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SpaceX Launch Livestream: CRS-8 Dragon Hosted Webcast
- cryptoz 11y agoThe SpaceX subreddit has an excellent megathread with lots of information about this launch. https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/4dtoly/rspacex_spacex_crs8_official_launch_discussion/ https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/4dtoly/rspacex_spac... Here is a link to the technical webcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh8V0COrrzE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh8V0COrrzE This is SpaceX's first ISS cargo mission since their last attempt last summer, which ended in an explosion and loss of all cargo. They will also be attempting a barge landing of the first stage, which they have not yet successfully completed. They will likely stream the landing attempt, but live video is no guarantee as there is usually too much interference.
- vvanders 11y agoMax-Q, looking good!
- vvanders 11y agoThey did it! On the ground!
- 11thEarlOfMar 11y agoWooHoo! NAILED IT AGAIN!
- dsp1234 11y agoFirst successful landing on the drone ship Also, primary Dragon deployment appears successful as well.
- codeulike 11y agoFootage of the landing starts at 35:47, taken from nearby flying drone. https://youtu.be/7pUAydjne5M?t=35m47s https://youtu.be/7pUAydjne5M?t=35m47s Absolutely surreal footage, a 25 storey rocket just drifts into shot at a crazy angle and plants itself.
- state 11y agoNot sure what to make of the chanting of 'U-S-A U-S-A' after that. That sound just reminds me of a Trump rally these days. But otherwise: that was really fantastic. Edit: It's actually quite a sweet display of patriotism. I sound more negative than I mean to be. Perhaps it was just funny to realize that the context I'm most familiar with the sound of that chant is from reporting on the current campaign.
- mulmen 11y agoIt's patriotism, we should be proud our country has a company that is doing this. Donald Trump has nothing to do with it.
- nitrogen 11y agoPatriotism is offensive iff it becomes jingoistic or if it comes at the expense of a global humanistic perspective. The chanting seems a bit over the top, especially for a private company mission to serve the International Space Station.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- nitrogen 11y agoPatriotism is also offensive if, when politely questioned, it leads to knee-jerk reactions. It has the potential to become just another source of unnecessary emotional conflict and short-circuited thinking.
- nodesocket 11y agoSince when did being patriotic become offensive behavior? I for one am proud of the accomplishment and realize that it took many people from lots of different countries, but the reality is SpaceX, Tesla, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter the list goes on are all American companies. American and proud.
- verytrivial 11y agoWoohoo!
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- manaskarekar 11y agoHistory in the making. Successful landing on 'Of Course I Still Love You'. Very, very inspirational.
- pacaro 11y agoI'm hoping that the drone ship name is an Iain Banks tribute - if so, it's hard to think of anything more fitting
- noir_lord 11y agoIt is, Elon Musk has mentioned the Culture novels in a bunch of interviews, he was a massive sci-fi fan growing up. http://www.space.com/28445-spacex-elon-musk-drone-ships-names.html http://www.space.com/28445-spacex-elon-musk-drone-ships-name...
- saulrh 11y agoThey are indeed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_spaceport_drone_ship#ASDS_makes_an_appearance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_spaceport_drone_shi...
- randonymous 11y agoYesss! They landed it!
- avivo 11y agoGorgeous success! Fascinating to hear chants of USA USA USA in the background. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pUAydjne5M&t=37m13s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pUAydjne5M&t=37m13s
- Anchor 11y agoSuccessful landing on the autonomous drone ship. Awesome to be witnessing the amazing progress.
- llomlup 11y agoYeah, it's absolutely an amazing thing to watch.
- interdrift 11y agoHoly cow, congratulations to everyone involved. This almost made me cry.
- spacecowboy 11y agoTotally agree! Big congrats to the SpaceX team on this historical accomplishment.
- yoda_sl 11y agoWow! Mind blowing stuff today
- themgt 11y agoThat really felt like watching history being made. And damn, that ship is getting some waves.
- mbreese 11y agoJust seeing the first stage come in for a landing was amazing. Being able to stream that video was a wonderful surprise.
- llomlup 11y agoWatching the webcast feels like being at some blockbuster movie premiere. There's a largish crowd following the launch and applauding on every launch stage completion. Not that it's a bad thing per se, it's rather the opposite, it however, feels quite weird and staged as opposed to launches done by ESA, Roscosmos or even NASA.
