SpaceX ISS launch webcast starts at 4:15 am EDT

Think on that a while. Think what it would mean even to only partially succeed at those goals, even by a wide margin.

Also, because it's happening 54 years after NASA was setup.

The kind of reading you linked to is disingenuous in the extreme and this kind of stuff seems common in SpaceX fans. Falcon/Dragon comparable to Apollo 11? No, not even remotely, Apollo 11 was the first event of its kind, SpaceX is currently attempting something which has been repeatedly achieved for the last 50 years, something which is almost routine for many nations nowadays: putting payloads in low orbit.

I don't want to put SpaceX down, what they're doing is great and opens the door for cheaper and simpler commercial exploitation of low-orbit, but comparing it to Apollo 11 is infuriatingly off-base and insane. And it's an insult to all of those who came before SpaceX, all of those who've worked in space agencies the world over (and especially NASA).

What's odd here is the failure to point out what SpaceX is doing differently --- engineering not for optimal performance, but for price/performance. (Using the same basic engine design on both Falcon 9 stages, for instance, and designing the tankage so that common tooling can be used for both stages. I'm sure there are more decisions along these lines that they haven't made public.)

Edit: My mistake, the computers detected an engine parameter that was out of bounds. See you guys early Tuesday morning for round 2.

Better luck Tuesday.

Next launch opportunity, May 22 at 12:44:34 AM PST

Here's a video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AevYDCAE1xc

Edit: Elon Musk tweeted "Launch aborted: slightly high combustion chamber pressure on engine 5. Will adjust limits for countdown in a few days"

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=6%3A30+a.m.+EDT+in+loca...

50 minutes after this post

and hell yes, I stayed up to see it live!!

And this is largely because the company is entirely commercial. They build rockets and spacecraft to their own specs not based on government contracts and to government rules and specifications. They have built an entire orbital launch vehicle which is competitive in capabilities to the Ariane 5, the Delta IV, the Atlas V, and the Proton M, all of which took enormous government programs and billions of dollars to develop. SpaceX build their rocket from scratch for less than half a billion dollars all told. That is revolutionary.

More so, they are only the 4th entity in the world who has succeeded in any degree in creating and launching an orbital spacecraft that is capable of being manned and they are almost certain to be the first non-government entity in history to launch astronauts into orbit.

And that is just the prelude. They are also working on the Falcon Heavy, which will provide extra capability and far lower costs than the Falcon 9. And they are working on a fully reusable launch vehicle from the 1st stage up through the crew capsule, which would revolutionize manned spaceflight in a way that we can scarcely imagine today.

"we usually spend years to build something to put into orbit, even though 99% of the work is done in six months, because we have to be 1000% sure it will work, as it is too expensive to try again. If we can send something into space for a tenth of the current cost it means we can do it much more often, do more things, and do it faster."

So, I guess it's like low cost airlines did not change the flight industry (you could go from A to B even before) but they changed the game cause now it's a smaller deal to do it.

I disagree. They should sport the Pan-Am logo.