Private rocket launch partially successful
Here is an awesome blog about the launch of a rocket from California, to 200 miles above the earth, by a private corporation called spaceX. Its pretty awesome and I see it as the future of space exploration. So far most of space exploration has been done by governments, and governments aren’t known for being the most efficient and cost effective about projects like this and aren’t known for being great at driving down costs. However competing businesses will make space exploration more and more attainable and less and less expensive.
On the video in the article you can see live footage of the entire launch and footage from a cameras on the rocket looking back down towards earth. Its absolutely amazing to watch it get 200 miles into space in just over 5 minutes and see the curve of the earth come into view in the upper left hand corner of the camera. The video ends when they lost contact with it and they believe that the second stage malfunctioned and the rocket lost its stability. However it is considered a great success because its first stage separated successfully, which is what most people were worried would fail. There is a second video on the blog from their first attempt, when the rocket flew for a few seconds and then crashed into the ocean.
