

Satellite costs are driven partially by launch costs. If launches are expensive, then satellites need to be highly reliable. If launches are cheap, then satellites need not be so reliable, and therefore can be cheaper.

Insurance averages out the costs of launch failures.

Dropping the costs of satellites improves the market and introduces the possibility of mass-production, further dropping the costs and further increasing demand, which further drops the costs through economies of scale, etc.

We know what can happen, economically, because we have experience with mass-launchings in the form of the V2.

http://www.google.com/search?q=v2+rocket+%2413000

A Rocket a Day Keeps the High Costs Away

Then, starting with the US$13000 marginal cost of a V2, we arrive at a cost of ...

One analogy in particular regarding V2 rockets, Nazis, and ignoring the use ... The recurring cost was $13000 a launch for those vehicles. ...

That document is specious. Getting something to orbit is a lot harder than launching a whack of V2s (holding nothing but an explosive payload) across the English Channel and the huge market for rockets foreseen in 1993 (when that paper was written) disappeared with the bankruptcy of the Iridium, Orbcomm, Globalstar, Odyssey, etc. communication constellations. Today we can mass-produce missiles which are much more effective than the V2, but we still cannot create cheap orbital vehicles.

Mass production and cheap launches would be a sure-fire money-maker, right? That it hasn't happened in a half-century of western rocket technology should raise a bright red flag that something other than willpower or a global conspiracy is keeping it from happening.

The capsule is on top of the stack. Unlike the case of the Space Shuttle, if a SpaceX rocket blows up, the capsule on top can simply jetison away and deploy a parachute.

Was that ice on the screen at about 5m?

Video (09:59):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To-XOPgaGsQ

I only have two words for this video.

Awe Inspiring.

I had to send it to everyone I know, Thanks for the link.

You're welcome. Here is the 40-minute version that includes Elon Musk's post-launch address to the SpaceX employees in Hawthorne, California, and post-launch interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FQhtMrUQlE

Thankyou again.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com