- return0 11y agoThere is the technical webcast in complete silence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh8V0COrrzE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh8V0COrrzE
- natrius 11y agoIt's probably propaganda, but I might be okay with progress propaganda.
- zipwitch 11y agoPretty sure the large crowd are the people who built the rocket, which somehow makes it okay in my book.
- DasIch 11y agoThey might not show it but surely the people working at ESA, Roscomos and NASA are excited and celebrating successful launches as well.
- llomlup 11y agoOf course they do, why wouldn't they? The way they're doing it, seems more spontaneous.
- InclinedPlane 11y agoI'm curious why it feels "staged" to you? Are you that uncomfortable with expressions of genuine enthusiasm?
- mulmen 11y agoThe NASA people seemed pretty happy when Curiosity landed on Mars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svUJdzMHwmM&t=3m10s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svUJdzMHwmM&t=3m10s
- carlosdp 11y agoVery nice, congrats SpaceX!
- sixQuarks 11y agoI'm embarrassed to say I was screaming and cheering like a little school girl upon landing.
- bjelkeman-again 11y agoNothing to be embarrassed by. I was too, and I was high-fiving my wife, who I made watch it. :)
- sixQuarks 11y agomy wife is like "meh" about it. Same thing with virtual reality, I've got an Oculus DK2 that she's not even interested in trying out.
- nojvek 11y agoWifey not into space tech, but when I explained what this meant, she was like "Wow! I didn't think that it would be even possible to have a stick rocket go up, turn around and land on a little pad in the ocean". That's crazy.
- verytrivial 11y agoDoes anyone know how do they "secure" it to the drone?
- JshWright 11y agoThey weld "shoes" onto the deck that hold the tips of the legs.
- verytrivial 11y agoThanks. I was trying to picture a fixing mechanism that could work over the entire surface, but hey, all the metal is meltable!
- mbreese 11y agoIs it an instantaneous weld that happens on landing?
- extrapickles 11y agoNo, they probably fly several people out on a helicopter.
- InclinedPlane 11y agoAnd land it where? It's easier to just use a boat.
- JshWright 11y agoThere is a support ship nearby. The Go Quest.
- hparton 11y agoEngineers are waiting on a vessel a safe distance away in case the landing doesn't go well. Then they go in and weld the feet once the rocket has vented the leftover LOX (Liquid Oxygen). I think they are also attaching guide wires to the top, but i can't confirm that.
- tunesmith 11y agoMissed it by five minutes :) Is there a replay?
- gamegoblin 11y agoYou should be able to rewind the YouTube stream.
- gt565k 11y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pUAydjne5M&feature=youtu.be&t=35m52s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pUAydjne5M&feature=youtu.be...
- mholt 11y agoTo put this in perspective, they just landed a supersonic toothpick upright on a turbulent matchbox.
- Ftuuky 11y agoLike throwing a pencil over the Empire State Building and landing it perfectly.
- hyperbovine 11y agoIt was a unnervingly close to the edge of said matchbox. Can't they build a bigger drone ship? Seems a lot cheaper than losing one over the side.
- ethanbond 11y agoIf the circumstances would cause them to lose one over the side, it's probably already lost.
- mikeash 11y agoSo far they haven't lost any of them because of the size of the ship. People keep saying they should build a bigger or more stable ship, but every loss so far has been because of things like failed landing legs, sticky valves, or insufficient hydraulic fluid.
- hyperion2010 11y agoTuned in just in time to see stage 1 sitting happily on the drone ship. Not as much data about what can go wrong, but hey, they got an intact stage 1 back and going over that is going to provide them with mountains of data. Looking forward to more.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- mmsimanga 11y agoAmazing, well done Space X. Watching the live feed gave me goosebumps and was more exciting than the any blockbuster I have ever watched.
- ChuckMcM 11y agoThat was pretty impressive, and while I love that New Shepard has flown three times, putting something into orbit and having the booster land on a drone ship is pretty freakin' awesome. For me, the really amazing thing is that if SpaceX has been pricing their launches to cover their costs (and I realize that is a big if), they have been developing the re-usable tech on the back of those flights. And now they have 5 (or 6) test flights where two were successful that is moving that tech forward. Developing it on top of an already profitable space flight business, that is pretty amazing. Really impressed.
