Next stop for SpaceX is space station

5/23/2012 9:31 AM EDT

We'd prefer to focus on the company and the technology as opposed to the SpaceX CEO, who is currently a media darling. Say what you want about Elon Musk, but so far he has done, as the Apollo astronauts used to say, "what we said we were going to do."

5/23/2012 11:23 AM EDT

That's pretty much the point. Generally technology doesn't become broadly commercially viable until it reaches a point where it's no longer the exclusive domain of genius.

Space flight will not be private and commercial until it is routine enough and old enough technology to be lower cost and more reliable. There are uncountable commercial products that came from NASA IP. Space-X is using publicly funded technology and infrastructure as a base, but so does everyone else when they pull their car out onto a public street.

It's impossible to say if Space-X will end up profitable, but it is a very significant milestone in getting space travel out of R&D and into the hands of commercial ventures. Low earth orbit should be low-tech commercial at this point in the evolution of space travel. NASA needs to focus on real research, exploration and discovery. That's where NASA's value lies. Not in being a trucking company.

5/23/2012 2:29 AM EDT

coz a private firm's top concern is cost, not safety.

a safer equipment most time will cost more. how to balance it? govt could put some brake on it, but by how far ?

5/23/2012 5:19 AM EDT

In the 19th century, there were a series of parliamant acts in the UK to restrict/control the use of motor cars on British roads, because of safety concerns. In one of these acts, cars were restricted to travel at a maximum of 4 mph in the countryside and 2 mph in towns, and have a person walking ahead of the car, carrying a red flag to warn off pedestrians :-) Some say these acts held back the progress of British car industry for decades, allowing the Germans in particular to gain a considerable lead.

Safety concerns in space missions are real and I do personally share them, but if history is anything to go by, these concerns will probably look ridiculous in 50-60 years. Wish these folks the very best of luck!

5/23/2012 9:38 AM EDT

Space travel is an entirely different and deadly game. We have cited critics who warn that SpaceX hasn't blown up enough rockets to know if it can safely carry humans to orbit. Other commercial space companies have an even bigger problem since their entire business model is based on space tourism. Someone is eventually going to be killed by a commercial space vendor, and the question is whether the industry can survive and move on. If you choose to spend a $1M for a suborbital flight, for example, you must acknowledge before leaving the ground that space travel is risky and you stand a decent chance of being killed.

5/23/2012 10:11 AM EDT

Many people died in the early days of the motor industry (and still do!) and the aforementioned parliament acts were all designed to prevent that. I was really struck by the fear factor of cars in the early days of the industry. In the same way, I think ultimately, we will conquer our fear and go for it in space. Whether this is it, or we will have to wait a bit longer is another matter....

5/23/2012 9:33 AM EDT

NASA has never built rockets or spacecraft. It has always relied on American aerospace companies to build these machines. Our "silly political system" is now attempting to create some competition in a new commercial space industry. Lockheed Martin and Boeing are pioneers in this industry, and now they have competitors.

5/23/2012 9:22 AM EDT

Space travel to low Earth orbit, while still dangerous, is well understood. It does not push the state of the art. The U.S. space shuttle worked well, but it was an extremely complex, expensive machine built under the old "cost-plus" contract approach. Those days are over. It's time for NASA to focus on "going somewhere" in space and leave relatively routine tasks like space station flights to qualified commercial space companies. So far, SpaceX is the most qualified given what they have accomplished, not merely what they have promised.

5/23/2012 11:38 AM EDT

I'll say "Go USA" and "Go Humanity"! As messed up as things are in this country right now, someone can still be creative and determined, and endeavor to do great things regardless of whether they were born here or not. That gives me hope in our country and in our economy.

I haven't read NASA's actual mission statement, if they have one, but I would much rather my tax dollar go to probes to Pluto, robots on Mars and telescopes that can peer billion's of years into the past than to doing something that hasn't change all that much in 40 or 50 years.

5/23/2012 1:32 PM EDT

The key word here is "risk." Few entrepreneurs have stuck their neck out farther than Elon Musk. Most of what he made on the sale of PayPal went directly into SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity. While I have yet to be convinced that SpaceX is capable of designing a safe manned spacecraft, what they have so far managed to pull off is, to quote veteran space journalist Miles O'Brien, "tectonic."

5/23/2012 9:36 PM EDT

the chinese govt would split out some NASA assets and set up a new state owned company to handle it, and create some competetion, which is just far more efficient.

such as telecom sector,