Alan Boyle has updated his coverage of last week’s and weekend’s rocket festivities up in the desert. Stupid comments like this are somewhat dismaying, as usual:
Definitely not a million dollar subject to write about Alan. These amateur rockets look like something cobbled together from legos by crazy kids. Write about these amateurs when they do something significant like getting one of their Frankenstein rockets into space, or to the moon.
The real news was the awesome success Ares 1-X had yesterday, why no Cosmic Log article Alan? NASA showed us they are still the professional adult at the rocket launching party. What a beautiful sight it was to watch the Ares 1-X launch live on NASA tv. We need to give more money to NASA to get the Ares and Constellation programs rocking and rolling to the moon and Mars.
Go NASA!
Yes, go NASA, which has billions of taxpayer dollars to play with, with little accountability. But yeah, let’s give them even more money.
Whereas Armadillo and Masten are accountable to their shareholders, which is why they accomplish so much for so little money. So who are the “adults” at this party, again? Give either of these companies one one hundredth of what NASA spent on the Corndog flight, and see how far they get with it. I’d bet a lot higher than the Corndog flew. In fact, I suspect that Armadillo for one will be higher within a year, with their existing funds.
[Update a few minutes later]
Mike Massee has put up a nice photo gallery.
[Mid-morning update]
Speaking of Armadillo flying higher, they got to almost two thousand feet yesterday.