- soperj 11y agoI'm pretty sure the launches are actually profitable, so more than cover their costs.
- JshWright 11y agoVarious SpaceX execs have said they need to launch somewhere around 12 rockets/yr to be profitable in the long term (they likely have plenty of cash on hand right now, as most of their contracts pay quite a bit up front, and they have gotten a lot of funding from a couple NASA sponsored development programs). So yes, the launches themselves are profitable.
- elchief 11y agoMr. Musk wins the first quarter of 2016, no doubt
- robmiller 11y agoWe're in the second quarter now :)
- deegles 11y agoCan't wait to see this first stage land again! (and again and again...)
- cryptoz 11y agoGifv of landing: http://i.imgur.com/lH4qRaK.gifv http://i.imgur.com/lH4qRaK.gifv Fascinating how it seems to bounce or slide at the end. Also: WOW!
- llomlup 11y agoQuite unreal.
- r0m4n0 11y agoHere is footage of the Falcon 9 stage 1 landing and the celebration that ensued... (if you missed it) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKDr7YwRR7Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKDr7YwRR7Y
- pkinsky 11y agoVideo: https://twitter.com/mirikramer/status/718545053732446209 https://twitter.com/mirikramer/status/718545053732446209
- helicon 11y agoNot wanting to be overly dramatic, but as someone who wasn't around in the sixties this feels like our moon landing!
- alaxsxaq 11y agoNot even close. Impressive nonetheless.
- bjelkeman-again 11y agoIt's going to lead to a manned Mars landing. The time will come.
- mikeash 11y agoIn a way it's even more important. Apollo was an amazing achievement, but it wasn't set up to be sustainable. Spending billions just to beat the Russians doesn't last. If you want to see more interesting space activity than a bunch of comsats, some probes, and the ISS, you need to make space a lot cheaper. That's been stagnant for a very long time, and what we saw today is the second step towards something that promises to cut the cost of space by an order or magnitude or more. We're finally seeing something that might make space something more like aviation, not just a bunch of national prestige projects with a handful of commercial uses. If people are living on Mars in 50 years (which looks more and more likely now) then it'll be because of this, far more so than the legacy of Apollo.
- drjesusphd 11y agoOk, I'll bite. What was the first?
- sangd 11y agoWowwww, amazing. Congrats!
- perseusprime11 11y agoCan somebody please remind me again why we have to land this thing on a barge on water instead of land?
- connorshea 11y agoIt's because there's not enough fuel to make it back to a landing pad.
- ygra 11y agoAnd they actually explained that in the video: https://youtu.be/7pUAydjne5M?t=23m37s https://youtu.be/7pUAydjne5M?t=23m37s
- perseusprime11 11y agoThanks guys.
- ceejayoz 11y agoAccording to https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/4dtoly/rspacex_spacex_crs8_official_launch_discussion/ https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/4dtoly/rspacex_spac... this one did have enough fuel, but the next couple won't, so they wanted the practice.
- tsuraan 11y agoThe part that's landing is the stage 1 rocket, which pushes the payload through max atmospheric pressure and near the edge of the atmosphere. By the time it's done doing its thing, it's going really fast away from its launch position. To land back where it started, it needs to reverse its (horizontal) velocity, which takes fuel. Some launch profiles leave it enough fuel to fly all the way back home, but some don't. I believe it's expected that the heavy launcher (basically three stage1's side-by-side) will always have to land the central stage at sea, because the center stage will keep pushing after the side stages are done, and it will be going way too fast to come back again. Not an expert, but that's my understanding of things.
- 11y ago
- not_that_noob 11y agoThat's so freakin' cool! Does anyone know how the rocket meets the drone surface at landing so precisely especially when the drone is pitching and rolling? Is it processing on the rocket or some other mechanism?
- jccooper 11y agoF9 is not believed to have any information from ground sources during descent, based on FCC filings. The altitude of the barge only changes by a meter or so in decent seas, and the legs can withstand a drop of several meters, so probably they target sea level +N, where N is the maximum expected height of the deck.
- tlrobinson 11y agoWait, really? They just punch in the coordinates and that's it? Cameras or radar or anything?
