3 Up, 3 Down (Softly)

Elon Musk catches a lot of grief, and to be fair, much of it is well-deserved.  But if there is one of his endeavors for which I am an unequivocal fanboy and for which he is performing an unqualified good, it’s SpaceX.  Where various NASA contractors have dumped almost $12 billion for the Space Launch System and haven’t even a single flight to show for it, Musk and Co. spent a mere $500 million of private money (no, that’s not much in terms of rocket development) and came up with the Falcon Heavy, currently the world’s most powerful launch vehicle.  Tonight, it made it’s second successful flight, launching a commercial payload into orbit, while successfully landing all three booster stages, two at Cape Canaveral and one on a barge at sea.  Bravo to Elon, bravo to everybody at SpaceX, and bravo to the private sector, which now runs rings around government sponsored space programs.  More, please.