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If you live in North Carolina and want to buy an electric car from Tesla motors, here's hoping you already did that, because doing so stands to get a lot more difficult in short order. A bill moving through the state legislature there would make it illegal for Tesla -- or any other car manufacturer -- to sell cars directly to consumers in the state.

SpaceX's Grasshopper is a great example of a simple idea with awesome execution. The Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL) craft goes up, and it goes down. That's about all it does, but when you consider the fact that it goes up over 800 feet in the air, hangs out for a little while, and then gently sets itself back down on the landing pad like nothing ever happened...well, we're pretty impressed, anyway.

Just minutes after its Friday morning launch, the SpaceX Dragon craft ran into some trouble. Shortly after separation from the Falcon 9 rocket, three out of four of the Dragon's thruster pods failed. Engineers on the ground worked quickly to fix the situation, and this morning the Dragon capsule is safely docked with the International Space Station. So what went wrong?

In case you weren't already aware, Tesla Motors' Elon Musk and The New York Times' John M. Broder have been involved in something of a brouhaha ever since Broder published a rather damning evaluation of Tesla's Supercharger network, and therefore their Model S electric vehicles, on the East Coast last Friday. Essentially, Musk and Tesla contend that Broder essentially sabotaged his own review, and Broder argues that everything he did during the review was justified. Musk has since come forward with a whole mess of data on the trip, but the reality of the situation is still rather murky.

Since NASA retired its space shuttle program, there has been a big, rocket-sized hole in our hearts. Several private companies like Virgin Galactic are trying to fill that void, but Elon Musk's Space X is really leading the way right now. Back in May of this year, Space X docked their Dragon spacecraft with the International Space Station, and over the weekend Musk tweeted photos and videos of a test flight of the new Grasshopper, their reusable rocket engine.

Tesla Motors has apparently taken to heart the idea that they should go big or go home. The company behind the Model S electric car has announced their ambitious Supercharger network, which will allow their cars to charge at ludicrous speeds compared to other electric offerings. There are currently only six stations, all of which are in California, but Tesla is already planning on expanding across the continental United States. The kicker? Model S owners will get to charge free at any Supercharger station.

At 11:42 AM EDT today,  SpaceX's commercial spaceship Dragon splashed down in the Pacific ocean 500 miles off the coast of southern California. It's safe arrival puts an end to the historic mission that saw the first commercial company fly to and berth with the International Space Station, perhaps beginning what some are calling a new era in American spaceflight.

Commercial space company SpaceX has had a long road to this morning's launch to the International Space Station. The mission, originally planned months ago, has seen repeated delays and a frustrating automatic abort earlier this week. Today's launch seemed to make up for all of that, when the Falcon 9 rocket lifted flawlessly off the launchpad, carrying the Dragon spacecraft into orbit. 

If you were amongst those that got up very, very early on Saturday to watch SpaceX's historic mission to the International Space Station, you were probably disappointed when the countdown hit zero but the rocket didn't go anywhere. Now, it seems that the issue at the heart of the aborted launch has been traced to faulty check valve. Crews are already working to fix the problem, but the question is if it can be done in time.

It's been nearly a year in the making, but SpaceX's historic mission to the International Space Station is on track to begin tomorrow with the blast off of its Dragon spacecraft. The unmanned mission will be a historic first for the company, and will no doubt become a touchstone as we enter the age of commercial space flight. Also, there will be an awesome rocket launch.

SpaceX's Elon Musk is extremely passionate about space travel, and especially so about Mars. It's no secret that he aspires to make SpaceX's Dragon capsule the first commercial vessel to land on the red planet.However, in an interview with the BBC he claimed that not only could he do it, but that it would only cost a passenger $500,000. While Musk acknowledges that the price tag is immaterial -- and conjectural -- he did hint at big news coming soon.

In a recent announcement at the National Press Club, SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced plans to develop an entirely reusable rocket system. The company's Dragon capsule, which could soon ferry astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station as part of NASA's fostering of private space industries, is already planned to be reusable. However, this new plan would call for the first and second stages of the rocket that carried the Dragon aloft to return to Earth in one piece. Reusability isn't exactly new to the space industry -- the Space Shuttle, for instance, boasted a reusable orbiter and solid rocket booster. However, Musk's bold plan would have a both the upper and lower stages of a two-stage rocket return to Earth, and land upright without parachutes.

Yesterday, SpaceX became the first private company to successfully launch a spacecraft into orbit and then guide it back to Earth. Propelled by a Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX's Dragon capsule circled the Earth twice and landed unharmed in the Pacific. At yesterday's press conference following the mission's success, CEO Elon Musk revealed that it had carried a secret payload the whole time, but he wouldn't say what it was, only that "if you like Monty Python, you’ll love the secret." This led some to speculate that it was Spam. But it wasn't:

Great mockups for future World Cup stadiums (designboom)

Master Chief: Steampunk edition (Hawty McBloggy)

Gizmodo feature on possible anti-quorum sensing antibiotics in Belizean jungles (Gizmodo)

The inevitable Star Trek-Tik Tok mashup (io9)

Female condom with teeth deputs at World Cup (NY Daily News)

Neat profile of Elon Musk (NYT)

Do not try teaching science to Juggalos (Slashdot)

(title image via Agent M Loves Tacos)

Starting at 11am EDT today, private space transport company SpaceX is going to take its shot at space flight glory with the test launch of its Falcon 9 rocket. Why is this a big deal? Well, the Falcon 9 is the first fully privately developed medium-capacity launch system, defined as being capable of lifting at least 2,000kg, but less than 20,000kg to low Earth orbit; all that have preceded it have been developed for national space programs. You may also recognize SpaceX founder Elon Musk as the co-founder of PayPal, or, alternately, as that guy who cameoed in Iron Man 2.

While the SpaceX crew understandably have high hopes for their rocket, today's launch isn't a done deal: