SpaceX Pulled It Off!

cmy330go

Have to admit that I got chills when that thing landed. Elon certainly left a mark in the history books today.

Jump to approx. 31:30 for the landing.
https://youtu.be/O5bTbVbe4e4

BlueFox

Yes, definitely cool. I wonder how many times they can reuse the first stage before it comes apart from the repeated stress of multiple launches?

agfrost

That's an impressive technical accomplishment. Wow.

Willow

Coincidence ? SpaceX landed and PFB is back....

mhardy6647

BlueFox wrote: »

Yes, definitely cool. I wonder how many times they can reuse the first stage before it comes apart from the repeated stress of multiple launches?

I am sure they've simulated and calculated the answer to that quite precisely... and they'll find out the real answer when the first one disintegrates in flight.

(can you tell I am a cynical, skeptical, empiricist?)

In all seriousness, it is a significant achievement -- wonder why it took sixty-ish years? Arthur C. Clarke would be pretty disappointed, I reckon.

mrbiron

Neat!....thanks for the video.

MrBuhl

cmy330go wrote: »

Have to admit that I got chills when that thing landed. Elon certainly left a mark in the history books today.

https://youtu.be/O5bTbVbe4e4

Totally agree - that's history in the making! Very cool.

tonyb

Pulled off what ? For what purpose ?

I view it as an escape pod for the affluent....funded by your money. Musk and his endeavors have been subsidized to the tune of just under 5 billion bucks.

I just don't see how the citizenry will benefit from this money spent as none of us will ever be able to afford a seat. I'm all for space travel, when there is a purpose that benefits humanity....and not just Musk. Sending a private craft into orbit doesn't gain us anything we don't already know.

Focus should be on tech for deep space travel, to discover new habitable planets so the human species can survive a catastrophic solar event. That is...if we don't want to go the way of the dinosaurs.

Mikey081057

Impressive

Polkie2009

I think I read where this one will not be sent up again, it will be checked out and perhaps displayed?

Strong Bad

tonyb wrote: »

Pulled off what ? For what purpose ?

I view it as an escape pod for the affluent....funded by your money. Musk and his endeavors have been subsidized to the tune of just under 5 billion bucks.

I just don't see how the citizenry will benefit from this money spent as none of us will ever be able to afford a seat. I'm all for space travel, when there is a purpose that benefits humanity....and not just Musk. Sending a private craft into orbit doesn't gain us anything we don't already know.

Focus should be on tech for deep space travel, to discover new habitable planets so the human species can survive a catastrophic solar event. That is...if we don't want to go the way of the dinosaurs.

Come on Tony, where is your vision? This is not an easy feat at all. For every "That's impossible" thing they manage to solve, the more the science of space travel is furthered. Having this thing return and land is not the big picture. Figuring out how to do it and creating the technology to do it is what is. These answers push us in new directions. This is surely not the only thing SpaceX is working on. Until "Warp Drive" is developed, we as humans are stuck in this solar system and thats that. It's going to take an insane amount of funding for these theoretical and experimental projects. Musk has been luring some brilliant minds over to SpaceX since NASA scrapped the Space Shuttle program. This pooling of minds is what will eventually get us humans out of this solar system.

Bravo SpaceX!

cmy330go

Strong Bad wrote: »

tonyb wrote: »

Pulled off what ? For what purpose ?

I view it as an escape pod for the affluent....funded by your money. Musk and his endeavors have been subsidized to the tune of just under 5 billion bucks.

I just don't see how the citizenry will benefit from this money spent as none of us will ever be able to afford a seat. I'm all for space travel, when there is a purpose that benefits humanity....and not just Musk. Sending a private craft into orbit doesn't gain us anything we don't already know.

Focus should be on tech for deep space travel, to discover new habitable planets so the human species can survive a catastrophic solar event. That is...if we don't want to go the way of the dinosaurs.

