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Do you ever wonder how people felt when they say Magellan or Captain Cook set off? Or, when they watched the Apollo missions happen? I'm guessing that this is

Do you ever wonder how people felt when they say Magellan or Captain Cook set off? Or, when they watched the Apollo missions happen? I'm guessing that this is what it felt like. We're at the dawn of a new space age.

taneq 8y ago
I've felt that about SpaceX ever since seeing the Grasshopper testing videos. Up until that point, if a rocket slowed down during takeoff something had gone horribly wrong. Then it just... hovered... and landed, and I realised this was the start of a new era of space travel. The Falcon Heavy launch is still the highlight for me but this one is probably more important, simply because it's so normal and routine now and paves the way for drastically cheaper crewed orbital flights.
- dEnigma 8y ago
  I don't know which mission it was exactly, but I think it was the first one where they tried to recover two booster stages (I hope that's what they are called). Watching the live stream of both of them landing simultaneously back on the pad gave me goosebumps and sent shivers down my spine, in a good way.
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    Not to diminish that feeling, but there was a kind of funny mistake made in the livestream for the Falcon Heavy launch (which was actually attempting to land 3 stages at around the same time, but one of them had an issue and suicided into the ocean as designed). Turns out, both of the video streams for the 2 side rockets were actually of the same rocket! You can go back and watch the corrected footage of both landing at once, but it was funny when many watching along (myself included) were like "wow they are so identical" only to find that it was the same footage!
    - dEnigma 8y ago
      Haha, no worries, I was aware of that while watching. What impressed me was the footage from the ground based (or helicopter?) camera that showed them landing side by side. Edit: I didn't know that three boosters were supposed to land. That probably would've blown my mind if it had succeeded ^^
      - Klathmon 8y ago
        Yeah they were attempting to land all 3, but the center booster (which would have landed on a barge at sea) had issues relighting it's engines during the landing burn. They setup the landings so that they are on a trajectory to hit the ocean, and only if everything goes right do they then adjust course to the landing pads. This gives them an additional failsafe which the center booster took advantage of here. Instead of crashing into an expensive barge in the ocean, it just splashed down into the ocean purposely missing the barge. [1] is a diagram that kind of shows what this looks like for land based landings, but it's very similar for barge landings too. And don't worry, they are going to be flying Falcon Heavy again soon-ish, so there's another chance to land all 3! [1] http://i.imgur.com/D9BdO86.png http://i.imgur.com/D9BdO86.png
      - gpm 8y ago
        > or helicopter? Probably a quad/octocopter - I know they've used one before for footage. Third booster was supposed to land on a droneship - it was a near miss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXd5UHFuZVI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXd5UHFuZVI It needed to relight three engines, it ran out of igniter before lighting more than one.
  - gdpgreg 8y ago
    That was the falcon heavy test launch. The two rockets that landed were side boosters which so happened to be two other falcon 9s.
  - the_duke 8y ago
    That was the Falcon Heavy test launch that also brought a Tesla to orbit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c
    - dEnigma 8y ago
      Oh yeah, there was something else to that launch too. Thanks for reminding me of that! I'll have to rewatch it at some point.
  - mcv 8y ago
    That shot was epic. Rocket ballet. Seeing those two boosters land together was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. They may have lost the third booster, but as a demonstration of what SpaceX does, it was brilliantly done.
- Ankaios 8y ago
  Up until that point, if a rocket slowed down during takeoff something had gone horribly wrong. Just in case anyone is unaware of the most notable exception: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC-X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC-X https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IWIv2MKcyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IWIv2MKcyg DC-X has been a major inspiration and proof-by-example for commercial reusable rocket efforts. Its technical achievements and focus on aircraft-like low-cost operations showed a path out of (or into?) the darkness.
  - taneq 8y ago
    I'd actually missed that one! In my defense that was just before I got the internet at home. :P Super impressive for 25-year-old tech.
isostatic 8y ago
Soyuz takes people to the space station every few months, has done for years. Why is this specific mission new?
- Sabrosas 8y ago
  Because in a world lacking traditional religious figures to worship, Elon Musk fits the bill.
  - jjuhl 8y ago
    Why are "figures to worship" (religious or not - preferably not) needed at all?
- grey-area 8y ago
  Reusable rockets is new. Rather than ditching in the sea, the rocket landed back on earth and could in theory take up another payload a few days later, which is much cheaper and more efficient. It opens up space to a lot of other uses. Compared to the cost and use of the shuttle (nominally reusable but not so much in practice), or other disposable rockets, this is a large step forward in reliability and efficiency, which will enable things like travel to Mars at low cost (by refuelling in orbit with multiple reusable vehicle launches for one mission).
- gdpgreg 8y ago
  It's the first new crew vehicle launch from the US since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011. It's also in theory a lot cheaper than the Soyuz.
- Klathmon 8y ago
  It costs about $81 million USD per seat round-trip to go to ISS on Soyuz. SpaceX is doing the same for around $58 million per person (last I read). That alone is a HUGE deal. And that cost is expected to drop as SpaceX gets more comfortable with launching humans, whereas Soyuz has been raising prices. Not to mention that it's increasing the number of countries and rocket designs that can send people to and from the ISS. Without alternate launch providers, if some flaw were to be found in Soyuz or political issues begin to get in the way of launches, then the US could find itself unable to get astronauts to and from the ISS safely. Boeing is also in this race, and will be sending up humans to space in their Starliner soon as well, it's still up in the air which will get to the with humans on board ISS first.
theothermkn 8y ago
> Do you ever wonder how people felt when they say Magellan or Captain Cook set off? Or, when they watched the Apollo missions happen? Yeah, I do wonder: https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4?t=24 https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4?t=24 I think how they feel probably depends on their perspective, their financial situation, their susceptibility to public relations, and so on. Let's say everything goes "great," and there are a million people living on Mars in 50 years. Will it matter to people dying in a war, or ailing next to an open sewer, or what-have-you back on Earth that there's some depressed Martians trapped in smelly cans and covered in perchlorate- and iron-laden dust 4 to 12 light minutes away? I don't think it will. I think that when many of us "wonder" or "imagine" what people felt like when they watched or participated in these events, what we're really doing is projecting the relief and and other pleasant emotions that we experience when we imagine them, when we use imagining them as an escape fantasy to cope with our own anxieties, to that imagined audience. Frank Borman actually went to the Moon, and his feelings about it, are definitely situated inside of his own perspective: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/655/the-not-so-great-unknown/act-one-4 https://www.thisamericanlife.org/655/the-not-so-great-unknow... It's probably important for us to face this phenomenon square on, to check in with what's really going on with our "dreams of space" or sense of Solar "manifest destiny." There's a reason that space-age propaganda seems so successful, both in its own time, where its object was removed from us only by the impassable gulf of 10 km/s, and now, when it is behind the second impassable gulf of nearly 60 years. If that reason is escapism, we should possibly check in with what it is we think we're escaping from, what we actually, really, fear. If our hope is in a fantasy, perhaps it indicates that we feel our reality is hopeless.