- mikeash 11y agoThe ship can hold position to within less than a meter. It's easier to just plan the position beforehand than try to have the rocket receive the ship's position in realtime somehow. It's interesting to consider how much more difficult this stuff would be without the GPS satellites already in space.
- tlrobinson 11y agoYou'd think they'd want some redundancy though. Do they really do it only based on GPS, or do they have other optical/radar/radio systems? Also does the US government give SpaceX access to the military GPS signals?
- jccooper 11y agoIt has very good inertial guidance as well. The GPS is probably the best available; considering they launch GPS satellites, I'd expect they aren't restricted. However, civilian GPS use isn't really much different anymore; intentional degradation was turned off in 2000, though certain dynamic limits still apply on the receiver side.
- smegel 11y agoIt came down at quite the angle.
- facetube 11y agoLooked intentionally parabolic to me.
- cryptoz 11y agoThis is intentional. I think the plans are that SpaceX would be directing the first stage to de-orbit and enter the atmosphere with an "incorrect" trajectory, so that if the landing burn fails the rocket will be safely sent out to sea. Part of the landing burn is a redirect maneuver, so that the rocket will always have a crazy angle when it comes in, but will also keep land/people safe.
- mikeash 11y agoThere's no land or people around in this case, but they don't want to punch a hole in their fancy ship if the engine fails to relight.
- iamcreasy 11y agoI don't think that's the correct explanation.
- cryptoz 11y agoPerhaps that's not what happened here - it sounds like Elon later explained that there were high winds at the landing site that might have caused the heavy lean. However, what I said about the last minute divert maneuver is possible/probable for future landings. Here is a recent discussion about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3xzn7s/my_previous_spacex_falcon_9_vs_blue_origin_new/cy98n0b https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3xzn7s/my_previous_...
- facetube 11y agoHere's the NASA press conference where he says it: https://youtu.be/EmN9IJyzBG0?t=23m30s https://youtu.be/EmN9IJyzBG0?t=23m30s
- joshrotenberg 11y agoThat was so cool. If you feel like launching one yourself, they have a user's guide: http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/falcon_9_users_guide_rev_2.0.pdf http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/falcon_9_users_guid... And pricing information: http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities (edit: added pricing info which might be helpful)
- partisan 11y agoWhere's the call to action? Who designed the page? > SpaceX offers open and fixed pricing for its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch services. Modest discounts are available, for contractually committed, multi-launch purchases. SpaceX can also offer crew transportation services to commercial customers seeking to transport astronauts to alternate LEO destinations. With such big ticket items, I wouldn't have imagined there is a price list available. I would think these things are negotiated over expensive dinners. You almost expect to see a "Buy Now" button on the page.
- marshray 11y agoClearly they need to be doing A/B testing to determine their optimum pricing.
- hyperion2010 11y agoThis feels like one of those cases where the ticket is so big and so many are lined up to pay (because it is so much cheaper), that they just slap the price on it.
- jrv 11y agoThat's why websites that don't give a price quote for their products without contacting a sales rep now get frequently mocked with the words: "If SpaceX can do it, you can do it.".
- simoncion 11y ago> Where's the call to action? Who designed the page? Assuming that that wasn't tongue in cheek... Their target audience is "people who want to launch something into orbit". They don't need a call to action, they already have a rather well-defined need. > I would think these things are negotiated over expensive dinners. That sort of shit is exactly what Musk has been complaining about every time he talks about how fucked-up the existing space delivery industry is. Think of it this way: You don't negotiate the price of delivery for something you're gonna ship via FedEx over a dinner. One of the goals of SpaceX is to make the space delivery industry as much like every other delivery industry as is humanly possible.
- ronnier 11y agoHere's a video of the landing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pUAydjne5M&feature=youtu.be&t=2144 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pUAydjne5M&feature=youtu.be...
- giarc 11y agoSeems like something has changed. Landing is at about 27:15
- jjm 11y agoA rocket lands like it's done it 1000 times from space, and my company can't even code a simple microservice or use containers.
