4 ms·
This was "close?"
by thescorer 12y ago
This was "close?"
- joezydeco 12y agoGetting a sub-orbital rocket traveling at multiple Mach to decelerate and land (vertically, nose up) on a point in the ocean that's about 200 square feet in size? Yeah, that was very close.
- ceejayoz 12y agoConsidering it came down from 60 miles up and 5x the speed of sound, yes, this is pretty damned close. Especially given the probable cause, needing just a little more hydraulic fluid, and the fact that it's literally the first try for real landing.
- thaumaturgy 12y agoPut a .5" x .5" cardboard square on a wooden post. Grab a pushpin. Start counting paces away from the post. Stop when you're about four city blocks away. Start running full speed towards the post. Hurl the pin at the post as hard as you can when you're three city blocks away. Pin glances off of one corner of the cardboard square. Crowd yells, "epic fail!"
- ctdonath 12y agoIn contrast, from the HN-featured article about finding the Beagle2 probe on Mars: MRO's data confirms that Beagle landed just 5km from the centre of its targeted touchdown zone. 5km, and it was considered a bulls-eye accurate landing.
- taeric 12y agoAt the relative ranges we are talking about here, those numbers are probably more comparable than many would realize. Consider, Mars at its closest, is over 6700km away. The space station at its furthest is 418km. (Assuming I looked up the correct numbers, of course.)
- Gravityloss 12y agoBeagle 2 had a very different weight budget.
- Raphmedia 12y agoDid you watch the same video I watched? They practically had the thing hovering on the barge. All that failed was the angle!
- mod 12y agoI'm guessing the poster thought this was a failed take-off. I wasn't "in-the-know" about this being a return / landing until I got to this comment section.