Comment Kudos for Musk (Score 4, Insightful) 117
This is an achievement. Take it from an old rocket grognard, a veteran of Amroc, Orbital, and others: just getting this far is an accomplishment.
And it's smart of Musk to append a test operation onto a paying mission. The launch fee for the ISS delivery offsets a major portion of the cost of the test.
And in a test sequence, close does count, because all data gathered is useful. And often, data from a failure is more useful than data from a success.
"Success is a lousy teacher; it seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose." —Bill Gates