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SpaceX is certainly doing great things, but where was this vid a couple days ago? When I first heard of the hard landing I jumped online to see the vid. But n

SpaceX is certainly doing great things, but where was this vid a couple days ago? When I first heard of the hard landing I jumped online to see the vid. But no vid appeared. Then I realized what was happening. A vid of a crashing rocket is never a good thing for a spacelaunch company. It's just bad PR. Thinking back, we don't see many vids from SpaceX that aren't unqualified successes. They surely had this vid withing minutes, of not seconds of the landing attempt. But they delayed its release until the media and the public were educated sufficiently to understand that, despite the flames, this landing was not a failure.

32faction 12y ago
> Where was this video a couple of days ago? Usually when there's an error or a failure on a mission, there will be an immediate lockdown of all PR, videos etc to analyze the problems first and understand what happened before the official release of material. This might seem trivial but I'll type it anyway. First off, if SpaceX released videos and didn't know what happened, the press would obviously speculate and SpaceX's brand would lose value somewhat. If the videos were released and the problem is a little harder to solve, well now you have a video of your error circulating and you don't even know what to tell the press what happened. If you watch the Mission Control footage during Columbia's fatal reentry, when Houston realized the worst had happened, Flight Director Cain said over the intercom "G.C., FLIGHT, Lock the doors". This was meant figuratively and literally; He told Ground Control to lock the doors of Mission Control so no one could leave, and that all information regarding the incident would not leave that room. Not even the President could enter that room after Ground Control locked the doors.
Crito 12y ago
It would be embarrassing for SpaceX if somebody from the public discovered something in the video that SpaceX had missed. It therefore makes sense that they would sit on the video for a while, making sure they had learned as much as there was to learn from it before releasing it to the public.
ufmace 12y ago
I think you're getting downvoted for the perceived negative tone, which I'm not sure if you intended. It's true, but I don't see anything wrong or sinister about it. If I was in charge of SpaceX, I would have done the same thing. Even without the video, several news sources jumped into calling the mission a failure, even though the actual mission of resupplying the ISS went perfectly, and the landing was a long-shot experiment. Those calls would only be louder with a flashy explosion video with no backing explanation on hand, ready to go out with the news of the landing failure. By the time more info was available, the story would be gone, and the explanation would be ignored. This would damage SpaceX's brand, ability to get Government missions and private contracts, etc. It's also entirely plausible that they didn't bother to install a high-speed data link from the barge to the mainland for the purpose of getting the video instantly. It would probably be an expensive and finicky way for them to instantly distribute video that would more likely than not be damaging to their brand.

32faction 12y ago

> Where was this video a couple of days ago? Usually when there's an error or a failure on a mission, there will be an immediate lockdown of all PR, videos etc to analyze the problems first and understand what happened before the official release of material. This might seem trivial but I'll type it anyway. First off, if SpaceX released videos and didn't know what happened, the press would obviously speculate and SpaceX's brand would lose value somewhat. If the videos were released and the problem is a little harder to solve, well now you have a video of your error circulating and you don't even know what to tell the press what happened. If you watch the Mission Control footage during Columbia's fatal reentry, when Houston realized the worst had happened, Flight Director Cain said over the intercom "G.C., FLIGHT, Lock the doors". This was meant figuratively and literally; He told Ground Control to lock the doors of Mission Control so no one could leave, and that all information regarding the incident would not leave that room. Not even the President could enter that room after Ground Control locked the doors.

Crito 12y ago

It would be embarrassing for SpaceX if somebody from the public discovered something in the video that SpaceX had missed. It therefore makes sense that they would sit on the video for a while, making sure they had learned as much as there was to learn from it before releasing it to the public.

ufmace 12y ago

I think you're getting downvoted for the perceived negative tone, which I'm not sure if you intended. It's true, but I don't see anything wrong or sinister about it. If I was in charge of SpaceX, I would have done the same thing. Even without the video, several news sources jumped into calling the mission a failure, even though the actual mission of resupplying the ISS went perfectly, and the landing was a long-shot experiment. Those calls would only be louder with a flashy explosion video with no backing explanation on hand, ready to go out with the news of the landing failure. By the time more info was available, the story would be gone, and the explanation would be ignored. This would damage SpaceX's brand, ability to get Government missions and private contracts, etc. It's also entirely plausible that they didn't bother to install a high-speed data link from the barge to the mainland for the purpose of getting the video instantly. It would probably be an expensive and finicky way for them to instantly distribute video that would more likely than not be damaging to their brand.