Comments on: Half A Million Bucks Could Get You Round-Trip To Mars http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/sci/million-bucks-roundtrip-mars.html Stomping Science Fiction Thu, 23 May 2013 10:23:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Chris Paris http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/sci/million-bucks-roundtrip-mars.html/comment-page-1#comment-5421 Chris Paris Thu, 22 Mar 2012 02:19:00 +0000 http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/?p=14138#comment-5421 As someone who works with SpaceX, maybe I have a dog in this fight, but the company’s track record to date far surpasses any other rocket development program in human history. The Falcon 1 vehicle was mission-successful on its fourth flight, and the revolutionary Falcon 9 nine-engine was successful on its FIRST flight. The F9′s second flight was the first commercial spacecraft to ever deploy an astronaut capsule and successfully recover it. The Falcon 9 will be docking with the ISS on only its third flight.

The BBC article is way off base. It took years and many, many test launches for NASA and the rest to get their Deltas, Titans and Saturns off the ground. 

Having said that, the risks are higher for SpaceX, and if something goes wrong, they won’t have taxpayer money to bail them out. THAT is the bigger concern.

]]> By: Chris Paris http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/sci/million-bucks-roundtrip-mars.html/comment-page-1#comment-5422 Chris Paris Thu, 22 Mar 2012 02:19:00 +0000 http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/?p=14138#comment-5422 As someone who works with SpaceX, maybe I have a dog in this fight, but the company’s track record to date far surpasses any other rocket development program in human history. The Falcon 1 vehicle was mission-successful on its fourth flight, and the revolutionary Falcon 9 nine-engine was successful on its FIRST flight. The F9′s second flight was the first commercial spacecraft to ever deploy an astronaut capsule and successfully recover it. The Falcon 9 will be docking with the ISS on only its third flight.

The BBC article is way off base. It took years and many, many test launches for NASA and the rest to get their Deltas, Titans and Saturns off the ground. 

Having said that, the risks are higher for SpaceX, and if something goes wrong, they won’t have taxpayer money to bail them out. THAT is the bigger concern.

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