dos shuttles

NASA Chief Vents Frustration in Leaked E-mail
By Tariq Malik
Senior Editor
posted: 7 September 2008
11:06 pm ET

HOUSTON — NASA chief Michael Griffin lamented the mandated 2010 retirement of the agency's space shuttle fleet and the all-too-likely possibility that U.S. astronauts will be absent from the International Space Station for extended periods in the future in a leaked e-mail intended for top advisors.

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Space X - Falcon 1 launch fails to separate second stage.

Plan Going Forward

It was obviously a big disappointment not to reach orbit on this flight . On the plus side, the flight of our first stage, with the new Merlin 1C engine that will be used in Falcon 9, was picture perfect. Unfortunately, a problem occurred with stage separation, causing the stages to be held together. This is under investigation and I will send out a note as soon as we understand exactly what happened.

The most important message I’d like to send right now is that SpaceX will not skip a beat in execution going forward. We have flight four of Falcon 1 almost ready for flight and flight five right behind that. I have also given the go ahead to begin fabrication of flight six. Falcon 9 development will also continue unabated, taking into account the lessons learned with Falcon 1. We have made great progress this past week with the successful nine engine firing.

As a precautionary measure to guard against the possibility of flight 3 not reaching orbit, SpaceX recently accepted a significant investment. Combined with our existing cash reserves, that ensures we will have more than sufficient funding on hand to continue launching Falcon 1 and develop Falcon 9 and Dragon. There should be absolutely zero question that SpaceX will prevail in reaching orbit and demonstrating reliable space transport. For my part, I will never give up and I mean never.

Thanks for your hard work and now on to flight four.

—Elon—

50 Ways NASA Changed Our Lives In 50 Years

http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/features/50-years-50-giant-leaps-how-nasa-rocked-our-world-879377.html

 rosedraws wrote:



 
But what will the trustafarians do with all that spare time on their hands?  Move to Hawaii and grow more super-potent pot plants!?!

Beaker wrote:


That is cool.  I'd be all into this, but I'm concerned about this growing gap between the haves and the have-nots... and not just because I'm falling on the sad side of that division.