Today's space video of the day is the third launch by SpaceX. The launch proceeded perfectly until the separation of the first and second stages; the video abruptly cuts out. Elon Musk says "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." (hat tip to NASA Watch)
The other day I showed a number of rocket engine tests by private spaceflight companies. Among those companies is Armadillo Aerospace. Today's space video of the day shows Armadillo's new rocket being tested at full throttle. Turn your sound up; this is way cool.
The existing international space station is obviously not an optimal long-term space station. At best it is a limited temporary outpost. However, this is not the way it has to be, even with existing technology. Six years ago, Space Island Group produced this video, showing how they would use space shuttle external tanks as the structure of a much larger space station. Since this video was made SIG has changed their plans a little bit, but the core idea remains the same: using the airtight external tanks to provide a huge amount of livable volume in orbit for far less money than is currently spent on the existing ISS, using almost as much legacy hardware as the DIRECT concept and far more legacy hardware than NASA's deeply flawed Ares.
Aero-News Network has started a feature called Aero-TV. Today's space video is a segment from Aero-TV with an interview of Elon Musk of SpaceX on the groundbreaking of their new launch facility at Cape Canaveral. Of particular interest is Musk's comments on where he sees SpaceX in ten years: daily manned launches! (hat tip to Mark Whittington)
Today's space video of the day comes from Paul Breed of Unreasonable Rocket. This video serves as a quick reminder that the one iron-clad Law in rocketry is Murphy's.
Today's space video of the day is by Charles Pooley of Microlaunchers. I think he's right, that we are stuck in the "mainframe era" of space exploration, and it is high time for the "microcomputer era" to take over. And, just as the introduction of microcomputers caused an explosion in the economy and changed everything about the world, so will small-scale, affordable launches cause an explosion of the human presence throughout the solar system.
