SpaceX's Falcon 1 makes orbit after four attempts
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted Sep 29th 2008 1:11AM
posted Sep 29th 2008 1:11AM
T+0:08:21 Falcon 1 reached orbital velocity, 5200 m/s
Nominal Second stage cut off (SECO) - Falcon 1 has made history as the first privately developed liquid fueled launch vehicle to achieve earth orbit!!!!!!
Needless to say, after the trials and tribulations SpaceX has gone through (including the loss of Star Trek star James Doohan's ashes), this must be welcome relief... as well as the birth of a potentially lucrative new enterprise. Er, no pun intended.
[Via Slashdot; Thanks, Kenneth]
video is already on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eATJS-aKrD8
Is it just me, or does the "Video replays coming soon" message have some sarcastic undertone to it?
Is SpaceX public? I'm buying stock. Imagine the money in twenty years.
No, but they were talking about doing so in late 2009
Thanks cesium, I'll be keeping a look out with these guys.
Usually when someone says "no pun intended," what they're really saying is, "hey, notice my clever pun!"
haha u got that from Maddox didnt you
For some odd reason, I feel that you would use air quotes in conversation quite often.
now the govt can't hide their conspiracies with aliens from us anymore...
What moon landing?
What F304? And I've never heard of a Ha'tak.
what dead hooker in my trunk?
It will be a sad day for many when they realize there really never was a conspiracy.
Well I guess not really... conspiracy junkies are pretty resourceful. They'll find ways to continue their crazy beliefs, no matter how much evidence is stacked against them.
@Plothole
Case in point: Flat Earth Society
http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/
Those people scare the hell out of me.
Sex Panther > Elon Musk
lol o Bergundy
60% of the time, it works every time.
wooo lets make way for the evil ruthless mega corporations to commercialize space, Just like sci-fi has been to predicting for decades. lol
No I'm joking this is pretty awesome and I'm happy for them I can't wait to able to travel from one side of the world to the other in less then an hour.
But it says the USA Airforce on the side of the rocket, doesn't that mean that it was funded in some way by the military/government? o_O
The development was entirely private, however, the USAF and DARPA sponsored Demo Flight 2.
So was that 3 attempts or 4 attempts?
Three failed attempts before this (fourth) successful attempt.
cool, now i'd like my moon-hotel pls, kthxbai
Awesome news! Now hopefully they can launch the Falcon 9 successfully, and start sending people to the ISS.
Well Done, A great feet of engineering.
One day I too will reach orbit, until then I better keep to my HPR launches
In fact the Falcon 1 is a great target for the Air Force. Could it be that the first three were actually shot down in a test of the DeathRay?
Beam me up, Scotty....
Sorry. He can't.