The SpaceX Falcon 9 has had its first successful flight… with a dummy Orion replacement on board, to boot. Video highlights here (ignore the dirt dauber trying to nest in the camera housing, they aren’t that big… really).
This highlights something I’ve believed ever since I began edging into libertarianism (and Tam has pointed out the same thing)– private enterprise beats the pants off governmental agencies in the spaceflight arena. Think about it– NASA can’t even keep up a reliable transport to the ISS (much less the Moon), but private enterprise can conceive, build, and launch a new transport in less than five years.
Of course, it still looks like astronauts will have to hitch rides from the Russians, but maybe it’ll be a one time thing now.
