SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches • Hacker News Board

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#551

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 1:13 AM UTC

Old_Thrashbarg wrote: post #408

Old_Thrashbarg wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be pedantic, the poster did say "looks like" and: - "looks like" is associated with physical appearance - possibly things like clothes, jewelry, gender, hair, skin color, face, etc. - "sounds like" is associated with their speech - tone, accent, choice of diction - "acts like" is associated with physical behavior + speech But anyway, I think the point is that, we don't know what mabbo's intent was and 95% likely i…

It reminds me of when I interviewed at Google. At the end of one of my onsite interviews, while showing me out the door, the interviewer turned to me with a big smile and said "you really look like you fit in around here". I almost burst out laughing. I guarantee he had no malice but I just found it funny for one tall, white dude with glasses to say that to another tall, white dude with glasses. And he was right, I d…

[deleted]

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#552

Post by douglaswlance » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 1:14 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 So you might want to re-evaluate what you think a rocket scientist "looks like", because your notion is outdated.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 don't hire old, crusty nerds to do PR. Why do you seek outrage? What does it gratify?

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#553

Post by Klathmon » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 1:14 AM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #541

Klathmon wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sure they do, they normally have pretty detailed information on failures.

But even in the worst case first stage engine restart issues will never halt falcon launches. The first stage engines don't ever need to restart to complete the primary mission, and while landing the first stages is a great bonus, it is and always will be a secondary mission objective.

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#554

Post by joering2 » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 1:16 AM UTC

dingo_bat wrote: post #547

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.

> 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.

"Elon kind of money?"

Heard of government subsidies?

https://ideapod.com/elon-musks-business-empire-fueled-4-9-bi...

Edit: not taking sides and adding my subjective point to the article; just merely stating fact that Mr. Musk projects are in large part government-funded.

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#555

Post by hamburglar » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 1:17 AM UTC

hycaria wrote: post #471

It seems I am the only one bothered by putting useless junk into the universe. I don't even know how it's possible that they were allowed to litter space just for the sake of it. Like there's not enough human garbage rotating in orbit. Couldn't they send a small probe or something more useful than a car ? Also human space travel is just the answer to none of our current and urgent earthly problems. I don't get why pe…

That junk was already in the universe.

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#556

Post by geerlingguy » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 1:17 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.

For this launch the live stream editors probably had 4x the normal amount of feeds to switch, so I’ll forgive them for a couple editing mishaps. I’m guessing they don’t have the same setup as would be at something like the Super Bowl... at least not yet :)

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#557

Post by arcticfox » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 1:17 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…

GP's statement:

> The other hosts are great, but if you told me they were hired actors or PR people I'd believe it.

Is 100% consistent with your statement and even implies it, since GP clearly knows that:

> They aren't PR people.

If anything, GP was insulting Innsprucker by saying he is lacking the suaveness or good-looks to be hired in PR, while the others have it all.

I think this is a good opportunity to examine where (implicit) malice was attributed but was undeserved.

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#558

Post by hueving » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 1:19 AM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #362

electricslpnsld wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they gave me a job offer but withdrew it after I got badmouthed by a reference Why in the world would someone agree to be a reference and then bad mouth afterwards? Some folks...

If you know that the person asking you to be a reference is a bad engineer, and they're applying for someplace that builds critical systems - medical devices, say, or rockets - maybe you want to warn their potential employer that they're hiring a liability.

It's pretty presumptuous to make that assertion unless you knew the person for many years in different work environments.

I've seen lots of engineers become 'bad engineers' because of a myriad of environmental issues (bad management, bad peers, bad office, bad engineering decisions foisted upon them).

If you didn't see them perform well, don't provide a reference. If they are that bad, nobody in a reputable position will provide them a reference and the hiring company will see that.

It's not your responsibility to be an arbiter of some ex-coworker's life.

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#559

Post by geerlingguy » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 1:19 AM UTC

chisleu wrote: post #390

jfarlow wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there's still more! Live Webcam from Spaceman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBr2kKAHN6M

All of this insane expense and amazing science and they couldn't make a VR360 camera happen. :(

I’m guessing it’s bandwidth and tech limitations. They don’t have a very fat pipe up there, and they also have tons of experience with the type of camera they have mounted in there... maybe they didn’t have time to test and certify any modern 360 cameras. Hopefully it’ll happen sometime though!

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#560

Post by foobaw » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 1:20 AM UTC

focusgroup0 wrote: post #308

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.

I went to school with one of the other hosts. He's legitimately a genius, top marks and well-decorated in academia. Kind of weird to see the guy I used to hang out with livestreaming to 2.3mm people.

Are you talking about Michael?