Come on Tony, where is your vision? This is not an easy feat at all. For every "That's impossible" thing they manage to solve, the more the science of space travel is furthered. Having this thing return and land is not the big picture. Figuring out how to do it and creating the technology to do it is what is. These answers push us in new directions. This is surely not the only thing SpaceX is working on. Until "Warp Drive" is developed, we as humans are stuck in this solar system and thats that. It's going to take an insane amount of funding for these theoretical and experimental projects. Musk has been luring some brilliant minds over to SpaceX since NASA scrapped the Space Shuttle program. This pooling of minds is what will eventually get us humans out of this solar system.

Bravo SpaceX!

Well said. Plus Elon's pursuits with both Tesla, and Solar City are a large step in the right direction. Sure he may be into the tax payers to the tune of 5billion, but that is couch change compared to the money this government completely throws down the drain every day. At least these three companies are doing something productive with it.

zingo

cnh

I have to to agree with Strong Bad on this one. A child of the space age, I find it difficult to NOT fund "pure" research and projects that look FAR into the FUTURE. And, as side note, empiricism NEVER stopped a good Theoretical Physicist from thinking the unthinkable, thank God (Normal Science a la Kuhn is quite pedestrian)! lol

Musk is an interesting fellow. I also think we ought to give NASA its money back, but what do I know? Now where is that anti-gravity tech?

Strong Bad

Musk has quite a vision and is working very aggressively to see it happen. In 2011, he stated in 10-20 years, he wants to see colonization of Mars to begin and he'd be one of the first ones to go. Said he'd rather die on Mars or trying to get there instead of on Earth.

Had a conversation with a coworker today about all of this. Any manned Mars mission is going to take a massive spacecraft, one that is built in orbit and launched from orbit. They'll have to work out something with the International Space Station (ISS) or even build a new one to accommodate construction of a Mars Spacecraft. So, with the events going on now with the reusable rockets landing unmanned, this will cut costs of launching everything into orbit to construct said spacecraft.

One step at a time!

tonyb

Strong Bad wrote: »

tonyb wrote: »

Pulled off what ? For what purpose ?

I view it as an escape pod for the affluent....funded by your money. Musk and his endeavors have been subsidized to the tune of just under 5 billion bucks.

I just don't see how the citizenry will benefit from this money spent as none of us will ever be able to afford a seat. I'm all for space travel, when there is a purpose that benefits humanity....and not just Musk. Sending a private craft into orbit doesn't gain us anything we don't already know.

Focus should be on tech for deep space travel, to discover new habitable planets so the human species can survive a catastrophic solar event. That is...if we don't want to go the way of the dinosaurs.

Come on Tony, where is your vision? This is not an easy feat at all. For every "That's impossible" thing they manage to solve, the more the science of space travel is furthered. Having this thing return and land is not the big picture. Figuring out how to do it and creating the technology to do it is what is. These answers push us in new directions. This is surely not the only thing SpaceX is working on. Until "Warp Drive" is developed, we as humans are stuck in this solar system and thats that. It's going to take an insane amount of funding for these theoretical and experimental projects. Musk has been luring some brilliant minds over to SpaceX since NASA scrapped the Space Shuttle program. This pooling of minds is what will eventually get us humans out of this solar system.

Bravo SpaceX!

Not an easy feat ??? Sure it is, how many times have we done it already ?? The pooling of minds is what Nasa was all about. If government wants out of the space business, why fund Nasa at all then ?

This is nothing new, except a private firm did it with government money and know how. Tell me again why this is such a big deal ?

Some say it's a stepping stone....to what ? We've been saying that for over 30 years now and the next step hasn't presented itself. The logical answer is deep space travel, but our tech has not caught up with the theory yet. I can see sending up craft to experiment with theories and test them, but not just for the sake of saying "see, I did it". We've been doing it for decades, whoopee. We already had the technology to send a craft into orbit and return safely, nothing new was created here.

