Success SpaceX Falcon 1 - Flight 4 - September 28, 2008

Big congrats to Space X , Elon Musk knows how to do things , who were the actual brainies behind this , who designed the combustion chambers and the turbopumps, were there old folks from Rocketdyne, did they did it on the old Von Braun numbers,,, when you need big liquid rocket power the formulas don't change over the years, what worked in the60's still does the same today,,,,,,,,,anybody know???....ahh! .remember the Saturn 5 had 5 engines @ 1.5 million pounds each the difference is gigantic.

The formulas do change, since SpaceX is using a pintle. Turbopumps and gas generators are also quite a lot simpler.

It's good to hear them using metric units for the commentary. I wonder if they also use metric units for design and hardware specs (fastener sizes etc)?

Anyone else noticed the "oh-oh" at 0:18 right after the woman says "We have lift-off"? :D i luld

This isn't a shuttle replacement. It's an experimental rocket launched by private investors.

The ARES rockets are in the testing stages now but they won't be certified as flight worthy before the projected retirement of the shuttle fleet.

Is it necessary to smooth that out? Might be overcontrol. We're talking about 10 million dollar launches here, the way of the future may not necessarily be graceful.

5,000,000 stars!...oh-boy-is-this-great! /milwaukee

So from a layman's perspective, what happens to the parts that fall back? What if they hit something?

You'll notice that they launched from an island and the trajectory of the flight up to the cut off of the second stage engine takes place over water. NASA, the European Space Agency and the Japanese Space Agency all do this. It drastically cuts the risk to anyone back on Earth.