- deegles 11y agoTo be fair, I doubt the rocket is running microservices either :)
- noselasd 11y agoEmbedded systems like this is normally coded (on top of an RTOS) as individual services each running on one thread exchanging messages with other services. Pretty much like microservices (just not over http) (Take a look at e.g. http://flightsoftware.jhuapl.edu/files/2012/FSW12_McComas.pdf http://flightsoftware.jhuapl.edu/files/2012/FSW12_McComas.pd... which is NASAs approach to reusing the typical architecture for flight software)
- yetihehe 11y agoSo like a small version of erlang? Once you've started programming in erlang you start to look at concurrency and reliability in a certain way. Especially after you've done some server which took too many hours to stop hanging and crashing on interthread issues.
- joshontheweb 11y agoLol. I catch myself chastising myself often around SpaceX launches. They are launching rockets faster than I can get my SaaS launched out of Beta!?!
- imaginenore 11y agoI get why companies with huge infrastructure use containers, the efficient spread of resources. I absolutely do not get why an average web app running on a few servers would use them.
- 11y ago
- manaskarekar 11y agoReminds me of one of the most inspirational interviews by him after three failed Falcon 1 launches: http://www.wired.com/2008/08/musk-qa/ http://www.wired.com/2008/08/musk-qa/ > Musk: Optimism, pessimism, fuck that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work.
- vvanders 11y agoWasn't that at a point where Tesla was under a huge capital crunch as well? Can't imagine what pressure he was under.
- jacobsheehy 11y agoYes, I think 2008 was a very hard year for Elon. The issue with Tesla was that something like 200 Roadsters were manufactured incorrectly and all had to be fixed at immense cost and time delay. He was also going through a divorce at the time. And all SpaceX launches had exploded off the Pacific island that they were forced to use since their competitors successfully lobbied for it to be illegal for SpaceX to launch from the USA. Rough year.
- T-A 11y agohttp://upstart.bizjournals.com/entrepreneurs/hot-shots/2013/08/09/elon-musk-talks-about-tesla-spacex.html?page=all http://upstart.bizjournals.com/entrepreneurs/hot-shots/2013/...
- iamcreasy 11y ago> their competitors successfully lobbied for it to be illegal for SpaceX to launch from the USA Do you remember how the managed to do that?
- kindredlight 11y agoULA lobbied to ban them from a launch site (at Vandenberg) that was nearby their own, which had a very expensive rocket and very, very expensive payload on it, claiming that a SpaceX rocket launch would be too dangerous. Forced them to launch from Kwajalein Atoll, which made things much harder. Probably contributed to at least one failure, thanks to the corrosive, salty atmosphere. Edit: Not unfair to assume that it was motivated by anti-competitive interests before any real concern about possible effects on their pad.
- dzdt 11y agoCount degrees of freedom that have to be zeroed out in that landing: three coordinates of position, three coordinates of motion, two axes of tilt, rates of yaw, pitch, and roll. That adds to 11 dimensions of control. And their flight computer nailed it, without even zeroing one at a time! Only roll rate around the axis of the rocket was zeroed well before touchdown. Impressive!
- imaginenore 11y agoIf you're zeroing in the position, you don't have to worry about the motion. The number of degrees you have to take car of is 6: X, Y, Z, yaw, pitch, and roll.
- JshWright 11y agoYes, but the only means you have of controlling those also impacts the motion.
- Animats 11y agoYes. Welcome to underactuated control, where you have more output goals than control parameters. That's why this is rocket science. Here's a way to start thinking about this. Consider the 1D case, stopping a car with the goal of being at zero speed at a specified point. 2 goals, one controlled input. This is an under actuated problem. Setting a constant deceleration is not enough to do this. However, if you have a deceleration start time and a deceleration value after that point, you now have two variables, and can solve for zero speed at the desired point. This is essentially what Space-X is doing in the vertical direction. They have limited ability to throttle the main engines (off, or 70% to 100%), and I suspect that in the final landing phase, they use that range to keep the vertical component constant while doing any horizontal positioning. The main engines gimbal; they don't have to change attitude for minor horizontal adjustments. So the simple approach is to get the attitude stabilized on approach, and the landing vertical. Their successful landings look like that. Their unsuccessful ones show non-vertical attitudes as the control system tries to make big horizontal adjustments.
- RPG11Slayer 11y agoWow simply amazing.
