Spacex
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- CygnusZero41
Looking at the comments on the crash vid, someone said its like trying to balance a pencil on your finger and will never be reliable, even if they can figure out how to make it work, there will be many times when it just wont work due to the shape of the vehicle, tall and thin.
It seems like people invest millions into an idea and get so hung up on trying to force it to work, that admitting it wasnt a great idea becomes impossible for them.
- I've seen circus performer - fuckit, even just hippies - do some amazing shit balancing tall things.
*shrug*detritus
- I've seen circus performer - fuckit, even just hippies - do some amazing shit balancing tall things.
- detritus0
"I don't understand it; it's a dumb idea".
It's a shame you're so limited in your appreciation of it, because it's a venture that stems directly from something close to your own heart, Cygnus, namely — computer games.
ok, i'm slightly oversimplifying here, but it's certainly true for the likes of John Carmack's space efforts, wherein he realised a long time ago that the processing power available to simulate physical environments and response loops in software and computer games were as, if not more, complex than that a 'simple' (says he) and largely quantifiable real world environment could throw him.
They say that half of the heads in SpaceX are programmers and software engineers, not the mechanical-pencil wielding atomic-thumping engineers of the space race days.
Presumably smarter minds than ours have put a lot more consideration and, more importantly, millions of their dollars, behind their conviction.
And if you still think this is all crazy, you should check out what ULA's response has been...
http://motherboard.vice.com/read…
*shrug*
There are smarter people in the world than us - best let them get on with it, I say.
- Hrm. I must've read a different article re: ULA as I thought they were doing something much grander.detritus
- CygnusZero4-2
Honestly this idea of trying to land a thin ass, tall rocket on a platform by controlled descent seems like the dumbest idea ever. How is this ever going to be reliable? Look at thing wobble, just as you would expect. There has got to be a much better way to do this.
Even if they can get this nutty idea to work most of the time, it seems like people are gonna die at some point trying this unless the top can be launched off if it starts tipping over.
- they do it to learn something. of course there is better safer technology around, they are just pushing the limits.uan
- Im sure, but it just seems ludicrous to me. Defies all common sense.CygnusZero4
- These are smart ppl, Im sure theres a good reason for what theyre doing, I just cant think of it lol.CygnusZero4
- if they manage to land that thing on a tiny spot in the ocean, they pretty much have the technology to land anything anywhere.uan
- Im sure they might get lucky and nail it one time, but do you really see this as ever being reliable?CygnusZero4
- Seems different than Apollo. They were doing things that made sense. This makes no sense at all though.CygnusZero4
- the difference to Apollo might be they are doing the experiments in public. The successful Apollo mission was brought into space by a Saturn V (not 1) rocketuan
- It does look a little unnerving, watching it wobble. But we all hope this is just the first step.formed
- I think the point, Cygnus, is to find something better than the old shuttle, which you have to fly in like a plane.monospaced
- But mostly so he can land on other planets that you can't fly in. Also it helps with balance of payloads in our atmosphere, and ultimately costs.monospaced
- detritus1
I'm totally turned on by the fact Elon's been tweeting about Iain M Banks books and naming his droneships after Minds from his novels.
It's like some sort of gooey nerd nexus.
The future's bright for once.
- inv0
- OBBTKN0
Nice one... it's really fast!!
- fiver0
so when do we find out if the rocket landing back on the platform is a success or not?
- inv2
New attempt
- inv0
- imbecile-2
- detritus0
ooft! Even closer than I'd imagined from the initial vines and short loops posted...
- marychain0
scrubbed
- utopian-1
SpaceX confirms it lost the center core of the Falcon Heavy
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/s…
- detritus0
Also, just to clarify - they're currently only testing return and recovery on the first stage of the rocket. Perhaps in future they might recover further stages.
The meat package you're concerned about stays at the top of the rocket and gets hoyed into space, as intended (well, will do once they get their rocket human rated).
- BusterBoy-1
Thought Bezos was a bit classier than resorting to this tripe.
- sted0
- detritus0
Watch the video I posted on the previous page, particularly the manoeuvring of the main rocket, and the wee thrusters at the top of the stack, and the extent of control available in the last seconds before it undoes itself.
You're right, perhaps it is a pointless cause.
I'd bet it's not though.