Spacex
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- detritus0
Perhaps not exactly the right thread for this, but Jeff Bezos' somewhat secretive rocket company, Blue Origin, released a well-produced reel showing one of the development test flights.
The rocket itself looks fucking cool, if quite dildo-like...
- More detail here..
https://www.blueorig…detritus - why is it so small? is this the amazon guy?CygnusZero4
- It's a development flight and it has a very specific VirginGalactic-esque usage scenario. And yes, the Amazon guy.detritus
- More detail here..
- 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
the one complicating aspect of all this is the droneship, or rather the swell and oceanic gusts it's subject to. I'd wager it would be a lot easier to achieve on terra firma where all the reference points on the ground are absolutely static and expected to be so after a successful landing.
- I think thats the ultimate goal, not to do this on the ocean.CygnusZero4
- Makes you wonder though, theres plenty of places on land to test this. So why arent they?CygnusZero4
- Testing.detritus
- They launch from Florida and there aren't many available land masses to the east they could do. They've secured a landing pad from the air force for the future.detritus
- Also, they started with land testing, just not from live sub-orbital launches. https://www.youtube.…detritus
- And as if by magic..
http://www.defensene…detritus
- CygnusZero40
Ok so the point of this is to launch people into space, send them on their way, then bring this back to Earth to be reused. I get all that, what I dont get is the way they are trying to accomplish this, but firing a rocket at the bottom of a very tall and thing structure, while its descending.
Picturing this in my head before I ever saw them try this, I envisioned it wobbling and toppling over, and thats exactly what keeps happening. I get that there is very smart people trying to make this work, but the possibility is there that it will never work, because the idea itself it doesnt seem feasible at all.
I just have to believe there has got to be a better way to do this. Im not getting paid to sit around all day and come up with idea, but what theyre trying right now is not something I would get hung up on for too long before starting to experiment with other methods. Just like NASA, its not impossible for SpaceX to head down the wrong path. All Im saying is what they are trying seems super crazy and silly to me.
- Consider trying to land on a planet without our atmosphere, and it makes a lot more sense.monospaced
- I imagine this is a small step to find efficiencies in refueling until we can stop relying on this here on Earth and move the whole process offworld.zenmasterfoo
- Also, not only is it feasible, they're really close to perfecting it, and have actually landed it successfully.monospaced
- Until that time we need to stop wasting so much ($$) on unrecoverable rockets and repurpose what we can as often as possible (i.e., land them)zenmasterfoo
- THe whole point of this is to make it repurposablemonospaced
- detritus0
Aye, I was thinking about something like a sling or a harness that could pop around and envelope the top, or something, once landed, however..
there are two main reasons not to:
• it really should just be able to work on its own
• as mono keeps pointing out, all of this dev has an eye on mars, where there can be no expectation of infrastructure at the landing site- true, but in the meantime, they could fucking reuse the rockets with a simpler system already, and keep investigating structureless ways..ESKEMA
- they could improve it until the net would not be needed anymore.ESKEMA
- Sure, i suspect they just think they're a lot closer to a successful attempt, is all.detritus
- I think they are too.. That landing was really close on the spot...ESKEMA
- inv0
- that wasn't the last one, they perfected the landing sincemonospaced
- lol @ perfected. it crashed again.CygnusZero4
- I've seen video of it landing perfectly thoughmonospaced
- OBBTKN0
Nice one... it's really fast!!
- 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
elonmusk: Air Force tracking radar went down. Launch postponed to same time tomorrow.
- 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
- PhanLo0
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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- islandbridge0
Spacewalk launch in T- 01:06:00
- Damn.. They pushed it a day. So it will first tomorrow.islandbridge
- grafician1
"Crew Dragon docks with ISS"
- grafician0
X as of May 27 4:00 PM ET
8.53 ^0.53 6.63%- Anybody catch the black gimp outfits putting the astronauts in the capsule??robotron3k
- Nairn0
"Question your constraints".
Yeah, he's an awkward listen and possibly a bit of an ego-maniac, but he's a clever fucker.
The first 6 or so minutes of this interview with 'Tim Dodd, Everyday Astronaut' are quite interesting, in seeing how a non-traditional non-engineer Chief Engineer of a rocket company views his craft.
I like that the camera man gets a little distracted at around 12:25 :)
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I also just noticed that this thread is barely 5 years old. Quite amazing what they've managed to pull off in such a short space of time.
- utopian0
SpaceX's Starlink internet satellites could make astronomy on Earth 'impossible' and create a space-junk nightmare, some scientists warn
- uan1
- inv1