I try not to read news or surf the net on Sundays (that whole keeping the Sabbath Day holy thing, you know), so I missed being able to watch SpaceX’s fourth launch live. But, as everyone reading this already knows, they nailed it this time.
I had the chance last December to meet a lot of the people on the propulsion side of this project, including Tom Mueller, Kevin Brogan, Glen N, and several others. I was impressed at the time with the quality of the team, and with what they’ve accomplished. Most of the original design work on the Falcon I vehicle was done by only a small handful of people as I understand it. I hope they’re proud of what they’ve accomplished–they should be.
I’m glad that their hard work has finally paid off.
They’ve still got a long way to go from here to where they want to achieve, but this was an awesome milestone. Congrats guys!
Jonathan Goff
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Heh. I missed the launch for the same reason. But undeniably this a great first step on a long journey.
Awww I can’t post using my blogspot account anymore. 😉
I’m sorry you missed it, but as an ex-intern, let me tell you I kinda wish I had missed it and seen the replay. That was 40 min of complete and utter nerve-wracking excitement. I couldn’t believe how smoothly that countdown went! I was chatting with some other former interns and everytime the vid feed glitched, the Kestral burped or the sound flurped, our hearts skipped more than a few beats. But man, when SECO came and cleanly went, that was probably the best feeling I could have had. Can’t wait until Masten experiences this exhilaration!
PS. Love the new website!
Swatch,
I can only imagine. When we were doing flight tests of XA-0.1, I remember that feeling. Except that ours were typically much shorter… That said, it’s crazy to thing we’re almost out there again. As little as I like the butterflies in my stomach, I could go for the exhilaration of a good flight. 🙂
~Jon
I was excited to see how quickly they plan to ramp up to the Falcon-9. I’m hoping (like they are) that the lessons learned from the Falcon-1 can directly apply to the 9. In two years, we could be looking at the Dragon cargo capsule arriving at the ISS. T W O Y E A R S. That’s really soon.
I also see that Wiki is saying that Elon will fly a Bigelow module in ’11. What’s that about? If they launch a Bigelow with a Falcon-9, can they then launch a manned Falcon to rendezvous with it? Elon could be his own space program in 3 years.
Falcon 9 is far more closely derived from Falcon 1 than the Stick is from the Shuttle.