321–330 of 497 posts
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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.
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I think its offensive to have nationalistic robot-like-chanting being defended as an okay thing. Its the sort of thing you expect people to do at rallies or cult gatherings, and from an outsider perspective it always tarnishes what is otherwise a very rational event, because its an implied irrational, collective mindset. As a non-American, I wish it'd stop - its a major turnoff for these events, and I switch away whe…
You're getting downvoted into oblivion, but yeah, that's basically how I feel. Cultural differences, I'm sure, because I'm not USian; but every time I see it on the youtube videos it makes me deeply uncomfortable.
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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 cou…
Any proud chant is problematic only to the degree of pride it conveys for the wrong thing(s). Landing a space ship in 2016 surely warrants significant pride. Whether the USA is worth praising for this particular success, I'm not as sure. But damn, congrats to everyone involved. You just landed a fucking space ship. Good job.
The company embodies everything that makes America great. Chant away.
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The center of mass of the rocket is _very_ low. According to Elon, the CRS-8 core was very stable (it needed even less stabilization than they thought it did). They may add some means to secure it if it needs to travel through rough seas on the way home, but if the conditions are calm enough to land, they're calm enough for the stage to be stable. Watch the CRS-8 landing and look at how much the barge is rolling whil…
The response crew comes and secures the legs on the barge immediately after landing. They bolt them down somehow, I think.
The big difference between landing at sea and on land seems to be the PR value. Otherwise a target is a target, taking any differences in weather into consideration. In fact it seems that landing at sea is actually less pressure since you don't have the same safety concerns and crash pictures (which are bad for publicity) the rocket simply disappears.
Completely incorrect. The question to ask is, why are they bothering to land at sea? And, if you had done any cursory research instead of just announcing that SpaceX is making a PR grab because it sounded good to you, you would have read in the abundantly available explanations that this launch was to geostationary transfer orbit, rather than low earth orbit. GEO is a lot, lot higher than LEO, which means the rocket…
I never said return to the launch site. I said return to land.
> if you had done any cursory research instead of just announcing that
Unnecessary to speak that way in order to make your point unless you are trying to specifically make someone feel bad for voicing their thoughts.
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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.
While I suppose that the rocket could be heavy enough to lower the center of gravity of the entire vessel below the troughs of any waves enough to make it incredibly unlikely, it isn't just the prospect of tipping over that makes it important to secure cargo.
I 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?
In my opinion, it may not necessarily be a national pride thing, as much as it's just an impulse. Because in sports, this happens often, I think it's more about showing how happy they are than crediting the United States for the accomplishments they made. As an American (and specifically, a 16-year-old Software Engineer), growing up in the United States, this is normal, and is sometimes patriotic, sometimes an automa…
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I think its offensive to have nationalistic robot-like-chanting being defended as an okay thing. Its the sort of thing you expect people to do at rallies or cult gatherings, and from an outsider perspective it always tarnishes what is otherwise a very rational event, because its an implied irrational, collective mindset. As a non-American, I wish it'd stop - its a major turnoff for these events, and I switch away whe…
You're getting downvoted into oblivion, but yeah, that's basically how I feel. Cultural differences, I'm sure, because I'm not USian; but every time I see it on the youtube videos it makes me deeply uncomfortable.
edit: Reply button showed up finally
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Say what you want about SpaceX's plans for re-usability, nobody can deny they are making progress at an incredible pace. I've just checked on Wikipedia and apparently the first flight of the Falcon was in 2010. That's six years ago. Compared to that, Arianeespace's target of 2025 (in nine years!) for Adeline is almost ridiculous. Just checked: Stephane Israël just raised concerned after SpaceX's latest success: http:…
Could you copy-paste his comments? Google translate worked OK, but the site has a paywall.
What's notable about this attempt (as opposed to the last) is that the first stage rocket was traveling twice as fast (4x the energy to overcome on landing), and didn't have enough propellant to do a 'boostback' burn. Instead, coming in very hot, the rocket had to use three engines (instead of one) to slow for landing. The last time this was attempted, the first stage put a nice hole in the deck of the drone ship. Se…
One of my favorite facts is that merely relighting the engine provides enough thrust to lift the rocket (at its minimum throttle of 60%). This means that it must slow to a standstill, cut the engines and hit the platform at exactly the same time or it will either start going up again or be dropped onto the platform from a less than ideal height.