Well, Musk's a much better choice. His businesses are built on improving or changing the ways people do business, not licensing his name to substandard products or dodgy real estate speculation; Musk is self-made, rather than inheriting vast wealth; Musk's goals are transformative rather than exploitative. If I were to vote for a billionaire, it would be someone like Elon Musk, not someone like Drumpf.
Space stuff (NASA, UKSA, CSA, ESA, etc)
- Thread starter strawman
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I think that's called "going Galt". Maybe politicians are just Randian method-actors?
GasBandit
Staff member
And how about those Pioneer plaques, then? Somebody actually thinks the best way to make a good first impression on strangers is to send unsolicited nude pics of ourselves, and directions to our place?
It's essentially humanity's version of this beloved meme.[DOUBLEPOST=1464887961,1464887895][/DOUBLEPOST]Come to Earth in the next 20 cosmic years if you want an ass kicking!
The ground track was to the South. I got to see most of the assent, the separation, and most of the descent.
A couple of pictures from tonight:
Launch:
After stage separation:
The bright dots are the stages. I was surprised that the first stage went dark after separation. It flared up once or twice and then went dark again. I couldn't track it until it was in the final descent phase.
One addendum:
I forgot to mention that I was pleasantly surprised by the sonic booms that didn't reach here until after the rocket had apparently landed. They felt right and familiar. Almost every shuttle landing was accompanied by twin sonic booms. It was always pretty tricky to see the Space Shuttle during landing phase -- I really only managed to get a good view of it once. So, I was always grateful for the sonic booms. I'd hear them and know that the shuttle was home.[DOUBLEPOST=1468858578,1468858248][/DOUBLEPOST]
I forgot to mention that I was pleasantly surprised by the sonic booms that didn't reach here until after the rocket had apparently landed. They felt right and familiar. Almost every shuttle landing was accompanied by twin sonic booms. It was always pretty tricky to see the Space Shuttle during landing phase -- I really only managed to get a good view of it once. So, I was always grateful for the sonic booms. I'd hear them and know that the shuttle was home.[DOUBLEPOST=1468858578,1468858248][/DOUBLEPOST]
It makes sense. I was thinking that it might use a lower power burn to limit the speed of the descent.
SpaceX has asked permission to land 3 of the 4 stages from a Falcon Heavy launch. The two booster rockets would land simultaneously and the first stage would land a short time after. (Gizmodo, Orlando Sentinel)
It appears from the animation that this would be an expansion of the existing LZ-1 site built at LC-13 and not new facilities.
It appears from the animation that this would be an expansion of the existing LZ-1 site built at LC-13 and not new facilities.
I'm guessing the reason they did all the barge landings was to avoid possible incidents when landings go wrong, so now they've proven they can do a barge landing the government and safety regulators are all going, "Yeah, go ahead and land on US soil, you got this."
This is all amazing. Once we get to the point where they can do a launch a day we will start to see things like satellite phone and internet that's as cheap as cell phones (though still greater lag - can't beat the speed of light), and regular space tourism that while expensive isn't the millions of dollars that it would be today.
Launching regular robotic missions to planets and for other science missions will be cheaper, and we will be significantly closer to being able to send people to places further than the moon.
I'm not happy about the regular reductions in NASA budget, but I'm so pleased that the commercial sector is stepping up to the plate, and that Spacex is really making JPL, Boeing and others compete for contracts.
This is all amazing. Once we get to the point where they can do a launch a day we will start to see things like satellite phone and internet that's as cheap as cell phones (though still greater lag - can't beat the speed of light), and regular space tourism that while expensive isn't the millions of dollars that it would be today.
Launching regular robotic missions to planets and for other science missions will be cheaper, and we will be significantly closer to being able to send people to places further than the moon.
I'm not happy about the regular reductions in NASA budget, but I'm so pleased that the commercial sector is stepping up to the plate, and that Spacex is really making JPL, Boeing and others compete for contracts.
Not really. Landing on a barge takes less fuel, because you're already "downrange" (read: east, because you always take off that way to take advantage of the fact the Earth rotates that way) and it costs fuel to fly back to land. So you have to carry more fuel, and thus it's more expensive to fly back to land. But it is EASIER than the barge landing. Also, for launches on the limit of the capabilities of the rocket, there IS NO SPARE FUEL, and thus they can't land them at all. So when there's a bit of "room" for spare fuel, they land on a barge. When there's more, they land on terra firma.
The takeoff (and landing) zones are already so far away from anybody (I read once that if you were within quite a ways of the rocket taking off without a LOT of protection, you'd go deaf instantly) I don't think the safety concern is much of a concern. And while some toxic chemicals CAN be used in rockets, the SpaceX ones are using RP-1 (which is basically kerosene) and Liquid Oxygen, so while it's not "good for you" if it blows up and/or spills, it isn't "the earth is fucked forever" type of fuel, such as hydrazine, which is also common.
