Privatisation of space is a success claims SpaceX

One of the more fascinating mornings was had by the KitGuru team today, as we hunkered down around live-feed HD screens to watch/listen/experience the wonder of privatised space flight, with the launch of the Dragon C2+ space craft in the direction of the International Space Station. KitGuru dons an orange suit and asks Zardon to ‘open the bay doors pal'.

Since the dawn of time, when apes sat around a monolith, we have all been fascinated by space – the final frontier. For decades, it has been the public coffer – through NASA – that has been responsible for pushing the shiny things up to space, where necessary, letting them return safely.

The actual mission overview is ‘COTS' which you can read about here. Originally, this flight should have been a tester – with a follow up mission to do docking and cargo exchange to follow but, back in December, NASA decided that things were going so well, that it would combine both missions.

At 8:45 am this morning (UK time), a Falcon 9 rocket burst into life and propelled the Dragon cargo spacecraft up into space. Around 12 minutes later, it was in orbit and ready to deploy its energy generating, photo-electric wings.

According to its Facebook page, SpaceX is the future of space travel, because it is building and launching rockets and space craft that will revolutionise the way we use/explore the cosmos.

Commercial concerns to one side, there is something spine-tingling about watching a rocket pull away from its gantry, hit 1km/second at 30km, 3km/second at 176km altitude and a monstrous 4km/second by the time it's ready for orbit around 270km from Earth.

That's more than 39 times quicker than a Bughatti Veyron, with a fully open throttle, on the Ehra-Lessien. Which is the fastest car in the world.

Nice.

Here are the key parts of the SpaceX voyage, in glorious KitGuruScreenGrabColor.

KitGuru says: While the first 70 years of space travel research were, undoubtedly highly focused on safety, the next 70 will probably spend a little more time worrying about economics and health. If SpaceX can ‘do more with less' while maintaining safety standards, then it has to be a good partner for NASA.

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