Hell yeah!

[www.cnbc.com]
[arstechnica.com]
7pm ET: Well, that was exhilarating. SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket launched at the top of its window on Thursday evening from Florida, and soared into space under clear skies. First, the two side boosters separated. And then the center core detached from the second stage, which carried its satellite payload on toward geostationary orbit.

Then, the fun began. In something of a space ballet, the two side boosters reentered Earth's atmosphere, and then made controlled burns to land within meters of one another at sites along the Florida coast. A few minutes later the center core, burning its engines hard, landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

That system is fantastic. It's so operationally perfect it looks like CGI.

It's so operationally perfect it looks like CGI.

Freakin' AWESOME!

Is there any video of the Core landing on OCISLY?

(Those two links didn't work for me. I went to YT for the 'live' coverage of the side boosters landing.

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I am that Masked Man.

All you can do, is all you can do.

There’s trouble — it's time to play the sound of my people.

Your boos mean nothing to me, I've seen what you cheer for.

Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities isn’t freedom, it’s adolescence.

I've been to the edge of the map, and there be monsters.

We are a government of laws, not men.

Everybody counts or nobody counts.

When a good man is hurt,
all who would be called good
must suffer with him.

You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.

There is no safety for honest men except
by believing all possible evil of evil men.

We don’t do focus groups. They just ensure that you don’t offend anyone, and produce bland inoffensive products. —Sir Jonathan Ive

An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

You make me pull, I'll put you down.

I *love* SIGs. It's Glocks I hate.

That's a really funny name, works great with a stalled video stream.

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In tha 360. MRF User Map

The main camera cut out during the landing. It will take a day or two for them to splice the footage into their official feed.

It shows the Core after touchdown on the barge at 30:15 (T+00:10:22).
[youtu.be]

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In tha 360. MRF User Map

The vibration of one or three rocket engines coming in for the landing shakes the ever loving @#$%& out of the uplink antenna on the Drone Ship.... They frequently lose connection.
I'll bet they post the video in a day or two.

I was forced to watch on my phone from the waiting room of the car service center... (my big meathooks are too big to get in and change my Prius's headlights... not for lack of trying!).

Even on a tiny screen, Launch through landings, Falcon Heavy is a lovely sight!

Can't wait for Starship/SuperHeavy to debut in a couple years. OK, a "couple" is wildly optimistic...

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Paul F.
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A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca c. 5 BC - 65 AD
----
Good is the enemy of Excellent. Talent is not necessary for Excellence.
Persistence is necessary for Excellence. And Persistence is a Decision.
--

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Eureka, CA

so, um, why was NASA so lame? Without a profit motive they just loafed along.

Not simply NASA....the Europeans, Russians...hell even (maybe) the Indians and Chinese. But then, this is the same question that could've been asked of the incumbent cell phone makers up until Apple debuted the iPhone. I think there was a great belief/assumption, that such great leaps wasn't possible with the technology at the time. Equally (perhaps) it was the inertia of large organizations/industries to make changes...whether they were government or private industry.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/11/2019 10:08PM by Carnos Jax.

NASA went to the fricken moon, so they got that going for them, which is nice.

Quote
Acer
NASA went to the fricken moon, so they got that going for them, which is nice.

And did it with the technology we had 50 years ago, too.

I was trying to explain this to my wife. They’ve launched 3 rockets concurrently for little more than the cost of the fuel in the grand scheme of things. They basically came out of left field and kneecapped all the competition. 5 years ago a similar launch would have cost $500 million and been fully expendable.now it costs about $100 million and is almost fully reusable. The only reason ULA still exists is because of political clout and the desire to maintain a second launch option. SpaceX has become so effective and inexpensive even the head of NASA is considering outsourcing NASA missions because SpaceX can do it 3 years faster at about 1/20 the cost. The Russians are about to close up shop. The ESA is basically copying Falcon 9. Blue Origins hasn’t actually done anything worth getting excited about but I think they have a great future.

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MacResource User Map: [www.zeemaps.com]#



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/11/2019 11:37PM by ztirffritz.

During the launch I was impressed with how long they had live video of the rocket ascending. Back in the Mercury and Gemini launches TV cameras with really long lenses captured the launch for a few seconds, then, if I recall correctly, airplanes with cameras tried to keep up for a little while.

And then the high quality live video from the various components.

And all that is before the landings.

Wow! Just Wow!

Another story on the web page (sorry I closed the link) says that Space X is putting the Russians out of business.

Wow! Just Wow!

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In tha 360. MRF User Map

LOL!

Elon Musk may be a bit unstable, but these SpaceX rockets are turning out to be rock solid. Bravo, team SpaceX.

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rj
AKA
Vreemac, Moth of the Future

That's one of the best short synopsis of where we are that I've read in a long time.
I'd only add the SLS fiasco; a rocket that's 4 years late, 10 BILLION overbudget, and will cost about 1 billion each launch...
SpaceX expect their "Starship/SuperHeavy" combo to fly in 2022. That's pretty optimisitic, but I'm not betting against them!

Quote
ztirffritz
I was trying to explain this to my wife. They’ve launched 3 rockets concurrently for little more than the cost of the fuel in the grand scheme of things. They basically came out of left field and kneecapped all the competition. 5 years ago a similar launch would have cost $500 million and been fully expendable.now it costs about $100 million and is almost fully reusable. The only reason ULA still exists is because of political clout and the desire to maintain a second launch option. SpaceX has become so effective and inexpensive even the head of NASA is considering outsourcing NASA missions because SpaceX can do it 3 years faster at about 1/20 the cost. The Russians are about to close up shop. The ESA is basically copying Falcon 9. Blue Origins hasn’t actually done anything worth getting excited about but I think they have a great future.

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Paul F.
-----
A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca c. 5 BC - 65 AD
----
Good is the enemy of Excellent. Talent is not necessary for Excellence.
Persistence is necessary for Excellence. And Persistence is a Decision.
--

--

--
Eureka, CA

Quote
Filliam H. Muffman

This is the best second-best thing I've seen all week. Maybe that black hole pic was slightly better.

Maybe not…