[ExI] SpaceX launch

Damien Broderick thespike at satx.rr.com
Wed Dec 8 17:01:45 UTC 2010


A pal writes:

This morning reading the news on my iPad, I noticed that SpaceX was going
to launch their Falcon 9 rocket with the first flight of their Dragon
cargo spacecraft in an hour.  This launch is the first time a commercial
company has a license to re-enter a spacecraft from orbit.  I'd been to a
Shuttle launch before back in 1983 (the first night launch), so I wondered
what it would be like.  Now I don't follow space activities that closely
anymore, but I figured they would have a webcast and I was right.

It was incredible.

The launch was a beautiful explosion of light and sound.  And the audio
wasn't the polished NASA media speak.   It felt real.

Within 5 min of launch, the first stage separated and the video from the
rocket showed the curve of the Earth in space.  It was like I was on the
rocket being lifted off into orbit peering out the porthole.

I felt like I was an old time rocketeer who had just gone out to the space
port to watch the rockets take off on lazy sunday afternoon.  Kinda like
the thrill that I imagined in all those 1950s SF stories.  Private
companies launching rockets almost to the point of becoming routine.

Fiction become reality.

Thanks to all the SF writers and their imaginations who inspired these
people (and many others) to dream big.  We're getting there.  Not in the
way I imagined, nor as quickly, but better with the internet as we can all
observe.

Now I'm off to see if they are going to webcast the re-entry in a couple
of hours.

===========

Some video at

<http://gizmodo.com/5709153/the-first-private-orbital-spacecraft-launch>





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