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"A few minutes later, the first stage of the rocket landed successfully on a platform in the Pacific Ocean." - They have made this so normal. Its not even news
by fillskills 10y ago
"A few minutes later, the first stage of the rocket landed successfully on a platform in the Pacific Ocean." - They have made this so normal. Its not even news title worthy now. Exciting times we live in!!
- mstade 10y agoI came here to write exactly this! Just mentioned in passing, like it's the most natural thing in the world – amazing!
- agumonkey 10y agoHell, SpaceX wasn't a trending topic on twitter less than 2 hours after the landing. Humanity holds the record for the fastest awe to yawn delta.
- robryk 10y ago> Humanity holds the record for the fastest awe to yawn delta. Among what species?
- agumonkey 10y agoI'm sure aliens appreciated the effort longer.
- BurningFrog 10y agoCats are still deeply awed by the laser pointer.
- zcdziura 10y agoPretty sure it's just a joke.
- madeofpalk 10y agoJust because something is amazing doesn't mean we need to constantly be screaming about it.
- angstrom 10y agoRight, most people have seen this trick performed with a broom handle or maybe even done it themselves. This is the same trick done from edge of space to sea level with a much smaller margin for error and a gravity well. To me it's fucking awesome. To everyone else it's just a large broomstick.
- ekianjo 10y agoTwitter does not represent humanity. Far from it.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- maverick_iceman 10y agoCompared to what was achieved in the 60s it doesn't seem that impressive.
- murukesh_s 10y agoYea even though I was not born then, I can imagine. It shattered lots of long held popular beliefs and took mankind to a whole new level.
- sethrin 10y agoWhat was achieved in the 60s built on what had come before. Goddard worked out the principles of liquid-fuel rocketry in the 20s and 30s, John Clark (and presumably others, but he wrote the book) developed rocket fuels in the 50s and 60s, and Von Braun took Army money to build large rockets based on science other people had worked out between 1940 and the 1960s. Setting aside a certain amount of arguing about whose developments were more important, it's probably safe to say that most of the impressive developments of the 60s were actually developed earlier.
- paulmd 10y agoWell, why stop there? Could Goddard have powered his rockets without chemistry that was developed in the 1800s? Literally all science is built incrementally on previous discoveries. In the words of Isaac Newton, "we stand on the shoulders of giants". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_g... That said, SpaceX certainly isn't doing anything more than an incremental improvement on previous ideas, of course. Even the Space Shuttle used refurbished boosters, this is just the same idea with a much faster refurbishment cycle.
- geerlingguy 10y agoAnd hopefully magnitudes less expensive refurbishment. That was what really killed the orbiter/shuttle program.
- sethrin 10y ago
- babyrainbow 10y agoFor most people, it hasn't been newsworthy for a long time, if it was ever newsworthy. I am surprised to see this shit at the top of HN now. >Exciting times we live in!! Don't think so. HN should really ease up on this circlejerk. I can have super bright flash light today, thanks to the LED technology. That is more exciting than someone launching and landing a dumb rocket....on a barge or what ever! I mean, what is our world coming to when mundane commercial stuff like this is hailed as exciting (every time it is repeated, lol)!
- pbreit 10y agoAlso impressive to be flying again just 4 months after a blow up (granted it was on the launch pad the day before the launch).