Be Excellent To Each Other

http://spacefellowship.com/News/?p=6780

So, the SpaceX has made it into Earth orbit. As the first privately funded organisation to put a spaceship into orbit, this is pretty significant. Moreover, they've done this with only 550 employees and at a cost of only $8Million per flight. That's massively impressive compared to the current state of national space programmes.

Does the intervention of private enterprise herald a breakthrough in the technology and speed of growth of mankind's advancement into space and the death of national space programmes, or will it become bogged down by safety issues and profiteering?

Only time will tell, but frankly I'm excited. We need to get off this rock.

I would say a combination of both... faster progress, coupled with a few cost-saving related disasters.

Have you seen The Big Picture. Most impressive photo blog. Anyway, compare the Americans to how the Russians do it.

I can pretty much assure you that you and I aren't getting off this rock.

Crack's a bitch.

Pfft. I reckon the timing's about fine for a retirement party on Ganymede.

Ho ho! Richard Garriott is in some of the pics!

Love those pics Plissken. It amuses me how the same function looks so wildly different, it's like opposing sides in a cheesy RTS. I kind of dig the Russian functional look.

Also, some of those lady astronauts are kinda cute.

Subscribe to the RSS feed - some of the collections are just awesome. The "London at Night" and "Short life of Ike" ones are beautiful.