Elon Musk’s Dream – And Ours – Comes True

Fellow SNS member Elon Musk, and his great crew at Space Exploration Technologies, have today succeeded in the first privately funded launch of a craft into earth orbit.

This history-making effort comes as the fourth launch attempt for the new SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket; the company has launches scheduled going forward for this LEO-oriented satellite launcher, even as it continues development on two versions of the nine-engine Falcon 9.

Here are our conversations from today, including a url you can use to see it for yourself:
From: mark r. anderson [mailto:mark@stratnews.com]
Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2008 7:06 PM
To: Elon Musk
Subject: Congratulations!!

Hi Elon,

We just got to Mexico City, and the first thing I heard on the Net
was that Launch 4 was a success.  This is a critically important
moment in the history of manned spaceflight, and it comes thanks to
the courage, independent thinking, and single-mindedness of you and
your whole crew.

Please accept our most heartfelt congratulations on this incredible
success, and may many more follow.

mark anderson
P.s. when / how do i get to see the video?

[Elon responded:]

Thanks Mark.  Here is a low res version on YouTube:

https://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=To-XOPgaGsQ and attached is high res of
liftoff.

Elon

__

Many members, and many FiRe participants who have met Elon personally, will remember this day for the rest of their lives.  Space travel will be forever changed, as private companies open space to cities, universities, and private citizens, even as they cut costs for major national programs.

My congratulations again to Elon for a truly inspiring achievement.

—–Original Message—–