PayPal founder's "budget" rocket roars into space

A rocket funded by PayPal founder Elon Musk roared into space this morning and almost reached orbital velocity. The Falcon 1 rocket completed its five minute 200 mile journey and met "95%" of its objectives, according to Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corporation.

The flight wasn’t completely successful and the rocket failed to reach orbital velocity. According to a statement issued by Space X, "The second stage didn’t achieve full orbital velocity, due to a roll excitation late in the burn, but that should be a comparatively easy fix once we examine the flight data."

The Falcon 1 rocket is a two-stage rocket that uses liquid oxygen and rocket fuel-grade kerosene for fuel. Future satellite launches could be done on the cheap with Falcon 1 because it costs just $7 million dollars per launch which is about one-fifth the cost commercially established rocket launches.