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The dream of offshore rocket launches is finally blasting off
- rwmj 2y agoThere's a photo of the V2 launching from USS Midway on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_Sandy_and_Pushover https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_Sandy_and_Pushover
- pintxo 2y agoThe number of people on the flight deck at the time of launch is scary.
- mannykannot 2y agoDefinitely - this launch is mentioned in the article: "As it turned out, the inaugural flight was a bit of a mixed bag. Neal Casey, an 18-year-old technician stationed on the Midway, later recalled how the missile tilted dangerously starboard and headed toward the vessel’s own command center, known as the island. "“I had no problem tracking the rocket,” said Casey, according to the USS Midway Museum. “It almost hit the island.”"
- ricardobeat 2y agohttps://archive.is/FmOqg https://archive.is/FmOqg
- luca4 2y agoThank you, after clicking the third(!!) X button i had enough.
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- eps 2y agoThere was also appropriately named Sea Launch company, an joint enterprise between 4 countries that made 30+ launches between 1999 and 2014 from a repurposed oil platform - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Launch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Launch
- robin_reala 2y agoThere’s also Copenhagen Suborbitals, which seems to be still going despite their cofounder being Peter Madsen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Suborbitals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Suborbitals
- lifestyleguru 2y agoThere must be something intrinsically pathological about the rocket business, talking back to V2/NASA origins. Are there any non evil individuals in there?
- huhtenberg 2y agoYou've gotta be trolling.
- relaxing 2y agoYou can look back to the original Futurist manifesto which took the glorification of power through technology and turned it into the original Fascist movement.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoFind-replace electricity with AI in a Marinetti speech [1] and you basically have an Andreessen Horowitz press release. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Tommaso_Marinetti#Futurism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Tommaso_Marinetti#Futu...
- lupusreal 2y agoI challenge you to find anything bad to say about Maxime Faget, one of the finest spaceflight engineers there ever was.
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- lysace 2y agoThis scene showing a Sea Dragon launch at the end of the first season of For all mankind is something special: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6YJ5oIcT4g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6YJ5oIcT4g https://www.unionvfx.com/work/for-all-mankind/ https://www.unionvfx.com/work/for-all-mankind/
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- cubefox 2y ago> SpaceX eventually abandoned this project and sold the rigs, though Gwynne Shotwell, its president and COO, said in 2023 that sea-based launches were likely to be part of the company’s future. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment. Is anything known why they stopped pursuing the offshore space port idea? I assume SpaceX found some significant drawbacks that weren't obvious when they bought the oil rigs just a few years ago.
- a12k 2y agoTexas is just a much better and cheaper option. It retains the upsides of sea launches (being able to select location, being far from people) without the downsides (being out in the water vs landlocked). They can also take advantage of US infrastructure and legal stability, which are downsides noted in the article about equatorial locations, while retaining the upsides of those areas in the form of not needing to worry about pollution, and very malleable state laws. Basically Texas is as good as it gets if you’re amoral and running a company with large externalities.
- cubefox 2y agoI think Texas is currently used for testing purposes while the main Starship launch site will be in Kennedy Space Center, Florida. It's currently being built. Still, that's not a new fact, so there must have been a reason why they first thought offshore space ports were a valuable addition and then later changed their mind.
- jltsiren 2y agoOne upside of sea launches is the ability to choose any heading, which makes reaching the desired orbit easier. When launching from land, you have a limited range of possible headings, unless you are willing to launch over populated areas. For example, rockets launched from Florida to ISS initially head northeast. A similar launch from Boca Chica would place the trajectory uncomfortably close to Houston.
- pr337h4m 2y agoFor ships, stability seems to be the main problem: https://x.com/BrentM_SpaceX/status/1885450296421208118 https://x.com/BrentM_SpaceX/status/1885450296421208118 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1885508628582474040 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1885508628582474040 Not sure about oil rigs
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- vpribish 2y agothe title is clickbait - offshore rocket launch is 8 decades old and the article knows it. the article is a lightweight survey of some anecdotes from this long history. ends with a vaporware pitch for a franchise business. this is nothing the technology review is garbage.