SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches • Hacker News Board

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#541

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 1:05 AM UTC

Klathmon wrote: post #148

peterwaller wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of the centre core, these are the last few moments before it is lost from the feed. Smoke can be seen... https://youtu.be/wbSwFU6tY1c?t=38m20s ... and then back to the presenters. As someone said to me, "That's their lying face!" :) Can't fault them for wanting to dwell on the positives though, was an amazing moment to watch. Edit: You can switch cameras on the above youtube video to the countdown net; you can clearl…

Can't fault them for sure, but it's strange for them. SpaceX tends to be very upfront with their failures, and tends to broadcast and in many cases re-upload video of their failures. Doubly so when the "failure" isn't part of the primary mission.

A restart failure indicates there may be a systemic flaw in all Falcons that could impact recovery efforts in the future as well as other missions that depend on reliable restart capability. One would hope that they have enough telemetry to diagnose the cause.

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#542

Post by bhtru » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 1:05 AM UTC

narrator wrote: post #389

aphextron wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm this was the greatest thing I've ever witnessed in my life. https://youtu.be/AGPH_i0ZlyM?t=56

I get a headache watching Star Wars like sci-fi where everything is manually controlled by the pilot. How did sci-fi get so disconnected from the actual future?

Star Wars is soft sci-fi as opposed to hard sci-fi like 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#543

Post by avmich » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 1:06 AM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #248

DonaldPShimoda wrote: post #39

I'm just an amateur following along, but this seems likely to be one of the most important launches in modern rocketry history. This sets the stage for deep-space missions with reusable launch materials, which can greatly reduce the cost of future space exploration. Absolutely incredible achievement by the SpaceX team.

It's definitely another inflection point. The Falcon 9 is 75% reusable by cost of components, the Falcon Heavy is 90% reusable. And it's capable of much, much more. That might open up the heavy lift launch market to a whole new gaggle of players and begin really expanding out what is done there. It'll certainly put a lot more missions on the table that weren't there before, like low cost outer planets space science p…

> Also, something nobody has talked about yet. Falcon Heavy is capable of something no other US rocket is really able to do yet, launch new space station modules (or new space stations period).

I'm pretty sure one can launch space station modules on regular Falcon-9 as well. Russians launch some on Soyuz rocket.

Surely FH is more convenient for big stations.

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#544

Post by heurist » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 1:08 AM UTC

verytrivial wrote: post #290

zhoujianfu wrote: post #3

There was something doubly awesome about the two falcons landing at the same time right next to each other!

It was almost a brain stack-overflow for me. I made a weird, bleating laugh noise and tried to open my eyes wider than design spec. A sincerely surprising and amazing sight.

I looked around my office expecting that someone else was watching and as stunned as I was. No one else was watching :(

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#545

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 1:08 AM UTC

latj wrote: post #522

protonimitate wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something awesome (in the literal sense) and unsettling about watching something and being able to say "I am witnessing history".

Did anyone else notice that the bottom two windows are not different cameras on different boosters? The guy even told us, "I know they look similar but they're different". Nope, they are the same. Watch how you can see two pads and they both land on the pad on the right. And you can see the second booster burning in the same orientation. The roads leading to the pads also make it easy to notice.

[deleted]

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#546

Post by MBCook » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 1:08 AM UTC

irrational wrote: post #518

MBCook wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ve got to launch something. I’m sure you could launch an equally heavy concrete block to prove you can but... what’s the fun in that?

They could've launched a wheel of cheese.

I would support that.

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#547

Post by dingo_bat » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 1:08 AM UTC

It's such a shame that so many people with Elon kind of money aren't doing anything to transform us into a spacefaring species. Why doesn't apple have a mars program? What the fuck are people doing with all the money?

Awesome work by spacex. They are peerless, except if you want to count massive superpower governments as peers.

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#548

Post by Analemma_ » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 1:09 AM UTC

meatbags wrote: post #502

runesoerensen wrote: post #496

"That core booster approached the platform as planned, but it unfortunately hit the water going 300 MPH and was lost, because some of its return engines failed to light" https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/06/spacex-landed-two-of-its-t...

Thanks for the closure - I've been refreshing twitter all morning. I've seen the much-touted $90M price-tag for the FH launch, but does that take into account loss of the core or boosters?

SpaceX has been keeping their launch prices pretty consistent, even when they couldn't know how many F9 stages they would actually recover. I think they've factored in testing losses into the price.

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#549

Post by hueving » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 1:09 AM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #283

mabbo wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I love the live streams hosted by John Innsprucker. He doesn't look like a TV star, he looks like an engineer, a rocket scientist. He looks real. The other hosts are great, but if you told me they were hired actors or PR people I'd believe it.

You're showing your biases here. The other people on the livestream are also rocket scientists. They aren't PR people. They just happen to be younger, or women, or of color. So you might want to re-evaluate what you think a rocket scientist "looks like", because your notion is outdated. Sorry to call you out like this, but these kinds of prejudices about who is the "correct" kind of person for tech jobs are harmful a…

You made an incorrect assumption based on bad logic. The parent didn't say they didn't look like rocket scientists, he/she said that they could pass as PR people, regardless of whether or not they were rocket scientists.

Let me phrase it a different and rude (sorry) way. "You know they're including real engineers because there is at least one person in the spotlight that would never be employed by a PR firm."

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#550

Post by akozak » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 1:10 AM UTC

meatbags wrote: post #502

runesoerensen wrote: post #496

"That core booster approached the platform as planned, but it unfortunately hit the water going 300 MPH and was lost, because some of its return engines failed to light" https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/06/spacex-landed-two-of-its-t...

Thanks for the closure - I've been refreshing twitter all morning. I've seen the much-touted $90M price-tag for the FH launch, but does that take into account loss of the core or boosters?

I think he said in the press conference that they weren't planning to reuse the core or boosters. (But then mentioned later they wanted some of the parts? IDK)