After a scrub yesterday at T-00:01:02, they are going to attempt again today...March 20, 2007, 4:00pm PST (2300 GMT). While it was disappointing to sit there for 20 mins yesterday while they attempted to figure out what stopped it at 1 minute 2 secs, I'm looking forward to today's attempt.

It was also delayed yesterday for 45 minutes so be prepared for deviations but hope for the best!

You can watch the launch via webcast here: http://www.spacex.com/webcast.php It will start at T-01:00:00 (3:00pm PST; 2200GMT).

This is a launch of a Falcon 1 (http://www.spacex.com/falcon1.php), a precursor to Falcon 9 (http://www.spacex.com/falcon9.php) which will be able to transport humans into space.

Space X is the dreamchild of Elon Musk, founder of PayPal and the Zip2 Corporation. My favorite quote from him is this, "If you need to back up your data, then backing up the biosphere is important too." Turning humanity into a multiplanetary species is an achievement Musk thinks may be crucial to humankind's survival.

If he can’t save the Earth, perhaps he’ll move to Mars? SpaceX could one day make it practical to establish independent permanent settlements on Mars. Musk believes electric vehicles are key to combating the rise in greenhouse gases and protecting the environment. from Wired Science.

A very interesting interview (22:49) with Elon can be seen here at Wired Science: http://www.pbs.org/kcet/wiredscience...conv-elon.html

Space X wishes to "re-ignite humanity's efforts to explore and develop Space."

I find anything about space interesting...astronomy, space flight, astrophysics, etc. I also find the idea of "backing up" humanity intriguing.

The reason for their scrub yesterday:

Posted March 20, 2007

The abort that occurred a few minutes before T-0 was triggered by our ground control software. It commanded a switchover of range telemetry from landline to radio, which took place correctly, however, because of the hardware involved, this transition takes a few hundred milliseconds. Before it had time to complete, our system verification software examined state and aborted.

Our simulations done beforehand all passed, because the simulator did not account for a hardware driven delay in the transition. We considered putting the vehicle into a safe state yesterday and updating the ground control software to make the very minor fix needed, but the safer course of action was to stand down.

Yesterday afternoon and evening (Kwaj time), our launch team updated the software to address the timing issue and verified that there were no similar problems elsewhere. We ran the software through several simulated countdowns and then once again with the rocket and range in the loop.

All systems are now go for launch with T-0 at 4pm California time today (Tues).

--Elon--