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SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch

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Re: SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch

#61

Post by TeMPOraL »

vidarh wrote: post #52
adventured wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not. The French, British and Italians for example all have extreme amounts of nationalistic pride and show it throughout their economies, the pride they hold regarding their history and culture. Scandinavia is very proud of its broadly tremendous standard of living and their well run welfare states, etc. - and Scandinavians are never shy about bragging about it online in my observation, you can hardly get awa…

But it is the chant we are talking about. I can't think of anywhere else I've been where someone starting to chant the country's name in response to the actions of a single company wouldn't lead to embarrassed looks and face-palming from people around them. This is not about there not being nationalism elsewhere, but about how US nationalism gets expressed in contexts that is not seen as representative of the nation…

You're thinking about SpaceX as just a random company in a random industry. It's not. SpaceX is the space company. On PR area they compete with NASA, the space agency. I can imagine that for many SpaceX employees, their work is synonymous with getting America back into space exploration game.

Re: SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch

#62

Post by TeMPOraL »

DanBC wrote: post #60
adventured wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not. The French, British and Italians for example all have extreme amounts of nationalistic pride and show it throughout their economies, the pride they hold regarding their history and culture. Scandinavia is very proud of its broadly tremendous standard of living and their well run welfare states, etc. - and Scandinavians are never shy about bragging about it online in my observation, you can hardly get awa…

When someone flies the England flag the assumption most people make is that the person is far right racist football yob. I have to constantly guard against this bit of bias - "no, DanBC, they might not be a drunken lout". It's a bit different during soccer world cup or european cup. Very few people fly the Union flag. And chanting: no-one chants unless they're at a sports match. Chants just feel weird.

Chants are just a show of strong emotion. Something the professional life generally abhors - that's why it feels weird. People are not supposed to be that happy about their success, and especially not to connect private business with national pride.

But space industry is a bit different, and SpaceX is a very different company - they're honest-to-god driven by the idea, not profit.

(This chanting irks me a bit too, tbh., but I know it's because I'm not American and I want to picture SpaceX's successes as something done for all mankind, not just one group of people I don't belong to. A funny psychological bias :).)

Re: SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch

#63

Post by sandworm101 »

pi-err wrote: post #50
mikeyouse wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out the flight profile on Flightclub.io -- I'm not sure how accurate their instantaneous data is but they're showing ~12g acceleration upon landing the booster. Seems more like what I'd expect.

Impatient to know if the 1st stage is reusable after a 12g phase. The entire concept hangs on this and it looks like we don't have a firm confirmation yet.

12g but empty. A structure meant to survive being filled with 10+ times (fuel+upper stage) it's own weight will survive 10+Gs without effort. In other words, the stress of a 12g acceleration isn't much different than the stress of the stage sitting on the pad a few minutes previously.

The overall structure actually goes through all sorts of stresses, not all of which are measured in G. The combination of push from the rocket and air resistance compresses the rocket from both ends, something that isn't reflected in G numbers.

Re: SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch

#64

Post by TeMPOraL »

oska wrote: post #51
gallonofmilk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

please explain why this is a bad thing? American industry pushing the envelope and the people doing it aren't allowed to have pride?

It's a tribal chant, which is a bit different to having pride. Obviously the SpaceX staff can do whatever they want when they're celebrating a successful launch and landing. But all non-Americans who are watching and also feeling a lot of pride in what the company has achieved instantly feel alienated when the chant gets going because it's exclusionary. Whether the staff care about this alienation is another matter,…

> But all non-Americans who are watching and also feeling a lot of pride in what the company has achieved instantly feel alienated when the chant gets going because it's exclusionary.

Yes, it is, and yes, as an non-American I feel alienated. But I suck it up. Because I'm just a supporter. A fanboy, for a lack of better world. In reality, this is not my success, but the success of men and women working there, almost exclusively American. They have the right to chant however they like and I don't see the reason to make a big deal out of a bit of national pride. Not compared to what they're doing.

Also Musk, who's the driver of the culture there, doesn't seem very nationalistic, so I'm not worried they'll try to turn this into USA space hegemony.

Re: SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch

#65

Post by gallonofmilk »

neals wrote: post #55
gallonofmilk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

please explain why this is a bad thing? American industry pushing the envelope and the people doing it aren't allowed to have pride?

Because it makes the whole think look like a Trump rally. Have some class, show some dignity.

the world has changed... in older generations you were allowed to be patriotic without being dumped on

Re: SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch

#66

Post by TeMPOraL »

kchoudhu wrote: post #35
Mchl wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it becomes routeine all clients get a discount as price per launch goes down.

Or not, because the next best alternative is much more expensive than SpaceX's current pricing. We're dealing with a corporation -- I'm not sure we can count of them to "pass on the savings".

We're dealing with a group of people with strong ideas about space. They probably won't pass on much of the savings, but for a different reason - they need the budget for Mars project. That's the whole purpose this company exists in the first place.

Re: SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch

#67

Post by andygates »

glaberficken wrote: post #42
russdill wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love how the autobalance on the cameras cut almost everything to black so you could not see the rocket at first, until it emerged from the darkness.

Moon landing deniers will have a field day with that camera's footage.

SpaceX already have their little cadre of deniers - an offshoot of the "space isn't real" and "moon hologram" berks.

Re: SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch

#68

Post by sandworm101 »

Luc wrote: post #33
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an American company, hiring American engineers, and successfully competing with the interests of entire nation-states?

No, it's something else, a cultural quirk among Americans.

And here is the distinctly not-American quirk of singing the other country's anthem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHSaHRd4Q48

Re: SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch

#69

Post by vermontdevil »

kirrent wrote: post #7

For those wondering, this isn't a simple repeat of CRS8 which landed on a drone ship about a month ago. CRS8 was a mission to low earth orbit which left the first stage with plenty of fuel to effect a landing. The landing was made as slow as possible and limited only by how low a single engine could be throttled. The re-entry burn which slows the rocket down before the landing burn was also more agressive. This missi…

And they did this in the dark! ;) (yes I know it does not matter)

Re: SpaceX lands rocket at sea second time after satellite launch

#70

Post by sevenless »

simonh wrote: post #37
neals wrote: post #28

I always try to watch the webcasts and I can't help but cringe so hard when they start chanting 'USA USA USA', every single time. What is up with that?

As a Brit we don't have anything as catchy. UKGBNI, or even just UK doesn't have the same ring to it. 'Enganld' wouldn't work because we're too diverse. It would be a bit like the SpaceX folks cheering 'California' in that I'm sure a lot of them are from elsewhere. I've come across it in a few other contexts and I take it like a football chant.

I've actually managed to get a crowd of Brits chanting U-S-A before.

We're so saturated with American culture that we do this naturally. We know all about the constitution. We care more about American politics than our own. We feel put out that we can't vote for Bernie.

Every so often I get reminded I'm not actually American, and it's a bit jarring.

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