Seeing those boosters land will never get old. I drive by one on my way to work every day and it's just amazing how large they are.
When I was a kid, I used to watch Thunderbirds [1], which I loved dearly - except that I always thought it fanciful to show Thunderbirds 1 and 3 landing upright back at the Tracy Island base. Many, many years later, of course, my scepticism was erased by watching exactly that happen in real life, courtesy of SpaceX's Falcon 9. Inspirational and astonishing. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbirds_(TV_series)
Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
181–190 of 305 posts
Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Too bad they didn't recover the third one.
AFAIK it was intentional because the payload (from the US Space Force) was going to a geosynchronous orbit.
Correct, this was the first direct-to-GEO launch, so they needed the extra dV to get there. Left nothing in the tank for a landing, so to speak.
Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
#183I'm kind of surprised a random SpaceX launch is #1 on HN, when on the same day, China just completed their modular space station: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33422779
It is basically a rivalry now so not surprised. Same thing happened with China's mars rover.
In some ways, I am down with this type of rivalry than wars. I want an intense space race between China and US.
Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
Our brains are wired to see twins (and symmetry) as evidence of intent as opposed to randomness. Lots of examples in art, and of course both the WTC twin towers and the 9/11 attacks. There’s more power seeing two of something.
>Our brains are wired to see twins (and symmetry) as evidence of intent as opposed to randomness. This seems like a massive over-generalization.
Symmetry is part of beauty across time and culture. For example people with more facial symmetry are considered better looking.
Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's indeed kinda refreshing to see a company actually put such a high pricetag out there... and all the more frustrating that so many companies demand contact info for a "quote" when I don't need to do that to launch something into outer fucking space .
Of course nobody actually pays that.
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Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
And for some reason seeing 2 land at the same time is a 100 times cooler. Seems like coolness is non-linear.
Our brains are wired to see twins (and symmetry) as evidence of intent as opposed to randomness. Lots of examples in art, and of course both the WTC twin towers and the 9/11 attacks. There’s more power seeing two of something.
I see one frog, it’s random. I see two frogs..???
The WTC twin towers were replaced by a single big tower. If someone blew that up we sure as fuck would get the clear message on that one.
What a silly statement.
Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
>"wasteful to see that mission profile with the center booster burning up without even trying." My understanding was that the intended orbit / mission profile means that they must fly the center core in expendable mode. Otherwise, the satellite wouldn't be able to reach the intended orbit with the intended amount of fuel for the mission's duration.
At one point (I don't know if it's still the case) for certain launches the US government laid claim to "100% of the thrust available from a booster" or somesuch, basically not leaving anything left over for landings. I'm not sure it was ever documented why they had this requirement. What surprised -me- was that all three boosters were brand new, rather than, say, expending a booster that's already flown half a dozen…
Just guessing but maybe 100% of thrust available = statistically safer or something like that?
Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
#188The military propaganda at 9:30 was interesting. Showing Chinese people while saying "our adversaries". Has it ever been done so overtly before ?
Just a minor nitpick but I think the part you're referring to (actually at 11:50 in the video) is showing Chinese soldiers specifically, not just random Chinese civilians. I'd bet that there are few people in either the US or Chinese military who would disagree that the other side is an adversary right now, even if they're not at war.
Disagreeing with that and overtly saying it in a widely publicised video I think are very different things.
One is pragmatic, the other aims to sow specific narratives in the mind of the viewers. The video is aimed at us, not at the Chinese
Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
Boeing lists aircraft prices for commercial planes: https://www.boeing.com/company/about-bca/#/prices (Although they note that the actual price may vary by configuration, so I guess it's not as "pure" of a list price compared to SpaceX). The highest there is $442.2 million. I wonder if there are any list prices out there higher than that?
Do they take visa? PayPal? Bitcoin?
Probably Doge
Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
#190I'm always a bit bothered by the cheering during a SpaceX launch. Maybe I'm just historically attached to the scenes of stoic engineers at JSC mission control, but space fight is always hard and risky, and cheering at every event shows a lack of humility, IMO. Cheer when the mission is successful. As an extreme case, imagine cheering as Challenger cleared the launch tower.
As far as I'm aware, the cheering is outside of the main control room (which is where the broadcasters are).
Also: there are no people on board. If it blows up, it's "only" money that's lost.