If any of you think for one second that these egotistical billionaires have humanities best interest at heart, your sadly mistaken. People like that are only interested in self preservation, not yours.

mhardy6647

the following are no more, nor less, than a bunch of my own opinions.

Reusable orbiters are old news, it is true... but, it takes a lot of energy to get a payload up to orbital, much less escape, velocity. The traditional "one and done" booster rockets are obscenely expensive to build, operate, and destroy. The space shuttles boasted reusable fuel tanks, but not the rockets themselves (unless my old addled mind is playing tricks on me); in all fairness, reusable first stages (which literally do the heavy lifting) actually is a pretty big deal.

That said,

"space exploration" as such is no longer cost-effective. The highest value to come of it was the network of geosynchronous satellites that allow us seamless communication and good weather forecasting.

The model NASA operated under - not unlike that of the "Manhattan Project" was unrealistic. The degree of fail-safe overengineering that went into NASA's halcyon days efforts to ensure minimal astronaut fatalities in prime-time (especially, I suspect, after the "Apollo 1" tragedy) would simply be intolerable in today's "just in time, risk-based strategy" engineering and project management culture. No one would bear the cost. I don't think it was practical nor affordable even then, certainly not now.

For-profits will only ever have their own/their shareholders' interests in mind.

mhardy6647

I kind of botched up one statement above. I jus meant to imply that the budgeting of NASA, like that of the Manhattan Project, was unsustainable. I didn't punctuate very well, though.

Strong Bad

In the interests of not getting this thread locked and myself a "vacation" from the forum, i'll just say...let's see what happens.

mhardy6647

Interestingly, I don't think the main issues are as much political as they are economic -- but, yup, que sera sera.

(and, dang, I still miss the italics!)

cmy330go

tonyb wrote: »

Not an easy feat ??? Sure it is, how many times have we done it already ?? The pooling of minds is what Nasa was all about. If government wants out of the space business, why fund Nasa at all then ?

This is nothing new, except a private firm did it with government money and know how. Tell me again why this is such a big deal ?

Some say it's a stepping stone....to what ? We've been saying that for over 30 years now and the next step hasn't presented itself. The logical answer is deep space travel, but our tech has not caught up with the theory yet. I can see sending up craft to experiment with theories and test them, but not just for the sake of saying "see, I did it". We've been doing it for decades, whoopee. We already had the technology to send a craft into orbit and return safely, nothing new was created here.

If any of you think for one second that these egotistical billionaires have humanities best interest at heart, your sadly mistaken. People like that are only interested in self preservation, not yours.

It would seem you're not familiar with what actually took place. The massive and expensive rocket that pushes the spacecraft to near orbit, up until now, has been a disposable item. In this event they successfully had that expensive rocket return to earth in one piece rather than it being destroyed, and a total loss. That is a major step in cutting the exorbitant expense of space travel.

Also this mission wasn't just an expensive fruitless experiment. The second stage continued on to deploy 11 Orbcomm satellites.

BlueFox

Yes. This is a big deal. Space is difficult, and every bit of progress is a struggle. It was great to see the Space X team (a bunch of kids ) celebrating their success.

NotaSuv

Living in Titusville we are right across from KSC and this was a fantastic launch to watch, especially the landing of the first stage complete with a nice sonic boom at the end. This has been a pretty depressed area until a few years ago as a lot of people depended on the shuttle program for a living.
For those not from the area its easy to see how you would think this is no big deal blah blah blah but for those of us who make a living here this is huge and the amount of new jobs. $$$$ and visitors it brings to the area is priceless, so yes maybe this is no big deal to some but for those of us living here its a very BIG deal.

