Space X

[Liberty]

Falcon Heavy launched! First time all three boosters landed:

 

 

[Liberty]

Watched the launch live with my oldest son. Quite a moment to share.

 

[Spekulatius]

Watched the launch live with my oldest son. Quite a moment to share.

 

 

It’s cool to watch, but I watched Apollo launches as a small kid in front of a black and white TV. I really thought that at this point almost 50 years later, we would be cruising with ion drive powered space ships around Jupiter.

 

Some where along the way, we dropped the ball on space exploration.

[gary17]

i watched it too

in a crazy world today , it is good to watch something like this, that literally lifts you up and make you feel hopeful about the future!

[scorpioncapital]

Space, the next public mental health initiative)

 

[rkbabang]

"Last summer, reality offered you a literal dramatization of the truth: it is man's irrational emotions that bring him down to the mud; it is man's reason that lifts him to the stars."

–Ayn Rand, on Apollo 11 and Woodstock

 

[Spekulatius]

A small step for mankind, a large step for capitalism.

[Castanza]

A small step for mankind, a large step for capitalism.

 

I watched the ISS fly by the night of the launch. You could actually see the capsule trailing the station as it was preparing to dock. Pretty cool to see.

[MVP444300]

A small step for mankind, a large step for capitalism.

 

I watched the ISS fly by the night of the launch. You could actually see the capsule trailing the station as it was preparing to dock. Pretty cool to see.

 

I have watched a number of launches off the coast and watched the rockets coming down to land.  It is really awesome to see.

[fareastwarriors]

A small step for mankind, a large step for capitalism.

 

I watched the ISS fly by the night of the launch. You could actually see the capsule trailing the station as it was preparing to dock. Pretty cool to see.

 

 

 

I have watched a number of launches off the coast and watched the rockets coming down to land.  It is really awesome to see.

 

It was my first time watching a lanuch and my heart was racing the whole time. What a beautiful sight and incredible accomplishment.

[thowed]

I love the videos.

 

But afterwards I also think: this is a very useful halo to mask some of the more questionable governance at Tesla...

[rkbabang]

I love the videos.

 

But afterwards I also think: this is a very useful halo to mask some of the more questionable governance at Tesla...

 

SpaceX and Tesla are two different companies.  Tesla is a public company that makes cars and SpaceX is a private rocket company.  SpaceX has been working towards sending Astronauts to the space station for a long time.  This was not a scheme cooked up by Musk to divert attention from Tesla.  Also the Earth is a globe and Stevie Wonder is blind.

 

[muscleman]

Could anyone tell me why it took 19 hours for the dragon to dock ISS? It seems to me that it should need to fly a very long distance as both dragon and ISS are just circling the earth

[gary17]

Could anyone tell me why it took 19 hours for the dragon to dock ISS? It seems to me that it should need to fly a very long distance as both dragon and ISS are just circling the earth

my limited knowledge is so it gets to the right altitude and synchronized speed.

[Cigarbutt]

^Once the Crew Dragon enters an orbit, it becomes a different ball game. The flying Dragon is made to be as simple as possible and incremental adjustments in speed need to be made along raising the orbit. While it may appear that the Dragon (and the ISS) does not go fast, the speeds are tremendous. Watch (and listen) the following relevant video when Mr. Chris Hadfield answers a question while in space. Take a look at the microphone he's periodically holding to adjust the position. The microphone looks likes it's immobile but in fact, in a relativity way, it is moving at an amazingly high speed. The process appears simple but it's anything but. From Einstein: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler".  :)

 

You may remember that i had tried to share with you a rocket launch science theory of interest rates but it seems that you had lost interest.

 

[Spekulatius]

Could anyone tell me why it took 19 hours for the dragon to dock ISS? It seems to me that it should need to fly a very long distance as both dragon and ISS are just circling the earth

 

The relative speed between the ISS and the dragon module decreases, as the dragon comes closer to the ISS Orbit. That’s why it takes the dragon so  long to get to the ISS station.

[thowed]

SpaceX and Tesla are two different companies.  Tesla is a public company that makes cars and SpaceX is a private rocket company.  SpaceX has been working towards sending Astronauts to the space station for a long time.  This was not a scheme cooked up by Musk to divert attention from Tesla.  Also the Earth is a globe and Stevie Wonder is blind.

 

Ha ha - and don't take anything on the internet too seriously.

 

It was a throwaway line - I should have made it more obvious.  And known that saying anything Tesla-related could stoke strong reactions.  I'm not trying to create a conspiracy.

 

Personally, I like SpaceX.  I don't like Tesla.  "I think Elon Musk is peculiar and he may overestimate himself, but he may not be wrong all the time".  That's all.

