<story><title>SpaceX Successfully Soft-Landed Booster Rocket in the Atlantic</title><url>http://mashable.com/2014/04/25/elon-musk-spacex-booster-stage-atlantic/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>BrandonMarc</author><text>Equally large news from today&amp;#x27;s press conference at the National Press Club - SpaceX is taking on ULA (united launch alliance, a consortium of incumbent players in the market) and the &amp;quot;block buy&amp;quot; allocation of military &amp;#x2F; national-security launches to ULA.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s their handout, from one of the reporters there:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/459734785314013184&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;jeff_foust&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;459734785314013184&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Playing politics a bit, Elon&amp;#x27;s claiming a ~ 75% reduction in launch costs by using Falcon 9 rockets instead of the block buys allocated to ULA, so he&amp;#x27;s filing a lawsuit to give his company access to this market. 
He even goes into details of how some of ULA&amp;#x27;s engines are manufactured in Russia, and given the festivities in the Ukraine our legislators would rather be less dependent on Russia for space access. He even whets the politicians&amp;#x27; appetites with his blurb at the bottom describing how $1B per year could instead pay for operating a fleet of A-10&amp;#x27;s, or 15 Marine Corps battalions, or 12 F-16 squadrons ... or it could instead pay for purchasing 10 F-35&amp;#x27;s, 2 LCS&amp;#x27;s, or 50 UH-60 Black Hawks.&lt;p&gt;Politicians (and Beltway reporters) definitely respond to money dangled in front of their face.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s how he arrives at the ~75% reduction, btw:&lt;p&gt;• ULA annual cost: $3.0-3.5B&lt;p&gt;• ULA cost per launch: ~$460M&lt;p&gt;• Falcon 9 cost: &amp;quot;under $100M&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This forum has tons of live-blog style commentary leading up to and during the press conference.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=lsmvrej5r2jcakuthchhko36i5&amp;amp;topic=34552.0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;forum.nasaspaceflight.com&amp;#x2F;index.php?PHPSESSID=lsmvrej...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;--------------------&lt;p&gt;(edited to clarify about ULA engine sourcing; thanks physcab)</text></comment>
<story><title>SpaceX Successfully Soft-Landed Booster Rocket in the Atlantic</title><url>http://mashable.com/2014/04/25/elon-musk-spacex-booster-stage-atlantic/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>cloudwalking</author><text>- Successful soft landing in the Atlantic&lt;p&gt;- Seas were too rough for a quick recovery&lt;p&gt;- Rocket subsequently destroyed by wave action&lt;p&gt;- Will attempt recovery of the next Falcon 9 launch&lt;p&gt;- A Falcon 9 recovered on land could be re-used the next day (!)&lt;p&gt;- SpaceX is lobbying to allow private competition for National Security launches (eg GPS satellites)</text></comment>