Jeff Findley wrote:

Company founder Elon Musk told reporters the Falcon I
successfully reached space, "and retired almost all the risk
associated with the rocket."

Right. The investors are lining-up right now and soon, we'll
all be living on Uranus.

I find his statement credible. True there is a 2nd stage
problem to be resolved, but this was the first flight test of
the second stage. The first stage failure of the fist flight
test meant that the 2nd stage simply wasn't tested.

I suspect that if this was a NASA or Boeing or Lockheed-Martin test
any claim by one of their representatives that they had "retired
almost all the risk associated with the rocket" would be greeted by
snorts of derision around here and in the alt.space community in
general.

That being said I hope Musk and company are as pleased as they
claim to be about yesterday's test. Clearly progress was made.

Jim Davis