For anyone who has not yet read of the books from The Culture series, I highly encourage you to do so. They are an amazing - agnostic - version of what our far future selves could be. Iain M. Banks had quite the mind (no pun intended).
Yes, great books! I recommend starting with 'The Player of Games', not the first book in the series but the best. They are only loosely connected, you won't miss anything.
Agreed on starting with "Player of Games". The culture books are great, but some of them arent exactly what what you'd call accessible.
I absolutely love the fact that SpaceX is so open and public about their rocket launches, however, I couldn't help but get the feeling that they were in full 'PR backlash' mode [over the core booster] when ending the live stream, and from skimming many of the instantaneous press releases. Does anyone else think that they were overly quiet on the core booster landing on purpose, in order to minimise negative PR on the…
They definitely did go into full PR mode after they lost signal to the drone ship. But I think they did that in part because this launch had so many moving parts that if someone had just tuned in to that moment and seen a massive rocket exploding against the drone ship they may have thought that the launch had fail. And considering that the core booster landing on the drone ship was a mere side benefit of the overall…
They are clearly in an unenviable position but I think they would have come off better with a more honest, direct acknowledgement of the failure of a tertiary objective, rather than that "oh noes, might derail the emotive hype-train, let's awkwardly pretend we don't know what happened and just hope the audience forgets", which is fairly patronizing and not particularly effective at achieving its intended goal. An awkward, ineffective cover-up is worse than just telling the truth and moving on.
> Eventually, Musk hopes to be able to turn rockets around in less than 24 hours and have reflown boosters go up twice in one day. This will be amazing.
This won't be a huge flashy milestone when it happens, but future historians will point to that achievement as an inflection point in space travel. Remember a few short years ago when humans always threw away the rocket after every trip?
Agreed. It's the Henry Ford moving assembly line of rocket launches. It's a game changer.
According to the SpaceX media commentary folks that were talking as it was happening, it's because "intense vibrations are interfering with the antenna".
Meanwhile, in the background, a monitor appears to be showing smoke clearing from the deck of the barge, with no booster present. https://twitter.com/Darkphibre/status/960990105581240321
Right, because the rocket ultimately didn't land on the ship. This does not invalidate anything they said about interference.
Meanwhile, in the background, a monitor appears to be showing smoke clearing from the deck of the barge, with no booster present. https://twitter.com/Darkphibre/status/960990105581240321
Right, because the rocket ultimately didn't land on the ship. This does not invalidate anything they said about interference.
It clearly does.
They both say Oh exactly at the moment when the smoke clears, meaning that they themselves are looking at the live feed while pretending it was lost.
Also the chances that Spacex doesn't have any other presence next to the droneship are zero. There in no reason for them to be beaming the data feed via a finicky satellite connection only.
For anyone who has not yet read of the books from The Culture series, I highly encourage you to do so. They are an amazing - agnostic - version of what our far future selves could be. Iain M. Banks had quite the mind (no pun intended).
Yes, great books! I recommend starting with 'The Player of Games', not the first book in the series but the best. They are only loosely connected, you won't miss anything.
I started on 'Consider Phlebas', the first book in the series. I recommend starting with that, it's a great book, perhaps not as accessible as 'Player of Games', but more wow-factor.
Right, because the rocket ultimately didn't land on the ship. This does not invalidate anything they said about interference.
It clearly does. They both say Oh exactly at the moment when the smoke clears, meaning that they themselves are looking at the live feed while pretending it was lost. Also the chances that Spacex doesn't have any other presence next to the droneship are zero. There in no reason for them to be beaming the data feed via a finicky satellite connection only .
> Also the chances that Spacex doesn't have any other presence next to the droneship are zero.
Would you keep manned boats in the area where a rocket is coming down?
I absolutely love the fact that SpaceX is so open and public about their rocket launches, however, I couldn't help but get the feeling that they were in full 'PR backlash' mode [over the core booster] when ending the live stream, and from skimming many of the instantaneous press releases. Does anyone else think that they were overly quiet on the core booster landing on purpose, in order to minimise negative PR on the…
Agreed, at the very end of the feed actually, the 2 presentators didn't really know what to say about the status of the core booster. A space X employee showed up (I assume a PR or an engineer previously briefed by PR, all he had was a SpaceX polo). The guy essentially said: 'best test ever, everything went smooth yadi yadi yada, oh and also, we gotta figure out about that last booster. Otherwise, everything went per…
"A space X employee showed up (I assume a PR or an engineer previously briefed by PR, all he had was a SpaceX polo)"
> Block 5 cores Why are rocket versions specified with the word "Block"? The Saturn launchers did the same thing, but it seems like a strange word to use.
It's a term carried over from the military/aerospace field. https://www.f35.com/about/life-cycle/software
I boggle a little at what I read there, such as "With Block 3i, 89 percent of code required for full warfighting capability is flying". That's 89%? Not 88% or 90%?
It clearly does. They both say Oh exactly at the moment when the smoke clears, meaning that they themselves are looking at the live feed while pretending it was lost. Also the chances that Spacex doesn't have any other presence next to the droneship are zero. There in no reason for them to be beaming the data feed via a finicky satellite connection only .
> Also the chances that Spacex doesn't have any other presence next to the droneship are zero. Would you keep manned boats in the area where a rocket is coming down?
They keep people in the area where rockets liftoff and land (a few kms away) and besides, they launch rockets in space, do you really think they lack the technology to, for example, send the video feed to another ship waiting at a few kms distance?