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  #11  
Old 02-06-2018, 04:26 PM
Rex R Rex R is offline
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starman, last name jones no doubt .
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  #12  
Old 02-06-2018, 05:36 PM
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Put that in yer pipe and smoke it, Blue Origin!
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  #13  
Old 02-06-2018, 06:55 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tbzep
Put that in yer pipe and smoke it, Blue Origin!


Yep... Elon's calling for a new space race... OL J R
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  #14  
Old 02-06-2018, 06:57 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 77fair
Thanks for the update, and the links. This is the most excitement that I have had for a launch in a long time.
You're welcome (*and* I thank everyone else for the "play-by-play" comments and the new links!)--what a flight! The Mars transfer escape burn is scheduled for approximately 6 hours after liftoff (see: http://spaceflightnow.com/2018/02/0...-maiden-flight/ and http://spaceflightnow.com/2018/02/0...-status-center/ [this page includes some new flight and post-booster landing pictures!]).
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  #15  
Old 02-06-2018, 07:05 PM
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Originally Posted by Ltvscout
That was awesome! The shot of Starman in the Tesla was reminiscent of Heavy Metal.

Since it's almost 30 minutes later and we still haven't heard anything my guess is there was an issue with the center core landing on the drone ship.


Yeah watched part of the livestream press conference... he said it ran out of fuel and hit hard, might have done some damage to the landing ship. He also said that it was the boosters they REALLY wanted back, because they're equipped with the fancy new titanium grid fins-- if he had to pick a part of the rocket to blow up, it would have been the core.

Now it's just a waiting game to see if the second stage will reignite after traversing the Van Allen Radiation Belts... He said that the electronics aren't specifically hardened against radiation and *might* fry, but they're optimistic that they won't. It will be several hours before the TMI burn and he said they're also worried about excess oxygen boiloff and things like that, but they're optimistic that the final burn will go off as planned...

He also said that Falcon Heavy is powerful enough to launch a space probe directly to Pluto-- no flyby gravity assists needed... so it really opens up the possibilities for planetary exploration because the costs are so low for that much capability.

Later! OL J R
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  #16  
Old 02-06-2018, 07:11 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by luke strawwalker
Yeah watched part of the livestream press conference... he said it ran out of fuel and hit hard, might have done some damage to the landing ship.
It still hit the target.
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  #17  
Old 02-06-2018, 07:44 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by luke strawwalker
Yeah that was friggin' AMAZING... just literally amazing... almost like what I imagine the first moon landing would have been like (had I been born to see it).

Still awaiting word on the core booster... the feed from the ship cut off about time of landing. The second stage successfully inserted the Tesla roadster and "Starman", a dummy wearing the new SpaceX flight pressure suits the astronauts will wear when launching on manned Dragon capsules, into LEO. Also aboard was a Tesla "pocket car" model of the roadster with a tiny Starman passenger as an "Easter egg" and also a "space ark" specially designed long term data storage unit designed to preserve human knowledge and culture permanently in deep space.
I’m older than you?! Wow. I was not quite three when Apollo 11 was launched, and I remember seeing it live on television (we also saw it on Pad 39A in person a few days before [my father always regretted not pulling rank at the Miami fire department so that we could have seen the launch in person—but today I admire his sense of duty]; other than the VAB itself, I’d never seen something so huge!) On that day in 1994, my mother and I watched a PBS Apollo 11 “reprise” that used actual major TV network coverage—I saw again the timeline-synchronized LEM model with the gas burner descent engine, which landed before the actual LEM did (because of the crew’s unplanned maneuver to avoid the boulder field), and I also saw something that had confused me in 1969, when the stars turned reddish-purple on the translunar coast TV view. (It was on a star chart that the crew televised briefly; the small, spinning-disc, sequential-field [color wheel] color TV camera used aboard the Command Module, perhaps due to a glitch in the image conversion electronics on Earth [all analog, back then] made the white stars on the black star chart turn reddish purple.) I only went to this length to reminisce about Apollo 11 because...today’s Falcon Heavy launch made me feel young again, and filled with wonder, from the volcanic launch to the twin booster landings to seeing Starman and the Tesla Roadster against the luminous blue Earth and the Sun!
Quote:
Originally Posted by luke strawwalker
Yep... Elon's calling for a new space race... OL J R
When New Glenn starts flying, it really could become a race! Blue Origin has a different philosophy and a different timeframe (Elon Musk wants to settle Mars, but Jeff Bezos speaks of laying a firm foundation for establishing space colonies and interstellar space flight). It is far too early to predict which one will achieve more. (On October 4, 1957, a prediction that Americans would land their countrymen on the Moon first, in less than 12 years, and with no real Soviet competition [their N1 was too little, too late, not even begun until 1964] wouldn’t have been taken very seriously.) Half a century or more from now, either company—or maybe even a third contender, as-yet undreamt of—could be the dominant force in space exploitation and exploration.
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  #18  
Old 02-06-2018, 08:11 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tbzep
It still hit the target.
If they post the ASDS deck camera(s)' and/or the first stage camera's video on either the SpaceX website or on their YouTube channel (perhaps as part of their "Technical Videos" series, which don't have the in-studio coverage), that would be an interesting "hot" (too-fast) landing to see! Also:

I think they have yet to *miss* either a drone ship, an on-land landing zone (hopefully their first Vandenberg one will occur soon), or a pre-selected landing point on the ocean surface (on the handful of occasions when they haven't programmed an ASDS deck landing, during the early tests and a few "old, used first stage throwaway flights" when it's cheaper to just let it sink). That level of landing accuracy--and the reliability of its achievement--would have made the V-2 a war-changing weapon, had the Peenemünde team been able to attain it (they would probably have considered it science fiction :-) ). Speaking of discarded Falcon 9 first stages:

Has there been any word on whether GovSat 1's unexpectedly-still-floating "second launch Falcon 9 first stage" was towed back to port?
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  #19  
Old 02-06-2018, 08:32 PM
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SpaceX vs Blue Origin

SpaceX
1st to space
1st to orbit
1st to reuse booster that did more than a bunny hop
1st to stick a landing from a "real flight"
1st to stick multiple landings (today)
1st to launch, orbit, and recover pressurized cabin
1st to deliver meaningful cargo
1st to orbit a car (Only NASA has done that one!)
1st to produce 5 million lbs of thrust
1st to have 27 +1 nominal engines kicking booty

Blue Origin
1st to stick a landing (by about a month, from a dinky bunny hop)
1st to reuse booster (from a bunny hop)


There is no space race between the two at this point. B.O. has a lot of catching up to do. Blue Origin fanboys will claim they aren't behind because they just have different goals, but SpaceX already has the heavy lift capability to launch hardware for either company's goals.
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  #20  
Old 02-06-2018, 08:45 PM
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BTW, that exhaust plume was beautiful. There's nothing more cool than a kerosene-LOX flame twice as long at the booster, with the flame tip dancing about and just a hint of black whispy smoke to mark the ascent. No nasty SRB's to dirty things up.
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