I watched the Space X Falcon 1 live webcast yesterday evening. I still think there is nothing cooler than watching space ships take off. This is their second launch since their first crashed into the ocean last year. Yesterday, the launch was aborted with less than 3 minutes left in the countdown — it sounded like due to an unreliable telemetry data feed. They are planning on attempting a launch today instead.

Space X is a new company in the Space 2.0 race. This is a race by private companies to provide cheap launch capabilities. In the next few years, this will usher in a while new industry of tourism, mining, manufacturing, and eventually, colonization. Space X’s premise is that they will have a series of completely reusable rockets; Where every rocket launched to date has burned away sections of itself during its flight, the Falcon series of rockets will drop its used-up sections by parachute where they can be recovered and re-used.

Many of the new generation of space companies are at the same point in their business: their spaceships are undergoing final development and beginning flight testing. Space X however is perhaps the furthest along. Depending on the success of today’s launch, they will be catapulted ahead of their competition.

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