Sign of the times

Right now the news is dominated by the 2008 Election and our economic meltdown/government bailout. There was some brief mentions of the Chinese space walk mixed in with the financial doom and gloom. It's sad that most of the major media has completely ignored this story but a private US company, SpaceX, has succeeded in reaching earth orbit with their rocket system. This is the first time that a private enterprise has been able to achieve that goal. This success opens the door for future missions such as launching satellites and potentially having a capsule/passenger system within a few years.

The privatization of space is going to be a big deal in the next decade, it may be the only bright spot for US space exploration. I have no doubt that NASA is going to face serious troubles with Orion both from a technical and a financial perspective. All this debt from the Wall Street bailout is going to effect ALL government budgets and I doubt NASA will get enough funding in the near future to do anything dramatic.