It Flies!

So Elon Musk's Falcon 1 rocket from his company Space X actually flies!. Well, the second stage had a problem that prevented it from achieving the desired orbit, but Elon reckons it's a fixable problem. Given that he's fixed costs for Falcon 1 flights at $7 million, there will be a lot of big rocket companies getting very nervous, as his cheapest competitors in that size range don't do anything for less than $20 mil. And that $7 mil, apparently, is before even taking into account the intent to reuse the vehicle's first stage (no report on whether they've recovered the first stage on this one yet, or if it'll still be working when they do).

Bigger vehicles will follow, based on the same design, including the human-rated Falcon 9. This technology is still nowhere near what's required to make a full-scale commerical boom in space, but it's a start. Today, a flight on a Russian Soyuz costs about $20 mil for a tourist. I'd guess Falcon 9 could get that down to $5 mil or less. And a guy named Bigelow is working on private space stations for tourists to stay at when they get there.

The first transistor radios were pretty simple too, compared to today's ipods and other gadgets, but they did something very important -- they demonstrated a demand for a product. Once recognised, money poured in, companies competed with each other to develop superior products, and technology was invented with all that investment that made the original transistor radios look obselete. Falcon 1, and Falcon 9, are the transistor radios of what's to come. Imagine what the ipod will look like.