While I applaud Space-X for its achievements and wish them the best of luck, it is hard to get too excited about the economics, as it will still be around $10K per pound for payload. I am actually more excited about what the Brits are doing. Check out the Skylon Spaceplane Project (Google it for the BBC article). During its 'airplane stage', the Skylon gets some benefit from 'lift', as well as utilizing oxygen in the air as oxidizer (and not having to haul as much fuel); in the 'spaceplane stage' it is basically a rocket. The article did not get into details about payloads or possible economics, however, the concept leaves room for significant (albeit not huge) savings. Even 20-30% savings would make it well worth doing. Stay tuned.

Jay, it's hard to talk about the economics of any program until it's up an running. The space shuttle had it's intended economics and then there were the realities of the program. The same will hold true for SpaceX and your Skylon spaceplane, if it ever gets built. It's an intriguing idea and I hope to see Skylon succeed. The more ways human kind can access space the better.

Hi Mob, yes it is early in the game for Skylon, however, I certainly think they deserve the 250 million (pounds sterling) to build a fully working model of the engine--there are no technical showstoppers. I just hope NASA is paying attention. I am also rooting for scramjet technology to improve to the point that it could be used for a launch vehicle. I know the military is working on it. Ironically, if they succeed, it might take the Russians or Chinese to steal that technology before it is released for civilian use...

Scramjets (and the vehicles that could use them) are in fact more trouble than they're worth for ascending to orbit. Even Skylon's designers explicitly stayed away from them, the SABRE engine is an exotic, high-performance turbojet/rocket combination that never functions as a ramjet, supersonic combustion or otherwise.

Most military interest in scramjets is for multi-Mach cruising entirely within the atmosphere, for reconnaissance (manned or unmanned) purposes, or as ultra-fast weapons systems, either a returnable (again, manned or unmanned) carrier of missiles, or as an extremely fast cruise missile.

But the structural and material demands of air-breathing flight at double-digit Mach numbers to orbit (note that scramjets will also be heavier than rockets of the same thrust) are greater than all-rocket vehicles or switching from air-breathing to rockets at lower speeds. The carrot of not carrying along all your oxidizer becomes a phantom, beyond a certain point...

Hi Frank, sorry I wasn't more clear about using scramjet technology--I was thinking about hybrid use, like Skylon. Thanks for the info on the weight issue, though. Whether it is ramjet, scramjet or a SABRE, though, I think all of these should be pursued as launch-assist technologies. Pure chemical rocket technology is quite expensive (cost per pound of payload, not to mention the billions of development cost) and, until we develop something better, will very much limit manned missions for the foreseeable future.

Albert Einstein shared a patent for a refrigerator that ran on heat, the expansion-condensing cycle cooling off a small box for preserving food, replacing or instead of an "ice-box". Superheated steam is used similarly to cool large buildings I've been told. It seems one of the problems in upper atmosphere physics it the heat that friction induces in the airstream inside whatever combustion engine employed, the SR-71 "Blackbird" for example has large cones in front of the engines to slow the air induction below supersonic. Maybe with the right design some heat could be used to cool some of the airstream? I light a refrigerator up with propane every summer.

only if space x duse it . nsasa buget keeps getting smaller and smaller

George -

The problem with your idea is that refrigerators are aggregate heat-producing devices. They can cool off a limited space for food, but overall, refrigerators - propane-driven or otherwise - consume energy and therefore produce more heat than they remove. Putting such a cooling device on a supersonic airplane would end up producing more heat than it removes. Besides, the "cones" on the SR-71 example you cited already do that. Heat on the leading edge of supersonic structures is not due to friction; rather, it's due to the rapid compression of air in front of the structure. (Similar to how your bicycle pump gets hot when you pump up your tires.) The SR-71 cones allow a small protion of air to re-expand (on the back-side of each cone), thus instantly removing the heat.

Regarding superheated steam to cool buildings ... I would question whoever told you that. If a building is producing superheated steam, it's probably being used to run a generator that is, in turn, running the cooling system. From a physics perspective, the process of heating the water to superheated steam is producing more heat than it's removing from the building.

There's this concept in thermodynamics called "entropy." It basically says that no matter what you do to try and move heat around, you'll end up generating more heat in the process.

Oh I'm nervous. We're all praying for the success of this mission! Space tech will become the new intercontinental railroad project to space!

Thanks for the info. If we want to ship materials I would think heat might be a problem at speed. There's the story, (also in "Space Cowboys") of the SR-71 "leaking" fuel until it heats up sealing joints, no exactly encouraging. I thought something would have to cool things off above the record atmosphere speeds of an X-15.

Congrats SpaceX!

SpaceX reports the Falcon 9 engines reached full thrust for two seconds, deeming today's static fire a success.

Engineers will carefully review all day from the hotfire in the next few days before the mission's scheduled May 7 launch to the International Space Station.

Systems are designed for the job they are expected to do. As this program progresses, there will be a version of the SLS that is much larger than the Falcon 9.

