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June 20, 2010
Sunday
 
 
The next logical step...
Dale Amon (Belfast, Northern Ireland/Laramie, Wy)  Aerospace

Now that the Falcon 9 has flown, the Falcon 9 Heavy is looking a lot closer.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about the success of SpaceX is that they have designed and orbited multiple clean-sheet design engines; the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles; and a test article for a cargo/manned space capsule for about $500M. That's comparable to the fully burdened (Not the incremental) cost of one shuttle flight. I believe it is less than the escape system development cost on the dead-on-arrival Ares I project.

Comments

But how soon before I could buy a ticket to the moon? (I want to harvest all that cheese!) And how much would it cost me?


Posted by Nuke Gray at June 21, 2010 06:24 AM

Damn

It does seem to be happening! And fairly fast! As Obama has shown he doesn't much care for space (a good thing! - and hence he is letting private companies run the show), I guess we aren't as worried about regulatory uncertainty as say, in health care or financial markets?


Posted by Contemplationist at June 23, 2010 04:12 AM
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