21–30 of 273 posts
Do you ever wonder how people felt when they say Magellan or Captain Cook set off? Or, when they watched the Apollo missions happen? I'm guessing that this is what it felt like. We're at the dawn of a new space age.
Soyuz takes people to the space station every few months, has done for years. Why is this specific mission new?
Do you ever wonder how people felt when they say Magellan or Captain Cook set off? Or, when they watched the Apollo missions happen? I'm guessing that this is what it felt like. We're at the dawn of a new space age.
I've felt that about SpaceX ever since seeing the Grasshopper testing videos. Up until that point, if a rocket slowed down during takeoff something had gone horribly wrong. Then it just... hovered... and landed, and I realised this was the start of a new era of space travel. The Falcon Heavy launch is still the highlight for me but this one is probably more important, simply because it's so normal and routine now and…
Do you ever wonder how people felt when they say Magellan or Captain Cook set off? Or, when they watched the Apollo missions happen? I'm guessing that this is what it felt like. We're at the dawn of a new space age.
Soyuz takes people to the space station every few months, has done for years. Why is this specific mission new?
Rather than ditching in the sea, the rocket landed back on earth and could in theory take up another payload a few days later, which is much cheaper and more efficient. It opens up space to a lot of other uses.
Compared to the cost and use of the shuttle (nominally reusable but not so much in practice), or other disposable rockets, this is a large step forward in reliability and efficiency, which will enable things like travel to Mars at low cost (by refuelling in orbit with multiple reusable vehicle launches for one mission).
Do you ever wonder how people felt when they say Magellan or Captain Cook set off? Or, when they watched the Apollo missions happen? I'm guessing that this is what it felt like. We're at the dawn of a new space age.
Soyuz takes people to the space station every few months, has done for years. Why is this specific mission new?
Fantastic, very impressive. But somewhere inside (my little star-wars/trek spirit), I wish that it was not so tricky. That we all could just travel and explore the universe. Everybody always talk about how difficult it is in space and how much better earth is. Wish the debate would be more about all the possibilities in space or on other planets. What can we do with zero gravity? For all the bad things with living on…
> That we all could just travel and explore the universe. We could have been there probably decades ago if not so much money was wasted on waging pointless wars across all the countries of Earth. But then: would we even have the technology of rocketry, microchips and all the other stuff without the military need for them in the first place?
Do you ever wonder how people felt when they say Magellan or Captain Cook set off? Or, when they watched the Apollo missions happen? I'm guessing that this is what it felt like. We're at the dawn of a new space age.
Soyuz takes people to the space station every few months, has done for years. Why is this specific mission new?
Not to mention that it's increasing the number of countries and rocket designs that can send people to and from the ISS. Without alternate launch providers, if some flaw were to be found in Soyuz or political issues begin to get in the way of launches, then the US could find itself unable to get astronauts to and from the ISS safely.
Boeing is also in this race, and will be sending up humans to space in their Starliner soon as well, it's still up in the air which will get to the with humans on board ISS first.
Does anyone else find the title confusing? What's a "Crew Dragon"?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've felt that about SpaceX ever since seeing the Grasshopper testing videos. Up until that point, if a rocket slowed down during takeoff something had gone horribly wrong. Then it just... hovered... and landed, and I realised this was the start of a new era of space travel. The Falcon Heavy launch is still the highlight for me but this one is probably more important, simply because it's so normal and routine now and…
I don't know which mission it was exactly, but I think it was the first one where they tried to recover two booster stages (I hope that's what they are called). Watching the live stream of both of them landing simultaneously back on the pad gave me goosebumps and sent shivers down my spine, in a good way.
Turns out, both of the video streams for the 2 side rockets were actually of the same rocket! You can go back and watch the corrected footage of both landing at once, but it was funny when many watching along (myself included) were like "wow they are so identical" only to find that it was the same footage!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've felt that about SpaceX ever since seeing the Grasshopper testing videos. Up until that point, if a rocket slowed down during takeoff something had gone horribly wrong. Then it just... hovered... and landed, and I realised this was the start of a new era of space travel. The Falcon Heavy launch is still the highlight for me but this one is probably more important, simply because it's so normal and routine now and…
I don't know which mission it was exactly, but I think it was the first one where they tried to recover two booster stages (I hope that's what they are called). Watching the live stream of both of them landing simultaneously back on the pad gave me goosebumps and sent shivers down my spine, in a good way.