A small Malaysian satellite was delivered to orbit late Monday night from the tiny atoll of Kwajalein far off in the Pacific Ocean and thousands of miles from the U.S. mainland...Forty years after the first moon landing and over half a century after Sputnik, the launch of small satellites has become routine. But this one was special — or rather, its launcher was. Launched two days before the fortieth anniversary of the launch of Apollo XI (the anniversary of the moon landing itself will be on Monday, July 20), it was the first satellite delivered by a privately funded liquid rocket...The event may have been a significant nail in the coffin of what many view as NASA’s current flawed plans for a return to the moon in the coming decade...It was delivered by a Falcon 1, the first rocket developed by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California...A Giant Leap for Commercial Space Flight, Rand Simberg, Pajamas Media, 7/15/2009
This is a remarkable accomplishment reported by Rand Simberg in Pajamas Media, but one can't help but wonder how long it will be before the California Legislature passes a law regarding a heavy penalty for rocket emissions, or a new section is included in Cap-and-Cronyism that bars private developers who don't pay a billion dollar license fee to NASA.
Luther
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