Falcon Flies

The Economist has an appreciation of Falcon 9's successful first flight.

This is an impressive achievement. The launcher is considerably more capable than the Atlas and Titan rockets that launched NASA's first astronauts: it's reportedly a bit more capable than the Saturn 1 that launched a boilerplate Apollo capsule in 1964.

The biggest government funded launchers of the U.S., Russia, Europe, Japan and China are more powerful, as is the the Zenit launcher that Ukraine inherited from the Soviet Union, but it can lift more than India's biggest launcher, the next most capable government program.