oldmodman

How soon we forget.
Remember the McDonnell Douglas DCX
It was built by a bunch of engineers on a shoestring budget using surplus parts and an old PC as a brain.
They got successful launches, horizontal transfers and landings with their single stage to orbit design. And that was twenty years ago. Their first try was with a two thirds scale model as a proof of concept. Everything was ready to go for orbit with the man capable version when NASA pulled the plug.
Why! Not Invented Here. NASA had the overpriced and underdelivering Space Shuttle and nothing was going to take the wind out of it's sails.
If we had gone to full production on the DCX we would be on Mars today. With a full scale colony on Luna.

voltz

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress!

tonyb

NotaSuv wrote: »

Living in Titusville we are right across from KSC and this was a fantastic launch to watch, especially the landing of the first stage complete with a nice sonic boom at the end. This has been a pretty depressed area until a few years ago as a lot of people depended on the shuttle program for a living.
For those not from the area its easy to see how you would think this is no big deal blah blah blah but for those of us who make a living here this is huge and the amount of new jobs. $$$$ and visitors it brings to the area is priceless, so yes maybe this is no big deal to some but for those of us living here its a very BIG deal.

So we spent billions to get jobs into your area, cool. How do you propose to take care of all those people once the subsidies stop ? Cross that bridge when you get to it ?

An industry build on, and has continued reliability on subsidies is eventually going to fail. Solar....electric cars, will be a fraction of what you see today once the subsidies stop. Mind you we've already lost billions in failed companies even with the subsidies.

It's my understanding the private space craft industry is being built for tourism, not necessarily space exploration. Which to me defeats the purpose of the subsidies.

cnh

What would Neil degrasse-Tyson say? Sorry, I couldn't resist! (I'm also a former employee of his sister institution).

txcoastal1

tonyb wrote: »

NotaSuv wrote: »

Living in Titusville we are right across from KSC and this was a fantastic launch to watch, especially the landing of the first stage complete with a nice sonic boom at the end. This has been a pretty depressed area until a few years ago as a lot of people depended on the shuttle program for a living.
For those not from the area its easy to see how you would think this is no big deal blah blah blah but for those of us who make a living here this is huge and the amount of new jobs. $$$$ and visitors it brings to the area is priceless, so yes maybe this is no big deal to some but for those of us living here its a very BIG deal.

So we spent billions to get jobs into your area, cool. How do you propose to take care of all those people once the subsidies stop ? Cross that bridge when you get to it ?

When NASA Shuttle program shut down 20 homes in my subdivision alone went up for sale. Along with BAE losing contract to Oshkosh, and the United/Continental merger, all with in a 3yr span, caused a bit of a real estate crisis.

So now we using tax payer money to subsidize the private "X" project along with along with the NASA Orion project. IDK man but seems to me with all the other world BS problems and debt one of these projects needs to go.

tonyb

You can't shut down Nasa....it has a military aspect to it that you simply can't put in private hands.

I get the whole outsourcing certain aspects of space exploration, but not for tourism. If we are going to spend that kind of coin, let it be for the benefit of all, and not just a select few.

Like I said, we already know how to build a reusable craft, circle the globe in orbit, dock with a space station that's been up there for decades and come back. Any further money spend should be to enhance the distances traveled with a reusable craft, not do the same thing. Only then can our species survive. Tourism isn't going to help in that regard except give you a better seat to the end.

zingo

The DC-X would have pushed our current technology further if funding wasn't pulled, but we now have proof of concept twice. Having a reusable first stage is a huge cost saver, but it was also done with a commercial rocket already in production and completing missions. I agree this means we won't have a man on Mars in a year, or even that we're ten years closer, but it's an initial cost cutting step that should have trickle effects.

voltz

We learned a lot because of NASA, MRI etc... some good came from Kennedy's push...The Idea and dream was good. But can it solve our problems? I want this space stuff as much as any nerd!

but I honestly think all we can ever do will be in our own solar system.... as the closes sun to us alpha Centauri is 2.5 light years away and at that speed even light speed travel is not fast enough...you go there come back and you hardly aged but everyone you even knew or that knew you left are dead and buried for hundreds of years...

As Heinlein Wrote "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" he also said:

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.