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> Falcon 1 which was expandable, nothing special and cost ~$100 million was privately funded Nothing special just the first privately funded rocket to make it

> Falcon 1 which was expandable, nothing special and cost ~$100 million was privately funded Nothing special just the first privately funded rocket to make it to orbit. The first new rocket engine developed in the US for decades. > (Regardless of Musk's posturing and outright lies) Musk has always acknowledged and publicly called out for the COTS contracts as being incredibly important and even saving SpaceX. > For starters, Tesla and SpaceX both only happened due to US government subsidies Both of those are wrong. Tesla was almost 10 years in before they received a public loan, and the accepted it because it was a slightly better deal then they could have gotten privately but they had other funding options. SpaceX Falcon 1 didn't happen because of the government. The governments contract did accelerate the Falcon 9 project however.

orbital-decay 4y ago
> Nothing special just the first privately funded rocket to make it to orbit. That would be Pegasus in 1990, though. > The first new rocket engine developed in the US for decades. There were plenty of engines developed in the US in that timeframe. Merlin in particular was a "spiritual successor" of the Fastrac, and Kestrel was implemented by the former Beal Aerospace engineers who worked on BA-2 before being hired by SpaceX.
- peterfirefly 4y ago
  Pegasus didn't have much of a path towards bigger payloads, though. (It's launched from underneath an airplane.)
- panick21_ 4y ago
  > That would be Pegasus in 1990, though. Fair point. > There were plenty of engines developed in the US in that timeframe. Engines that actually flew or at least fully finished development. As far as I know there are none.
  - orbital-decay 4y ago
    BA-810 (by a SpaceX predecessor, huge cheap engine!), Fastrac, RS-68, XRS-2200, TR-106, to name a few. These are only large liquid fuel engines created from scratch which either flew or have been fully tested in the US in a decade before the Merlin-1A. There were many more solids, derivatives, small engines, upper stage engines etc.

orbital-decay 4y ago

> Nothing special just the first privately funded rocket to make it to orbit. That would be Pegasus in 1990, though. > The first new rocket engine developed in the US for decades. There were plenty of engines developed in the US in that timeframe. Merlin in particular was a "spiritual successor" of the Fastrac, and Kestrel was implemented by the former Beal Aerospace engineers who worked on BA-2 before being hired by SpaceX.

peterfirefly 4y ago
Pegasus didn't have much of a path towards bigger payloads, though. (It's launched from underneath an airplane.)
panick21_ 4y ago
> That would be Pegasus in 1990, though. Fair point. > There were plenty of engines developed in the US in that timeframe. Engines that actually flew or at least fully finished development. As far as I know there are none.
- orbital-decay 4y ago
  BA-810 (by a SpaceX predecessor, huge cheap engine!), Fastrac, RS-68, XRS-2200, TR-106, to name a few. These are only large liquid fuel engines created from scratch which either flew or have been fully tested in the US in a decade before the Merlin-1A. There were many more solids, derivatives, small engines, upper stage engines etc.