On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 10:11:02 -0500, Jim Davis wrote
(in article 6):

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



I hope so too. One thing that occurred to me watching the videos again this
morning (they're available from the SpaceX site and on YouTube) is how much
oscillation was induced by staging. It was as if one of the pneumatic
pushers stuck or another pushed too hard. Clearly SOMETHING upset the
orientation of the vehicle pretty severely. Same thing (to a lesser degree)
with fairing separation. That seemed to get settled down pretty quickly
after second stage ignition, but the oscillations started up again (probably
unrelated) within a minute or so. You can watch the engine gimbaling further
and further in a circular motion as it chases the trajectory and fights
whatever the upset was.

Too bad it didn't make it to orbit but this was still progress.

Another slight aside - it was fun to watch the first stage engine plume
expand with lower pressure as altitude increased. I hope SpaceX has done a
LOT of CFD and wind tunnel testing to see how nine of those engines will
interact on Falcon 9.

--
You can run on for a long time,
Sooner or later, God'll cut you down.
~Johnny Cash