Ok. Can we have less of Tesla/SpaceX posts. There is already one discussion about this in the front page...
SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch
101–110 of 497 posts
Re: SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch
#102I always try to watch the webcasts and I can't help but cringe so hard when they start chanting 'USA USA USA', every single time. What is up with that?
Ugh, I completely agree. I'm Canadian and it's been a dream of mine for a long time to work for SpaceX. I'll gladly take a big paycut and live in bumfuck nowhere, California to do it (my wife is another story but that's a different discussion). But every time this USA chant comes up I just imagine what it would be like to be in that crowd and be absolutely exhilarated at each success - not just for the company but fo…
> you just KNOW
What a complete load of utter tripe. Its a bunch of people getting excited and happy and celebrating success. That's it. Are England supporters chanting after a soccer match aggro-patriotic douchebags? The SpaceX crowd aren't even celebrating a victory over anybody, it's purely about achievement. Good for them.
Re: SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch
#103Good work! I still think that they should have some grippers on the barge, or a net, ready to spring and grasp the rocket on landing, instead of carrying flimsy legs all the way to space and back.
The current legs aren't flimsy, and they seem way less complicated than a gripper system would have to be. How would a gripper system handle off-centered landings? It would have to catch the falling rocket very quickly because there's not much fuel left in the tank to hover. Your proposed system would add a lot of complexity, all for the small decrease in launch mass.
> Your proposed system would add a lot of complexity, all for the small decrease in launch mass.
While I agree with your overall sentiment, I imagine that people building rockets make complexity tradeoffs to save tiny amounts of weight all the time.
Re: SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch
#104Good work! I still think that they should have some grippers on the barge, or a net, ready to spring and grasp the rocket on landing, instead of carrying flimsy legs all the way to space and back.
The current legs aren't flimsy, and they seem way less complicated than a gripper system would have to be. How would a gripper system handle off-centered landings? It would have to catch the falling rocket very quickly because there's not much fuel left in the tank to hover. Your proposed system would add a lot of complexity, all for the small decrease in launch mass.
Permanent decrease in launch mass is big money, whereas complications on the barge do not really matter. Like all good engineering problems, it only looks problematic at first sight and I am sure that SpaceX could rise up to the challenge. Use a big funnel mesh?
However, I accept the comment that perhaps they are really practising for landings on Mars, where fair number of probes have overturned on landing.
Re: SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't really look it up but it would be hard to believe SpaceX being a strictly American company with 100% American workforce. Hell, even if it were, it would still be troublesome if the company didn't position itself as an American nationalistic company - think about all the stakeholders. Maybe some supporters wouldn't be so passionate and some suppliers wouldn't be so perfectionist if they felt they were there f…
I didn't say strictly American, I said they're employing " almost exclusively" Americans. Which logically follows from rocket technology being regulated under ITAR.
I wasn't referring to that statement (actually skimmed over it, which is unfortunate because it's an interesting piece of information). Apart from that, my point hopefully is clear.
Re: SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch
#106[deleted]
Re: SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch
#107Good work! I still think that they should have some grippers on the barge, or a net, ready to spring and grasp the rocket on landing, instead of carrying flimsy legs all the way to space and back.
The rocket can land anywhere in a area of a couple hundred square meters. How would you design the "grippers" to work anywhere on the barge? How would you "grab" the stage without punching a hole in it?
The landing legs aren't all that heavy, are on the first stage (where the mass penalty isn't as bad), and can be engineered to distribute the force through the structure of the stage that can handle it.
Re: SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch
#108Here is the video http://www.space.com/32811-spacex-rocket-landing-jcsat-14-la... Hopefully we won't have the typical hacker news discussion about why the employees chant USA.
Yoo.Ess.Ae! Yoo.Ess.Ae! Yoo.Ess.Aeh!
There. See. No harm, no foul.
Anyways, as a non-American living in the US since 2001, I fail to see an issue with chanting USA, one way or another.
It is an American company, with majority US employees, running this project (mainly) for an American entity (NASA), on US sovereign territory (or ocean?), using a significant chunk of US resources. So, it is their company and their country. I say, let them do what they want with it. And if chanting USA is what they wish to do, I have no problem with that.
Re: SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Somehow I suspect they have run the numbers.
What numbers? Unsecured cargo is unsecured cargo. A metal object sitting on a flat metal deck gets tied/braced/chained.
I think you're trying to apply rules designed to govern shipping in general to a very specialised and controlled situation.
Re: SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it's not. The French, British and Italians for example all have extreme amounts of nationalistic pride and show it throughout their economies, the pride they hold regarding their history and culture. Scandinavia is very proud of its broadly tremendous standard of living and their well run welfare states, etc. - and Scandinavians are never shy about bragging about it online in my observation, you can hardly get awa…
But it is the chant we are talking about. I can't think of anywhere else I've been where someone starting to chant the country's name in response to the actions of a single company wouldn't lead to embarrassed looks and face-palming from people around them. This is not about there not being nationalism elsewhere, but about how US nationalism gets expressed in contexts that is not seen as representative of the nation…
In Pakistan you often hear the chant "Pakistan Zindabad", which I believe means something like "Long Live Pakistan".