621–630 of 926 posts
"That core booster approached the platform as planned, but it unfortunately hit the water going 300 MPH and was lost, because some of its return engines failed to light" https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/06/spacex-landed-two-of-its-t...
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The core difference between science-fiction and fantasy goes back to the philosophical debates about the nature of the universe in ancient greece, the difference between a mechanistic view of the Universe (which we have come to accept as the foundation of science) and a teleological view of the Universe. Star Wars has a teleologic view of the Universe, it's baked into the DNA of the material. "The Force", the light s…
It clearly doesn't meet some definitions of science fiction but would still be almost universally called that. Try (getting in a time machine and) going to a Blockbuster Video and try to convince them that Star Wars doesn't belong in the science fiction section. > teleological view of the Universe. Almost all fiction is almost completely teleological. Nothing ever happens by accident in fiction, everything that happe…
A great deal of success or failure in real life comes down to legacy, genetics and random chance, or "non-magical stuff" other people have that you cannot.
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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 So you might want to re-evaluate what you think a rocket scientist "looks like", because your notion is outdated.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…
Some companies might have only let the people who look like them host the live stream. SpaceX put out their top people- young, old, white, black, male, female- and let them all be the faces of the launch. I don't know that my own company would be so brave.
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You made an incorrect assumption based on bad logic. The parent didn't say they didn't look like rocket scientists, he/she said that they could pass as PR people, regardless of whether or not they were rocket scientists. Let me phrase it a different and rude (sorry) way. "You know they're including real engineers because there is at least one person in the spotlight that would never be employed by a PR firm."
> The parent didn't say they didn't look like rocket scientists That's exactly what the parent said. Let me quote it for you: > He doesn't look like a TV star, he looks like an engineer, a rocket scientist. He looks real. The implication being that the other hosts looked fake, not like engineers or rocket scientists but like PR people. I think you're being overly charitable here, but even if you're right and your int…
"That core booster approached the platform as planned, but it unfortunately hit the water going 300 MPH and was lost, because some of its return engines failed to light" https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/06/spacex-landed-two-of-its-t...
Was it just lucky that the core didn’t directly impact the drone ship or was it designed to aim to the side in the event of the landing speed being too high?
Did they need to modify the Tesla to make it vacuum worthy? Like, remove any fluids, remove any parts that might explode in the hot or cold of space, deflate the tires, etc. Note: I'm more interested in a scientific answer, as opposed to casual conjectures. Preferably from an engineer knowledgeable of such things. And specifically, the materials sciences aspect of how materials will survive in a vacuum.
"We didn't really test any of those materials [...] it's just literally a normal car in space"
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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.
What does this launch mean for humans? Does this mean we can send humans to Mars on the next mission? Is there step by step plan anywhere?
This is kind of a "big deal" but on the other hand it's also just an intermediate step. The really cool thing here is that this brings another contender into the heavy lift launch market, which has traditionally been an incredibly small space, especially recently (with NRO launches dominating). More than that, it dramatically reshapes the cost structure in that market. If you want a Delta IV Heavy launch normally you…
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Should have, but didn't. At least not for manned spaceflight. We learned how to keep humans alive in space way back with the Gemini project. A long-duration orbital sojourn could have been had for the cost of the ISS. At the end of the day, I struggle to think of a single big thing we can do post-ISS that we couldn't without.
Right off the top of my head the medical data from long term space exposure will be absolutely critical to any future journeys. And I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to perfecting long duration systems design, technology proofing, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight_records#Te...
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I think the suggestion was a separate but tethered unmanned platform, which would presumably have less vibrations. I would imagine it's just not cost-efficient for SpaceX, as they'll be able to recover the footage later regardless.
Who needs a tether? Ubiquiti makes gear capable of slinging 400+ Mbps over 25km in a straight line. For about $1500 they should be able to shove the "last mile" to a ship outside of the exclusion zone and put the sat uplink on the ship. https://www.ubnt.com/airmax/powerbeam-ac-iso/