"The rocket business is definitely not a low-stress business, that's for sure."

Yesterday's test launch of private rocket Falcon 1 fails to complete full orbit because of a "roll-control anomaly" during the second-stage burn; SpaceX founder Elon Musk explains what went wrong, and is unbowed.

Katherine Mangu-Ward explored the current state of private space flight efforts in our January issue.

Comments

Sigh. | March 21, 2007, 11:13am | #

Nothing new here, just ask the Soviets.

Dan T. | March 21, 2007, 11:18am | #

Interesting. Had this same problem happened with a NASA rocket, Reason would be all over it as yet another example of how the government cannot do anything right.

Timon19 | March 21, 2007, 11:32am | #

That libertarian in Dan's head must really be pissing him off.

carrick | March 21, 2007, 12:12pm | #

Apparently Dan does not remember the 60's when NASA had many launch failures including fatalities.

In this case, a private enterprise managee to hit 186 miles of altitude. The rocket did not achieve its intended target, but this was hardly an abject failure.

Rex Rhino | March 21, 2007, 1:04pm | #

Interesting. Had this same problem happened with a NASA rocket, Reason would be all over it as yet another example of how the government cannot do anything right.

The difference is, the government charges me half my income in order to waste my money on faulty rockets... where the private industry can do it at no cost to me, and for a fraction of the cost of NASA stupidity.

The government is also a monopoly - so if NASA fails, the U.S. space program fails... Where if a private space company fails, there will be multiple competitors that will survive.

highnumber | March 21, 2007, 2:12pm | #

"The rocket business is definitely not a low-stress business, that's for sure."

He's probably glad it's not booming.

R C Dean | March 21, 2007, 3:08pm | #

Aaand, we have a winner at 2:12.

VM | March 21, 2007, 4:12pm | #

[walks in, dressed as knight. bonks Highnumber over the head with a rubber chicken. walks out]

blogimi Dei | March 21, 2007, 4:46pm | #

falling...

out...

of...

chair...

anonymous coward | March 22, 2007, 9:17am | #

Yesterday's test launch of private rocket Falcon 1 fails to complete full orbit because of a "roll-control anomaly" during the second-stage burn

Geez. It's not like this stuff is rocket science.

Oh wait...

highnumber | March 23, 2007, 7:33pm | #

Watch out for that moose-knight, ac.