5 ms·

Compared to making life multiplanetary, destroying one van seems inconsequential.

JKCalhoun 3y ago
I think it's a little annoying how avoidable it was though. Aside: by chance I happened to be in the area so headed down and saw the launch. That was a trip. A guy I chatted with told me we were 5 miles from the launch. He said that 10 miles is the typical viewing distance for the Florida launches. NASA apparently, he said, has an observing facility that is 3.5 miles from the Florida tower but you pay dearly for a seat. With that as context, I confess that I was expecting something a little more chest-pounding from the launch. Perhaps 3.5 miles packs that extra punch. The slowness with which it climbed also surprised me. Watching it rise, kind of hanging in the air it seemed to struggle. It seemed suddenly to me that large rockets were "not meant to be", were an affront to gravity or something. We saw several of these flashes in the thrust that apparently were engines going out (blowing up?). At the time I thought maybe the fuel was being pumped unevenly — some kind of pogo-ing. When nothing blew up though I assumed that perhaps at various angles the flame from the motors might just look brighter — perhaps momentarily unobstructed by exhaust. As it disappeared into the sky above the final thing that struck me was how long you could continue to hear the thing — like a Harley or something still thundering long after you've lost sight of it. If it blew up while we were there, I didn't know it. Odd flashes and booms had suddenly become something I just came to expect from a large rocket launch. We were frankly more interested in getting off South Padre before the whole crowd slowed traffic to a crawl.
- jdm2212 3y ago
  If you watch an old Saturn V launch video, they have the same slowness at liftoff. Really gives a sense of of how gigantic the thing is. You've stuck rockets onto the bottom of a skyscraper and are trying to loft it into the air.
  - lonelygirl15a 3y ago
    https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition30/tryanny.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/exped... Tyranny of the rocket equation
- Zigurd 3y ago
  It didn't just seem to struggle. Some of the YouTubers covering SpaceX calculated the acceleration curves. It was substantially under max power, in part due to failed engines.
cratermoon 3y ago
Yeah, it was a bit more than one van. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enB2QL9Ulus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enB2QL9Ulus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGLfs376wXE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGLfs376wXE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnMM1lObp0Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnMM1lObp0Y
- CTDOCodebases 3y ago
  You might want to fix the first link. It's a video of a cats weight loss journey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enB2QL9Ulus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enB2QL9Ulus
  - JerryB77 3y ago
    It made my day, I vote to keep it
  - cratermoon 3y ago
    (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
arretevad 3y ago
Isn’t life already multiplanetary? There’s no way we are the only planet with the only life. Seems like we are just destroying vans for no reason. Also seems like we are destroying this planet for no reason.
- Zigurd 3y ago
  The lesson of attempting a Mars colony will likely be "life is a planetary system." and we will find out just how ill suited we are to being stripped of our environment for more than a few months at a time.

I think it's a little annoying how avoidable it was though. Aside: by chance I happened to be in the area so headed down and saw the launch. That was a trip. A guy I chatted with told me we were 5 miles from the launch. He said that 10 miles is the typical viewing distance for the Florida launches. NASA apparently, he said, has an observing facility that is 3.5 miles from the Florida tower but you pay dearly for a seat. With that as context, I confess that I was expecting something a little more chest-pounding from the launch. Perhaps 3.5 miles packs that extra punch. The slowness with which it climbed also surprised me. Watching it rise, kind of hanging in the air it seemed to struggle. It seemed suddenly to me that large rockets were "not meant to be", were an affront to gravity or something. We saw several of these flashes in the thrust that apparently were engines going out (blowing up?). At the time I thought maybe the fuel was being pumped unevenly — some kind of pogo-ing. When nothing blew up though I assumed that perhaps at various angles the flame from the motors might just look brighter — perhaps momentarily unobstructed by exhaust. As it disappeared into the sky above the final thing that struck me was how long you could continue to hear the thing — like a Harley or something still thundering long after you've lost sight of it. If it blew up while we were there, I didn't know it. Odd flashes and booms had suddenly become something I just came to expect from a large rocket launch. We were frankly more interested in getting off South Padre before the whole crowd slowed traffic to a crawl.

jdm2212 3y ago
If you watch an old Saturn V launch video, they have the same slowness at liftoff. Really gives a sense of of how gigantic the thing is. You've stuck rockets onto the bottom of a skyscraper and are trying to loft it into the air.
- lonelygirl15a 3y ago
  https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition30/tryanny.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/exped... Tyranny of the rocket equation
Zigurd 3y ago
It didn't just seem to struggle. Some of the YouTubers covering SpaceX calculated the acceleration curves. It was substantially under max power, in part due to failed engines.

cratermoon 3y ago

Yeah, it was a bit more than one van. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enB2QL9Ulus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enB2QL9Ulus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGLfs376wXE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGLfs376wXE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnMM1lObp0Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnMM1lObp0Y

CTDOCodebases 3y ago
You might want to fix the first link. It's a video of a cats weight loss journey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enB2QL9Ulus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enB2QL9Ulus
- JerryB77 3y ago
  It made my day, I vote to keep it
- cratermoon 3y ago
  (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

arretevad 3y ago

Isn’t life already multiplanetary? There’s no way we are the only planet with the only life. Seems like we are just destroying vans for no reason. Also seems like we are destroying this planet for no reason.

Zigurd 3y ago
The lesson of attempting a Mars colony will likely be "life is a planetary system." and we will find out just how ill suited we are to being stripped of our environment for more than a few months at a time.