Comments on: SpaceX launches first official cargo resupply mission to International Space Station

By: IokSotot

IokSotot — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 07:35:00 +0000

The snivelers and bootlickers of billionaires will be dealt with around the same time as the billionaires themselves. So watch it toady. This “I ams innocents” stuff won’t cut it in the gulag.

By: nettdata

nettdata — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 03:37:00 +0000

Looks like you’ll have to rename your company from “Interplanetary” to “Suborbital”.

By: IamInnocent

IamInnocent — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 03:04:00 +0000

They’re more like billionaires and you are more theirs than they are yours. ;)

By: nixiebunny

nixiebunny — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 02:43:00 +0000

Which is not the place it’s intended to be. Sure, things in orbit move all the time, so you might not want to call an orbit a place. But consider that the place you put your reading glasses is also in orbit, as we’re all on a spinning ball that’s orbiting the sun.

By: kateling

kateling — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 02:25:00 +0000

Clearly the press release put some spin on things. But ignoring that, it’s not a difference between public and private. NASA was more risk-taking in the early days, and their failures were due to an entrenched bureaucracy, not an abundance of caution. They ignored engineers who told them there was a problem. There are plenty of private companies who’ve reached that same stage of entrenched bureaucracy, and it could easily happen to SpaceX in another 30 years.

By: IokSotot

IokSotot — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 02:13:00 +0000

Yep. They used to be your millions too.

By: Culturedropout

Culturedropout — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 02:05:00 +0000

It’s interesting to me how much the SpaceX employees seem to care about the whole (pardon the pun) enterprise. It’s almost as if, when you hire good people who really want to be doing what they’re doing for you, and then get out of the way, good things happen. NASA is great, but I think that with a private company that’s a little less conservative in their approach to things, and a little more willing to take risks, you’re more likely to actually get things done in a reasonable time frame. And as experience with the shuttle showed, even if you’re really, really cautious to an almost absurd degree, bad things can still happen. The difference is in whether you allow failures to bring you to a stop, or treat them as a learning experience and maintain your momentum.

By: RJ

RJ — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 01:28:00 +0000

Not to worry; they’ll be re-entering the atmosphere any day now, so everything will turn out fine. *coff*

By: Ian Wood

Ian Wood — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 00:42:00 +0000

It’s not in the wrong place. It’s in a lower than intended orbit.

By: nixiebunny

nixiebunny — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 00:10:00 +0000

Anomaly is such a more pleasant word than failure.

That said, it did recover nicely. Except for that thing about the Orbcomm satellite ending up in the wrong place.

By: Stefan Jones

Stefan Jones — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 23:54:00 +0000

Yes. But they’re our millionaires.

By: IokSotot

IokSotot — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 23:39:00 +0000

And commercial space ventures improve something the communists were doing since the early 80′s how exactly?

Now some millionaire is making money out of it? I see.

By: Doug Sinclair

Doug Sinclair — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 23:37:00 +0000

A second stage relight before secondary deployment would have been nice too. It looks like a bunch of my kit is stranded in very low orbit.

By: Ian Wood

Ian Wood — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 23:18:00 +0000

It didn’t explode. It ejected pressure relief panels.

By: nixiebunny

nixiebunny — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 23:11:00 +0000

“The Falcon 9 rocket, powered by nine Merlin engines, performed nominally today during every phase of its approach to orbit, including two stage separations, solar array deployment, and the final push of Dragon into its intended orbit.”

If you don’t count the explosion of engine number 1 a minute into the flight, that is.