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The true beauty of SpaceX is that they've made landing their boosters boring (almost). This makes their competitors throwing them away seem stupid. It also sho

by mabbo 6y ago

The true beauty of SpaceX is that they've made landing their boosters boring (almost). This makes their competitors throwing them away seem stupid. It also shows how clever it was to livestream so much of what they do. So many people have seen a rocket booster land. Children today will hear that ULA doesn't land their boosters and ask "why not?".

atonse 6y ago
Yup they've done such a good job of explaining exactly what's going on, live. It's been interesting to see them improve too. It used to be that the video compression always used to ruin the final moment when the boosters landed at the sea platform. But now, they've even solved that.
- shantara 6y ago
  From what I've heard, the reason for the signal loss during the landing was the drone ship losing its satellite data uplink from the shaking and interference caused by the landing booster.
bserge 6y ago
Amazing how fast it became the new normal.
intotheabyss 6y ago
I remember the first booster landing. I was literally jumping up and down in my living room, even though I was just a spectator. I've dreamed of reusable rockets my entire life, and to see it happen was pretty incredible. Now I'm looking forward to stage 2 reusability.
- danw1979 6y ago
  Likewise... and when the Falcon heavy boosters landed side by side I was convinced that I was watching the making of history, but I’ve a feeling now that there’s so much yet to come from SpaceX over the next few years anything from the Falcon era is likely to be unimpressive by comparison.
  - derekp7 6y ago
    We were watching it at work (remember offices?), had several people around someone's monitor. Somebody walks by, and asks what movie that is that we were watching. Couldn't convince them that it was real.
- chasd00 6y ago
  i watch the video of the first landing any time i need a boost of enthusiasm or motivation. It's just amazing.
volfied 6y ago
My three year old and I have been watching rocket launches since he was 18 months old. He expects all rockets to land back on earth now. I love that he's growing up with the idea that we don't need to throw away giant piles of metal just to launch something into space.
imglorp 6y ago
Let's talk about the "why not" for a second. The incumbents have 200 years of collective head start over SpaceX, which started from scratch in 2002. They had 18 years to use that advantage to beat everyone else to reusable space access while remaining in the cherry procurement positions. Instead, they mismanaged, wrecked their quality culture, and lobbied for more handouts. Unable to compete on merit, schedule,or price, ULA is reduced to buying another congressman, who's implying SpaceX is a security threat via the China card. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/elon-musks-spacex-nasa-contracts-threatened-over-tesla-china-ties https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-s...
- aeternum 6y ago
  Innovator's dilemma. For quite awhile the only way ULA could make more money was by convincing congress to perform more launches. It makes sense that that is exactly what they became good at.
  - Meandering 6y ago
    Even though consolidation is natural in this type of industry, the lack of competition is why there was no creative or progressive development. Why burden yourself with risk and investment if the current system pays you as-is?
- tenpies 6y ago
  > Unable to compete on merit, schedule,or price, ULA is reduced to buying another congressman, who's implying SpaceX is a security threat via the China card. That's quite the leap, although I can see your logic. Ultimately Musk should have seen this coming because it's obvious. He's tied a huge amount of his net worth to the favour of the CCP and involved himself with a program of national importance to a country that is at odds with the CCP. What's worst, Musk has zero respect for any sort of arms length separation between his companies, so it's almost guaranteed that the CCP has some level of access to SpaceX IP as they expand their grasp on Tesla through Shanghai. This was all easily avoidable if Musk didn't insist on thinking that if he didn't personally come up with the idea, the idea must be idiotic.

by mabbo 6y ago

atonse 6y ago

Yup they've done such a good job of explaining exactly what's going on, live. It's been interesting to see them improve too. It used to be that the video compression always used to ruin the final moment when the boosters landed at the sea platform. But now, they've even solved that.

shantara 6y ago
From what I've heard, the reason for the signal loss during the landing was the drone ship losing its satellite data uplink from the shaking and interference caused by the landing booster.

bserge 6y ago

Amazing how fast it became the new normal.

intotheabyss 6y ago

I remember the first booster landing. I was literally jumping up and down in my living room, even though I was just a spectator. I've dreamed of reusable rockets my entire life, and to see it happen was pretty incredible. Now I'm looking forward to stage 2 reusability.

danw1979 6y ago
Likewise... and when the Falcon heavy boosters landed side by side I was convinced that I was watching the making of history, but I’ve a feeling now that there’s so much yet to come from SpaceX over the next few years anything from the Falcon era is likely to be unimpressive by comparison.
- derekp7 6y ago
  We were watching it at work (remember offices?), had several people around someone's monitor. Somebody walks by, and asks what movie that is that we were watching. Couldn't convince them that it was real.
chasd00 6y ago
i watch the video of the first landing any time i need a boost of enthusiasm or motivation. It's just amazing.

volfied 6y ago

My three year old and I have been watching rocket launches since he was 18 months old. He expects all rockets to land back on earth now. I love that he's growing up with the idea that we don't need to throw away giant piles of metal just to launch something into space.

imglorp 6y ago

Let's talk about the "why not" for a second. The incumbents have 200 years of collective head start over SpaceX, which started from scratch in 2002. They had 18 years to use that advantage to beat everyone else to reusable space access while remaining in the cherry procurement positions. Instead, they mismanaged, wrecked their quality culture, and lobbied for more handouts. Unable to compete on merit, schedule,or price, ULA is reduced to buying another congressman, who's implying SpaceX is a security threat via the China card. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/elon-musks-spacex-nasa-contracts-threatened-over-tesla-china-ties https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-s...

aeternum 6y ago
Innovator's dilemma. For quite awhile the only way ULA could make more money was by convincing congress to perform more launches. It makes sense that that is exactly what they became good at.
- Meandering 6y ago
  Even though consolidation is natural in this type of industry, the lack of competition is why there was no creative or progressive development. Why burden yourself with risk and investment if the current system pays you as-is?
tenpies 6y ago
> Unable to compete on merit, schedule,or price, ULA is reduced to buying another congressman, who's implying SpaceX is a security threat via the China card. That's quite the leap, although I can see your logic. Ultimately Musk should have seen this coming because it's obvious. He's tied a huge amount of his net worth to the favour of the CCP and involved himself with a program of national importance to a country that is at odds with the CCP. What's worst, Musk has zero respect for any sort of arms length separation between his companies, so it's almost guaranteed that the CCP has some level of access to SpaceX IP as they expand their grasp on Tesla through Shanghai. This was all easily avoidable if Musk didn't insist on thinking that if he didn't personally come up with the idea, the idea must be idiotic.