Successful test launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9

[Trax]

The first successful launch of the Falcon 9 rocket developed by the private company SpaceX.

The payload consisted of the prototype of the Dragon spaceship that will hopefully be used to service the ISS in the near future.

[gambit]

Im sure this is actually fairly important, but whoever they hired to name these things is definitely getting a promotion

[CtrlAltDe1337]

Im sure this is actually fairly important, but whoever they hired to name these things is definitely getting a promotion

That's what I was thinking Admittedly, NASA's names haven't been that bad (Explorer, Voyager, etc) but these are a lot cooler imo.

[Jaketh]

hopefully this is the beginning of Private Corporations leading the advancement of humanity into space, now that NASA has been all but shutdown

[Viking Prince]

I am assming that nothing from the launch vehicle is reusable including the capsule. How is this supposed to be cheaper than the shuttle? I know that being unmanned makes this cheaper than a manned launch, but still....

Has anybody heard when the next launch is planned. I heard that if the first was successful, they were going to send the next launch to the ISS. I do not know if there will be supplies or not though.

[Syron]

I am assming that nothing from the launch vehicle is reusable including the capsule. How is this supposed to be cheaper than the shuttle? I know that being unmanned makes this cheaper than a manned launch, but still....

This is a test flight, the "capsule" at the top is a dummy mass and not the final thing. AFAIK the capsule will eventually be reusable.

Lets get one thing straight, Dragon is not a direct replacement for the Shuttle. The Shuttle launches 7 astronauts as well as about the same amount of cargo in it's bay has the heaviest lift cargo carrying rockets today. For safety reasons (so you can optimise the launch systems) these two jobs will be separated in the future. The Dragon (and others) is a replacement for the manned element only, the Shuttle is a far more capable vehicle, if getting on a bit.

You are also under the false assumption that reusable necessarily means cheaper.

The Shuttle was meant to demonstrate how reusable spaceplanes could be used to bring down costs. It failed. The Shuttle is incredibly expensive to maintain and launch. Each launch campaign costs something in the region of over a billion dollars! If you combine the rough cost of a Falcon 9 launch and a heavy lift cargo launch then it is still far cheaper than a single shuttle launch which will already begin to reduce costs as well as being more flexible.

Eventually reusable spaceplanes will probably begin to become economical when the technologies become fully developed but it's not at that stage yet, certainly not for a large spaceplane.

That being said the first stages of The Falcon 9 are supposed to be reusable, once recovered from the ocean, which is far less technologically challenging than a reusable spaceplane. Not on this flight though.



The main reasons why this and other private vehicles are supposed to be cheaper is by bringing competitive economics as well as giving the critical mass for a commercial industry that can provide off-the-shelf technology (and hence cheaper) to use in constructing rockets as well as the cheaper cost of dual launches mentioned above.

Has anybody heard when the next launch is planned. I heard that if the first was successful, they were going to send the next launch to the ISS. I do not know if there will be supplies or not though.

Provisionally the next launch will be early next year. Even given the success of the first flight I don't think the next will be to the ISS. Still a number of bugs to sort out.

[Hotspur]

A shuttle launch costs about half a billion dollars. The Falcon-9 is supposed to cost $27 million and has about half the cargo capacity to LEO as the shuttle. Even if you tripled the launch cost of the Falcon you would still be looking at a 50% reduction in cost over the shuttle. Combine this with the inflatable space station stuff Bigelow is developing and the next 10 years should be very interesting....

[GuineaPig]

NASA has sick names. I don't know, Dragon and Falcon just seem so derivative.

[Ramashan]

This is actually quite exciting and could in some ways be historical if it does kick off a greater private space launching industry as well as actually get people into space. Then we can stop paying the Russians, who after this year will be the only Nation on the planet able to send people effeciently into space.