Grit, Vision and Musk

On 28 September 2008 at the remote pacific atoll of Kwajalein, Falcon 1 was raised to its launch position. It lifted off perfectly and after 90 seconds when the Kestral engine in the second stage fired up, SpaceX headquarters broke into raucous cheers. Nine minutes into its flight Falcon 1 had shut down becoming the first privately built machine to reach its orbit as planned.

It took 6 years to achieve, 4 and a half more than Elon Musk had originally planned, and 500 people to make it happen. 

​It is difficult to believe that only weeks before, an air force satellite and NASA experiments were lost during the third attempted launch by SpaceX when a malfunction caused the first and second stages to bump into each other damaging the rocket and its engine. ​

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