taneq 8y ago

I've felt that about SpaceX ever since seeing the Grasshopper testing videos. Up until that point, if a rocket slowed down during takeoff something had gone horribly wrong. Then it just... hovered... and landed, and I realised this was the start of a new era of space travel. The Falcon Heavy launch is still the highlight for me but this one is probably more important, simply because it's so normal and routine now and paves the way for drastically cheaper crewed orbital flights.

dEnigma 8y ago
I don't know which mission it was exactly, but I think it was the first one where they tried to recover two booster stages (I hope that's what they are called). Watching the live stream of both of them landing simultaneously back on the pad gave me goosebumps and sent shivers down my spine, in a good way.
- Klathmon 8y ago
  Not to diminish that feeling, but there was a kind of funny mistake made in the livestream for the Falcon Heavy launch (which was actually attempting to land 3 stages at around the same time, but one of them had an issue and suicided into the ocean as designed). Turns out, both of the video streams for the 2 side rockets were actually of the same rocket! You can go back and watch the corrected footage of both landing at once, but it was funny when many watching along (myself included) were like "wow they are so identical" only to find that it was the same footage!
  - dEnigma 8y ago
    Haha, no worries, I was aware of that while watching. What impressed me was the footage from the ground based (or helicopter?) camera that showed them landing side by side. Edit: I didn't know that three boosters were supposed to land. That probably would've blown my mind if it had succeeded ^^
    - Klathmon 8y ago
      Yeah they were attempting to land all 3, but the center booster (which would have landed on a barge at sea) had issues relighting it's engines during the landing burn. They setup the landings so that they are on a trajectory to hit the ocean, and only if everything goes right do they then adjust course to the landing pads. This gives them an additional failsafe which the center booster took advantage of here. Instead of crashing into an expensive barge in the ocean, it just splashed down into the ocean purposely missing the barge. [1] is a diagram that kind of shows what this looks like for land based landings, but it's very similar for barge landings too. And don't worry, they are going to be flying Falcon Heavy again soon-ish, so there's another chance to land all 3! [1] http://i.imgur.com/D9BdO86.png http://i.imgur.com/D9BdO86.png
    - gpm 8y ago
      > or helicopter? Probably a quad/octocopter - I know they've used one before for footage. Third booster was supposed to land on a droneship - it was a near miss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXd5UHFuZVI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXd5UHFuZVI It needed to relight three engines, it ran out of igniter before lighting more than one.
- gdpgreg 8y ago
  That was the falcon heavy test launch. The two rockets that landed were side boosters which so happened to be two other falcon 9s.
- the_duke 8y ago
  That was the Falcon Heavy test launch that also brought a Tesla to orbit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c
  - dEnigma 8y ago
    Oh yeah, there was something else to that launch too. Thanks for reminding me of that! I'll have to rewatch it at some point.
- mcv 8y ago
  That shot was epic. Rocket ballet. Seeing those two boosters land together was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. They may have lost the third booster, but as a demonstration of what SpaceX does, it was brilliantly done.
Ankaios 8y ago
Up until that point, if a rocket slowed down during takeoff something had gone horribly wrong. Just in case anyone is unaware of the most notable exception: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC-X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC-X https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IWIv2MKcyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IWIv2MKcyg DC-X has been a major inspiration and proof-by-example for commercial reusable rocket efforts. Its technical achievements and focus on aircraft-like low-cost operations showed a path out of (or into?) the darkness.
- taneq 8y ago
  I'd actually missed that one! In my defense that was just before I got the internet at home. :P Super impressive for 25-year-old tech.