Redphish is correct, in fact, SLS will scale up to 130mt to LEO, which will make it the most powerful rocket ever built.

Also Grumpy, at 11mt to LEO, the Falcon9 is about 5x more powerful than the rockets used during Project Mercury (i.e., Redstone and Atlas D). It is also far more sophisticated, and will scale up to 54mt to LEO (see "Falon Heavy").

p.s. My estimate that "Falcon9 is 5x more powerful" was based on comparing Falcon9 to the AtlasD... the more powerful of the two Project Mercury rockets.

Falcon9 is closer to 15x more powerful when compared to the Redstone rocket, and again, FAR more sophisticated. There is no comparison really.

Grumpy, also keep in mind, that within the next few years we will see the Atlas V and/or the Delta IV doing manned launchers. They are closer to the 20mt to LEO range. Which really isn't much less cargo mass than what the Shuttle could put into orbit (not including the Shuttle itself).

Its a shame that we are reverting back to the small Mercury type rockets after having done the Apollo and Shuttle launches

Not really. The Shuttle was a complete waste of money for what it did. It was too big to economically send just people into space, and too small to economically send cargo into space.

For the price of the Shuttle Program (over the last thirty something years I mean), we could have continued manufacturing and launched two Saturn V Moon Missions per year and better than half a dozen Saturn I missions to launch smaller payloads into low-earth orbit.

Just for sake of reference, the entire International Space Station could have been launched in three Saturn V flights (speaking the the S-V usefulness also in launching extra-large payloads into LEO).

MJMullan, the space shuttle had one unique capability.. It could bring large sensitive instruments and experiments BACK. The runway landing allowed for some missions that couldn't be done otherwise.

True, but that capability was used so seldom as to have made the building of a one-time-use "recovery" vehicle more economic.

The biggest thing the Shuttle "brought back" from space was the trash from the International Space Station. Which, now in the absence of the shuttle, they simply stuff it into a Russian Automated Resupply module and allow it to burn up in the atmosphere (and no one seems to have any problem with this, BTW).

"For the price of the Shuttle Program (over the last thirty something years I mean), we could have continued manufacturing and launched two Saturn V Moon Missions per year and better than half a dozen Saturn I missions to launch smaller payloads into low-earth orbit."

But it was irrelevant, because we had explicitly chosen to stop going to the Moon. We stopped making Saturns, because we stopped doing the things that required them, not the other way around. That we didn't use up all the SaturnVs produced, demonstrates that.

With no real, funded plan to use them, SLS will end up the same way, if it's ever finished at all...

Not everyone is okay with burning the ISS trash on reentry. I'm not a tree hugger by any means but the fact that we allow the trash from the ISS to burn up is ridiculous and the practice needs to stop. It's like camping, you pack it in, you pack it out. If we don't have a suitable plan for the garbage we produce then how advanced are we, really?

And the same goes for the ISS itself. The very thought of de-orbiting the ISS to a water grave in the south pacific makes me sick. All those parts and components should be utilized in some way. I could think of a thousand better things to use the ISS for than letting it burn up and fall into the ocean.

The shuttles were outdated and dangerous because Congress cut funding for R and D! Duh! There is no infrastructure in place for exploration or exploitation of the moon, Mars or the asteroid belt. From my perspective Space X is a puny and pathetic effort! Oh, and I should add, the four "...private non-governmental launch-to-orbit companies..." you tout received $270 million in taxpayer funded seed money a year ago.

Ernest-don't be deceitful. We both know that $270 million is a small fraction of the development and operating costs of these companies.Is the ISS at $100 billion a worthwhile cost??What is your solution? Keep funding the dysfunctional and bloated NASA structure or seed companies that can get it done in a much more efficient way?Space X is "puny and pathetic"? Really? They have a demonstrated launch capability that will only grow and thrive and by the way Elon Musk has real world plans-unlike NASA- for missions to the moon and Mars. Stagnate on Earth with NASA or move forward with commercial space flight-it's a clear choice.

No irony Ernest. Space x is paying for launch facilities at Canaveral. It's the Capitalist democratic American system at work.

"By the way, no irony that Space X is using the big gub'munt Cape Canaveral launch facility."

And where do you think virtually all other US commercial payloads have launched from? Ask ULA.

Nothing new here, move along, move along...

Why wouldn't they use the launch complex at Cape Canaveral? It's already built and functional and is closer to the equator which is beneficial for launching vehicles to orbit.. what's the better alternative here?

This ain't your Führer's rocket. The V-2 had one engine and carried a 2,200 lb warhead on a sub-orbital ballistic trajectory. The Falcon 9 has nine engines and carries a payload of 23,000 pounds into orbit.

Because getting investors to get involved in an industry that technically doesn't exist at the moment is damn near impossible. NASA gives them funding to get it up and running and once it is the investors will come.

To bad there's not a clause, that once they become profitable and are able to pay back NASA for the funding, that they have to reimburse the funds.