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Comment by plinkplonk | Hacker News Reader

This is why I admire the USA. With all its faults, I can't imagine a startup like SpaceX happening in any other country on Earth today.

Well done, Americans! Be proud!

(non US citizen, fwiw)

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There is similar startup in Japan. http://www.snskk.com/ , mush smaller scale though.

Could definitely happen in New Zealand. Same can-do attitude, and we have some pretty technical small companies here; just not much money or population base.

Elon Musk is South African

And yet he lives and works in the US. That is(was?) America's big strength, not that Americans are the best or the brightest, but that the best and the brightest from all around the world would choose to come to America to realize their dreams.

Absolutely, but he worked methodically when he was younger to get both himself and his family into the USA.

I doubt it was a struggle, since his mother was American-Canadian. Doesn't diminish his accomplishments in any way though.

We just don't have the money, that's the biggest problem. Sure, we have a few people in NZ that are very wealthy, but they aren't the type to spend it on stuff like this.

People and talent are the most location independent resource. If it weren't so then space endeavours would be more proportionally distributed. But what really happens is that all the talent is continuously immigrating to the US.

Besides the economic factor the major hurdle is bureaucracy. If you are a small country you can be sure that all the big guys will want to know what you are going to do, how, when and they would probably even request a means to overhaul the operation if they deem it necessary. And that's just international bureaucracy. Most nation governments will probably never support you in such an endeavour anyway.

I was in NZ in Nov. 2009 when they launched their first "rocket." it was all over the news and papers. A "big" deal. So the day finally arrives and I'm watching the recap and I see the rocket. It was maybe 20 ft tall if that, launched from some sheep grazing area with spectators hanging out here and there. Thoroughly unimpressive. Don't get me wrong NZ is a great place but I just don't see them in the space race.

There is no way something like this is happening in NZ.

There are lots of rocket companies, some outside of the US:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_spaceflight_com...

To be honest, I don't really get the hubbub about this launch. It's a business innovation, not a scientific one. We've been putting unmanned rockets into space for 70 years.

I don't really get the hubbub about this launch. It's a business innovation

The business innovation is what the hubbub is all about. People aren't excited because of the science, but because this is a watershed moment in the business of space.

All successful technological revolution have to pass through two critical phases, when it becomes possible and when it becomes profitable. This is a big step in phase two.

Also - this is the first business to recover a spacecraft and _will_ be the first business to dock with the ISS

Well, 55 years since Sputnik, getting to orbit's a lot harder than just touching space.

But it's not only for what they did with this launch. The rocket meets NASA's requirements for carrying humans, once they finish building an escape system. It's also a lot cheaper per pound of cargo than what we've been using.

A successful dock with the ISS will mean they're well on track to carry astronauts there, and to carry tourists to Bigelow's orbital hotel.

So far there have been only two successful manned space programs, both run by superpower governments. Now it looks like a fairly small private company is going to pull it off. That's a pretty big step forward.

Three. The Chinese don't quite count as a superpower government yet but they're getting pretty dang close.

Thanks, somehow I forgot that China had put a human in orbit.

This is a little like saying "What's so great about the personal computer? Universities have giant room sized computers and have had so for a long time!"

I just wish people had this kind of enthusiasm and press for every launch. There are great missions flown all the time and no one really cares. The SpaceX people are amazing, but so are the NASA, ESA, ISRO, Chinese, and Russians. All launches are beautiful and amazing.

That's what the hubbub is about, if you don't get it you're not trying.

The hubbub is because for a little while it was looking like rockets and space might have become a thing of the past for the USA.

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