Note: Hydrazine isn't THAT bad, but it's still nasty stuff to deal with.
I always assumed that they circled the earth once (or possibly twice) since it's obvious they use heat braking for the first part of slowdown, and they wouldn't want to carry 2x the fuel just to slow down. Thus I figured they could land near launch if they angled the heated reentry descent phase correctly, and that this would be ideal since they could then refurbish and relaunch without excessive transportation. But these are all baseless assumptions, I've not actually looked into it.
It sounds like what you're saying is that they only go a few thousand miles up and back down? That seems short for the amount of delta v they need, but I'm no rocket scientist...
Didn't they only land the first stage on the barge? That one doesn't go all the way up, I think.
They were landing the falcon 9 first stage on the barge, a two stage design that has already made multiple trips to the space station, as well as launching satellites.
So yes, it goes all the way up.
...
[DOUBLEPOST=1468956875,1468956740][/DOUBLEPOST]The three rocket design in the video is the Falcon heavy, for comparison. It's essentially three falcon 9s, and doubles the falcon nine payload capacity.The Falcon 9 carries 50k pounds to LEO, while the falcon heavy doubles that. On the individual pages it gives the payload to each orbit (geo, leo, mars, etc).
The first stage goes all the way up, you mean? (That is what I meant by "that one".) Is 162 seconds (per your link) enough time to get it into an orbit and land wherever they want? I ask legitimately, as IANARSThey were landing the falcon 9 first stage on the barge, a two stage design that has already made multiple trips to the space station, as well as launching satellites.
So yes, it goes all the way up.
...
Hmmm. The first stage does most of the work, but that doesn't mean it gives most of the delta v. It might, but once the mass is substantially reduced the second stage could possibly give as much delta v. I guess I don't know.
To the oracle!
My google search terms aren't bringing much up, but it looks like I'm wrong. This Q&A suggests that the first stage never completes a full orbit:
http://space.stackexchange.com/ques...pot-of-a-reusable-falcon-9-with-a-gto-payload
And there seem to be slow shutter images of Falcon 9 takeoffs with the separation in the image, which means that it really does land just thousands of miles from where it was launched. It also means it doesn't have to do very much braking to slow down before lighting its rocket again, it doesn't attain a very high delta v.
[DOUBLEPOST=1468957997,1468957817][/DOUBLEPOST]Here's some gory details. Simply amazing. The drone ship can maintain its location to within 3 meters even under heavy seas.
http://spaceflight101.com/spacerockets/falcon-9-v1-1-f9r/
To the oracle!
My google search terms aren't bringing much up, but it looks like I'm wrong. This Q&A suggests that the first stage never completes a full orbit:
http://space.stackexchange.com/ques...pot-of-a-reusable-falcon-9-with-a-gto-payload
And there seem to be slow shutter images of Falcon 9 takeoffs with the separation in the image, which means that it really does land just thousands of miles from where it was launched. It also means it doesn't have to do very much braking to slow down before lighting its rocket again, it doesn't attain a very high delta v.
http://spaceflight101.com/spacerockets/falcon-9-v1-1-f9r/
Some people are intimating that this is just the in-progress privatization of space (travel).
--Patrick
I've actually been thinking about designing an HDR camera for rear view mirror replacement in vehicles, and they're doing it the same way I thought it would have to be done. The multiple exposures is easy, but the image processing to correctly combine them isn't. Neat that they've done it, hopefully we will see video cameras start to adopt this feature in general.
Kind of. Representing it back to us again in display is again hard. Hence why Gamma Correction is a thing. Our brains are good "cheaters" of what our eyes see around us, but actually representing it on a screen is just really REALLY hard if you're not trying to do false colors.
So... good luck!
Yes, and the trouble is increased because it's a display inside a vehicle, which means widely varying lighting conditions, and as a secondary or tertiary display it has to be bright enough to use when needed, but not so bright that it attracts attention when not needed.[DOUBLEPOST=1470848074,1470848009][/DOUBLEPOST]On the other hand, accurate color representation isn't as critical, particularly since it'll be on a display much smaller than 7".
fade
Staff member
To be taken with the usual OMG grain of salt needed when the media gets ahold of a story.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/30/health/seti-signal-hd-164595-alien-civilization/
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/30/health/seti-signal-hd-164595-alien-civilization/
Yeah, about that. Turns out the signal came from here.[DOUBLEPOST=1472739395,1472739354][/DOUBLEPOST]SpaceX Falcon 9 explodes on the pad during static test.
To me, emphasizing why it's important to DO tests on the pad.
I hope the satellite that was going to be launched wasn't there at the time of the test. Then the losses are much less.
Other sources: Florida Today,CBC
There was a report that this was a re-used rocket, but clearly not, as this was scheduled for this weekend, and the re-use one is going to be Q4 this year. So not related, even if you read some headlines saying so. I think the person writing that article was confused, because it's the same TYPE, but not the actual same rocket.