 

 

 

 

[rb]

Seriously guys? This isn't anything amazing, we didn't discover space flight, we've been sending rockets into space for 50 years. This time we just made some money. I'm sorry but it's not exactly a momentous, world shaking event.

[fareastwarriors]

Seriously guys? This isn't anything amazing, we didn't discover space flight, we've been sending rockets into space for 50 years. This time we just made some money. I'm sorry but it's not exactly a momentous, world shaking event.

 

I'm still amazed when my flight takes off.

So I'm easily impressed.  ;D

[Xerxes]

Seriously guys? This isn't anything amazing, we didn't discover space flight, we've been sending rockets into space for 50 years. This time we just made some money. I'm sorry but it's not exactly a momentous, world shaking event.

 

RB,

I recall watching an interview with the Boeing CEO Muilenburg, believe it was on Bloomberg, few years ago.

It was a good interview I thought at the time. He was the first non-GE leader at Boeing since the merger from McDonnel Douglas and he rose up through the engineering ranks and he was bold.

 

In the interview, Muilenburg made a few bold and fun statement (at the time) poking at Airbus and SpaceX. Interviewer (David Rubstein) asked him what he tells his mother. Muilenburg says something along the lines of only flying on Boeing products, implying other products from Airbus are unsafe. He also poked fun at SpaceX (maybe at a different interview) when he was asked about Elon Musk' stunt of throwing a Tesla in space that Boeing will be the company that not only make it to Mars ,,, and will bring the car back on its way back.

 

Bottom line, fast forward by a few years, we had 737 MAX crashing, the entire fiasco as to how it was handled, and then their debacle Boeing space launch etc. etc.

Muilenburg was just manager squeezing the cash machine through buybacks … he was not amazing.

 

Elon was and is amazing. Naturally in hindsight his idea of re-using rockets seems like an obvious thing to do.

Airbus was and is amazing by insisting to be boring and risk averse.

 

Boeing was not amazing.

 

 

[meiroy]

 

Spectacular achievement. I've been following SpaceX for years. It's not just that they got people to the ISS, it's the HOW, the way, the technologies used. Elon Musk, without a doubt, is a genius.  There's nothing right now that gets close to it anywhere else in the world.  Another reason why this is so significant is Musk's vision and end goal.  This is another step in order to achieve it.

 

[Spekulatius]

 

Elon was and is amazing. Naturally in hindsight his idea of re-using rockets seems like an obvious thing to do.

Airbus was and is amazing by insisting to be boring and risk averse.

 

The idea to reuse rockets For cost savings  is very old, at least early 70’s. In a way, the Challenger was build around this concept.  However it’s not easy to make it happen. For me, the most amazing part is to bring the booster rockets back on their feet on a drone ship.

[Xerxes]

Agreed. I meant the execution. The whole 9 yard.

 

In fact the space rocket in Tin Tin comic was reusable rocket in a sense.

 

 

[meiroy]

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/01/spacexs-success-is-one-small-step-man-one-giant-leap-capitalism/

 

"The cost to NASA for launching a man into space on the space shuttle orbiter was $170 million per seat, compared with just $60 million to $67 million on the Dragon capsule. The cost for the space shuttle to send a kilogram of cargo into to space was $54,500; with the Falcon rocket, the cost is just $2,720 — a decrease of 95 percent. And while the space shuttle cost $27.4 billion to develop, the Crew Dragon was designed and built for just $1.7 billion "

 

[Pelagic]

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/01/spacexs-success-is-one-small-step-man-one-giant-leap-capitalism/

 

"The cost to NASA for launching a man into space on the space shuttle orbiter was $170 million per seat, compared with just $60 million to $67 million on the Dragon capsule. The cost for the space shuttle to send a kilogram of cargo into to space was $54,500; with the Falcon rocket, the cost is just $2,720 — a decrease of 95 percent. And while the space shuttle cost $27.4 billion to develop, the Crew Dragon was designed and built for just $1.7 billion "

 

The real savings are when you look at what Russia was charging the US to ferry astronauts to the ISS. It was something like $80M per astronaut so $160M per launch with US astronauts.

 

As an American I had heard/read very little about SpaceX's primary competitor Arianespace but the price war between the two is fascinating and it will be interesting to see what Arianespace comes up with. Just the ability for US companies to launch from the Cape as opposed to French Guiana has to translate into significant savings.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competition

 

In competitive bids during 2013 and early 2014, SpaceX was winning many launch customers that formerly "would have been all-but-certain clients of Europe's Arianespace launch consortium, with prices that are $60 million or less."