- partisan 11y agoI've watched several times now and seeing things like this make me optimistic about the future of humanity. The commercial space industry is literally being born before our eyes (not the utility space industry of lift/transport, but the one where private companies begin to capitalize on the resources of space). My only problem with this whole thing: Weyland-Yutani Corporation sounds so much cooler than SpaceX.
- brainpool 11y agoThat landing was amazing to see. The landing they did on land was more spectacular, but having seen their failed landings on the barge earlier it feels so good they succeed at last. Godspeed SpaceX!
- shogun21 11y agoElon is having a very good week!
- ashbrahma 11y agoLive Press Conference: http://nasatv-lh.akamaihd.net/i/NASA_101@319270/master.m3u8 http://nasatv-lh.akamaihd.net/i/NASA_101@319270/master.m3u8
- intrasight 11y agoHonestly that's the most amazing thing, besides watching my daughter be born, that I've ever witnessed.
- JshWright 11y agoMy three year old daughter watching the launch, in the hospital room where we await the birth of our twins: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2fyff902tpfn7mu/2016-04-08%2016.43.49.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/2fyff902tpfn7mu/2016-04-08%2016.43...
- oaktowner 11y agoWe had twins when our first was three. Best of luck to you, my friend. The first year or two will be unlike anything you've endured in your life, but you will make it through.
- rgovind 11y agoWoohooo. It landed back safely.
- imaginenore 11y ago255 babies are born every minute. This is something else.
- EugeneOZ 11y agoTechnically speaking, reproduction of the human is a much more complicated process - we still can't do it artificially.
- imaginenore 11y agoAgreed. But one of these things took millions of years. There's no natural equivalent of launching a rocket.
- solipsism 11y agoYou're completely ignoring the fact that one of these processes is built precisely on top of the other! Our ability to do this was afforded to us by nature and evolution. I think the crowd should have been chanting "Evolution! Evolution!"
- dang 11y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11458754 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11458754 and marked it off-topic.
- mmaunder 11y agoI literally tuned in 5 seconds before it touched down. So glad I caught that - feels like it's bit of a step forward for mankind actually. Huge congrats to the SpaceX team. We're all very proud of the awesome work you're doing!!!
- gherkin0 11y ago> I literally tuned in 5 seconds before it touched down. No, you probably didn't. The link in this post is to a youtube recording bookmarked to the point a few seconds before touchdown.
- parr0t 11y agoSo annoyed my alarm didn't wake me this morning to watch this live, glad it didn't explode this time and made an awesome landing. Huge congratulations to SpaceX!
- Falcon9 11y agoHello, Of Course I Still Love You, nice to land on you. [I love that SpaceX has the Falcon and the Dragon, and that the autonomous landing drones are named for starships in Ian M. Banks' Culture series. Cool technology _should_ get cool names.]
- gjkood 11y agoThis is my kind of Super Bowl. A win for humanity.
- iamcreasy 11y agoAfter main engine cut-off(MECO-1), 1st stage turns around and fire it's engine to zero out all it's lateral velocity. Wish there was a video of that!
- joeblau 11y agoIt's crazy how they can do this in real life and I still can't land this in the game[1]. [1] - https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/76866912/ https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/76866912/
- product50 11y agoMaybe this is a stupid question but why do they land that thing on floating vessel vs. fixed target on land? Seems like it will be more difficult to manage this in the ocean given that the vessel itself is moving around with the ebbs and flows of the waves..
- DigitalJack 11y agoMost of the earth is water. The launch vehicle travels a significant lateral distance and the can burn less fuel getting to a nearby boat vs far away land.
- nocarrier 11y agoIt's harder to land on water but it requires less fuel overall, and is safer. Check out the launch/recovery diagram on this article and it will become more obvious why it would require more fuel to return the booster to land: http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/8/11392138/spacex-landing-success-falcon-9-rocket-barge-at-sea http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/8/11392138/spacex-landing-suc...
- mkehrt 11y agoProbably because that's the direction the rocket is going: out over the Atlantic.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- gozur88 11y agoThe ocean landing is more difficult. But you have to realize getting to orbit is not about height, it's about speed. By the time the first stage is separated the rocket is going 3000 m/sec away from the launch pad. It takes a lot of fuel to arrest that motion and go back the other way, whereas the barge will be right where you want to land given the situation at separation.
