Balafon

So now that it seems that Nasa’s new spacecraft designs are in such bad shape as to be unsuitable for their stated purpose of returning to the moon, it seems more and more likely that private companies like SpaceX are the future of space travel.

SpaceX has just announced a long-duration uncrewed version of its Dragon capsule that can be used as a little mini space station. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they were working on designs for getting to the moon and beyond.

Of course this all depends on the Falcon 9 being proven as a reliable launch vehicle. The Falcon 1 is one for four at the moment, so there’s still a ways to go.

In all the crazyness of the past few weeks I completely forgot to mention the fact that the fourth time was the charm for SpaceX, who flew the first privately-funded liquid-fueled rocket to orbit last weekend.

Congratulations to SpaceX, and I hope that this is a further step on the road to an expanded human presence in space.

Well, the past week has been pretty eventful; we sold our 650-square-foot condo and have bought a 1400-square-foot townhouse in Richmond, BC. And we’re moving in just over 3 weeks, so the craziness is like to continue.

I’ve even been too busy to note last Saturday’s SpaceX launch and subsequent failure of their 3rd Falcon 1 rocket. Turns out that the new engine they were testing burned a little longer than they expected after shutdown, and the first stage bumped into the second stage after they separated. Which is disappointing, but an easy fix — just separate a bit later after main engine cutoff.

There’s even a video, which is pretty darn cool.

SpaceX say that they might launch another rocket in a month or so. I’m a huge space geek, so of course I’m hoping that the fourth time will be the charm.