isostatic 8y ago

Soyuz takes people to the space station every few months, has done for years. Why is this specific mission new?

Sabrosas 8y ago
Because in a world lacking traditional religious figures to worship, Elon Musk fits the bill.
- jjuhl 8y ago
  Why are "figures to worship" (religious or not - preferably not) needed at all?
grey-area 8y ago
Reusable rockets is new. Rather than ditching in the sea, the rocket landed back on earth and could in theory take up another payload a few days later, which is much cheaper and more efficient. It opens up space to a lot of other uses. Compared to the cost and use of the shuttle (nominally reusable but not so much in practice), or other disposable rockets, this is a large step forward in reliability and efficiency, which will enable things like travel to Mars at low cost (by refuelling in orbit with multiple reusable vehicle launches for one mission).
gdpgreg 8y ago
It's the first new crew vehicle launch from the US since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011. It's also in theory a lot cheaper than the Soyuz.
Klathmon 8y ago
It costs about $81 million USD per seat round-trip to go to ISS on Soyuz. SpaceX is doing the same for around $58 million per person (last I read). That alone is a HUGE deal. And that cost is expected to drop as SpaceX gets more comfortable with launching humans, whereas Soyuz has been raising prices. Not to mention that it's increasing the number of countries and rocket designs that can send people to and from the ISS. Without alternate launch providers, if some flaw were to be found in Soyuz or political issues begin to get in the way of launches, then the US could find itself unable to get astronauts to and from the ISS safely. Boeing is also in this race, and will be sending up humans to space in their Starliner soon as well, it's still up in the air which will get to the with humans on board ISS first.

theothermkn 8y ago

> Do you ever wonder how people felt when they say Magellan or Captain Cook set off? Or, when they watched the Apollo missions happen? Yeah, I do wonder: https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4?t=24 https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4?t=24 I think how they feel probably depends on their perspective, their financial situation, their susceptibility to public relations, and so on. Let's say everything goes "great," and there are a million people living on Mars in 50 years. Will it matter to people dying in a war, or ailing next to an open sewer, or what-have-you back on Earth that there's some depressed Martians trapped in smelly cans and covered in perchlorate- and iron-laden dust 4 to 12 light minutes away? I don't think it will. I think that when many of us "wonder" or "imagine" what people felt like when they watched or participated in these events, what we're really doing is projecting the relief and and other pleasant emotions that we experience when we imagine them, when we use imagining them as an escape fantasy to cope with our own anxieties, to that imagined audience. Frank Borman actually went to the Moon, and his feelings about it, are definitely situated inside of his own perspective: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/655/the-not-so-great-unknown/act-one-4 https://www.thisamericanlife.org/655/the-not-so-great-unknow... It's probably important for us to face this phenomenon square on, to check in with what's really going on with our "dreams of space" or sense of Solar "manifest destiny." There's a reason that space-age propaganda seems so successful, both in its own time, where its object was removed from us only by the impassable gulf of 10 km/s, and now, when it is behind the second impassable gulf of nearly 60 years. If that reason is escapism, we should possibly check in with what it is we think we're escaping from, what we actually, really, fear. If our hope is in a fantasy, perhaps it indicates that we feel our reality is hopeless.