- wsinks 11y agoI don't think this is a stupid question, and the Verge came up with a very similar response to what I would think. Having a barge that can be compensating for current wind conditions could enable SpaceX to launch at more times than previous - expanding their launch windows AND launch points. Let's see what the Verge says: http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/8/11392138/spacex-landing-success-falcon-9-rocket-barge-at-sea http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/8/11392138/spacex-landing-suc... The main part that they point out that I wasn't thinking of is fuel. They're saving on putting fuel into the rocket because they are now putting that fuel in the place that weight doesn't matter - in the sea. Literally. Weight doesn't matter there - they can create a larger platform (preferable) to put even more fuel into! ..pretty brilliant if you ask me. :)
- jroseattle 11y agoSomebody tweeted last week that Elon Musk is the new Steve Jobs. I think he's the new Tony Stark.
- mapt 11y agoYou may have that backwards. http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/08/robert-downey-jr-modeled-his-portrayal-of-tony-stark-after-elon-musk-one-of-the-founders-of-zip2-paypal-tesla-motors-and-spacex/ http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/08/robert-downe...
- zump 11y agoIs there anyone here who doesn't drink the SpaceX Kool-Aid?
- andersen1488 11y agoSelf driving electric cars, virtual reality, now this. I think 2016 is the future you guys.
- agumonkey 11y agoMusk is having the week of his life.
- hipaulshi 11y agoWow!! Wow!!! Wowww!!!! That is SOOO COOL!!! >.<
- tom-_- 11y agoOnboarding view of the landing: https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/718605741288894464 https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/718605741288894464
- ggonweb 11y agoThe SpaceX Reusable Rocket Story and other attempts https://medium.com/lazy-collections/trying-to-land-a-rocket-the-story-b73fadb430ef https://medium.com/lazy-collections/trying-to-land-a-rocket-...
- photonwins 11y agoSensors, control systems, software, hardware and of course the weather. So many things can wrong despite your best efforts. Just think about it, the entire rocket goes through multiple cycles of extreme temperature/pressure variations in a very short span, the different materials used in the vehicle expand and contract at different magnitudes. You have got to get your calculations absolutely right. It is mind boggling to even think about it. Kudos to all the Engineers, Scientists and the support staff for pulling off such a feat. I feel lucky to be able to witness history in the making.
- thangalin 11y agoLike launching a pencil over the Empire State Building only to have it land upright inside a shoebox during a windstorm, or some such analogy. ;-)
- grondilu 11y agoI'm very conflicted about SpaceX. On one hand, I can appreciate the technical performance like everyone, and I do believe this may have a great impact for sending things to space, including humans. On the other hand, SpaceX's main goal of having men living on mars to me sounds completely insane. No matter how cheap is the trip to mars, I would not live there as I could not afford to, and I doubt anyone on Earth currently can. Maybe a scientific base with public funding would make some sense but it would still be so insanely expensive that it'd be tough to sell to the tax payer. And it's clearly not what SpaceX has in mind, anyway. Also I don't share the fear of an upcoming cataclysm that would make Earth worse a place where to live than mars. I just don't get it. For reference: https://youtu.be/3YDnGHaXdxw https://youtu.be/3YDnGHaXdxw
- grumble1234 11y agoTo those that aren't aware, Elon is part of this weird futurist SV clique along with Pete Theil, Ray Kurzweil, Eliezer Yudkowsky etc. They're trying to create a utopian libertarian society and aren't too concerned about the details. It's pretty cool and definitely pretty crazy/idealistic I can already see the future - being a remote web dev on Mars! If you don't work hard enough they might cut off your oxygen. What a motivator! Ayn Rand would be proud Or maybe they'll be all applying for research grants (wouldn't THAT be ironic)
- grondilu 11y agoI don't think the current tax system can allow anyone to become rich enough to afford living on mars, and I doubt settling on mars can exempt from taxation.
- Walkman 11y agoThe sun will not explode tomorrow, but it will eventually. You gotta start to move sometime if you don't want humanity die out.
- grondilu 11y agoEarth will remain inhabitable for about 500 million years. Making any kind of a plan for such a time frame is just dumb.
- aws_ls 11y agoAmazing stuff! BTW, can we buy those "Occupy Mars" T-shirts somewhere? :-)