It took them a couple of tries yesterday, but SpaceX launched their first Falcon 9 rocket. It made it to orbit on the first try… something even the CEO was skiddish about predicting yesterday.

I will say that they need to work on their presentation though. The video quality is nowhere near what you’d expect to see from NASA, and they didn’t make it very easy on the press folks who were trying to give them some free PR.

It’s the first completely privately built rocket big enough to carry people. This time it was carrying a mock-up of their Dragon spacecraft, which already has a contract to send cargo to the International Space Station for NASA as early as next year. It could be modified to carry astronauts in about three years or so. The spacecraft was always intended to carry people, but NASA has certain requirements they need to meet, like an escape tower in case of accidents… as soon as NASA gives them some money to begin work on that they could have it ready in as little as three years.

I still don’t like President Obama’s space plan… having a space program with no manned spaceflight capability and without any goals at all doesn’t seem like a very good idea to me. Especially with Russia, China, India and even Italy now ramping up their manned spaceflight projects.

However, this is still a very historic moment in spaceflight. Putting people into orbit used to be something that only governments could afford, now a private company has built a rocket completely from scratch, and a darned good one too. If the space shuttle is a moving van, the Falcon 9 is definitely a Corvette.

If nothing else maybe because of companies like SpaceX, we’ll be able to embark on space-based projects that aren’t subject to the whims of whoever happens to be in the White House at the time.