On 09/02/2018 07:15, Paul Schlyter wrote:
On Thu, 8 Feb 2018 01:11:07 -0800 (PST), RichA
wrote:
The re-usable rocket is a private venture.
Thereby saving taxpayers' money on obscenely priced hardware.
MrA ought to be drooling at the prospect of this free l[a]unch!
;-)

Yes, I'm sure Herr Musk will ferry U.S. astronauts to and fro for
nothing.

Not for nothing, but the belief is that he'll do it for a significantly
lower cost than the Russians with their Souyuz. That was the whole point
of NASA refraining from developing a replacement for the space shuttle
when it was retired. It remains to be seen how it works out.

Monopoly suppliers are seldom cheap.
Is the Space-X heavy even rated for manned human flight?

Don't they have to prove a certain number of successful launches of
inanimate objects into the *right* orbit before that happens?

Flinging them off into the asteroid belt isn't all that impressive if
the intention was to visit Mars. They should have hit the trajectory
they filed in their original flight plan but didn't.

Also need to meet strict requirements of not half killing the astronauts
by excessive vibration like super fast speedboat racing does.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown