And it appears they have a successful splashdown!
ETA: Sorry I was reading too much into some info elsewhere but it looks like unless they spring a leak its all good.
Order of Kilopi
And it appears they have a successful splashdown!
ETA: Sorry I was reading too much into some info elsewhere but it looks like unless they spring a leak its all good.
Order of Kilopi
And NOW we have splashdown!
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Splashdown! And that, I think, is how you do that. Congrats to SpaceX, and congratulations to Americans - I hope your media gives this coverage it deserves, and tels people how much effort must have gone into this.
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Splashdown!
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If they recover the first stage intact to... well in their shoes I would be imbibing much whisky!
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I hope anybody's media gives it the coverage it deserves.Originally Posted by marsbug
And stop including hype about spaceport in with this. They are two completely different animals.
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First stage recovery is "just" icing on a cake. Most important is Dragon in one piece back on Earth.
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True, this is something we can all be happy about, but it's an American company launching from American soil, so I'd hope American media would at least, like, look up at the sky and smile about it.
Anyway, back to my own real life....
Edit: MaDeR: true, but icing would be nice!
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The only way it could have gone better is if the Dragon had landed on Senator Hatch in a 'Wizard of Oz' style.
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Decades ago, Howard Hughes tore Senator Brewster a new orifice, mounting a persuasive argument that Brewster was more interested in looking out for Juan Trippe and the Pan American World Airways than the public interest.The only way it could have gone better is if the Dragon had landed on Senator Hatch in a 'Wizard of Oz' style.
I can only hope Musk will do the same to Shelby, Giffords, et al.
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Remember this classic from a couple of weeks ago:
If SpaceX want more money I say give it to them. Heck if you gave them the budget for the SLS they could probably put a man on the moon AND Mars and keep everyone happy.Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) [said] “I remain very concerned that NASA continues to delay the transition from Constellation systems toward the new heavy-lift program while they needlessly explore private start-up technologies that remain unproven, require more money and are unfit for human-rated space travel.”
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What an amazing morning - a second great F9 flight, and it looks like Dragon performed superbly!
Best comment I've seen all morning was something like 'Is this when the hatch opens, Elon pops out and shouts 'Ta-Daaaaa' '
The political movement against commercial spaceflight was never based on facts, evidence or common sense. I see no reason why this will change any of that sadly.
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Probably while wearing an Iron Man costume.What an amazing morning - a second great F9 flight, and it looks like Dragon performed superbly!
Best comment I've seen all morning was something like 'Is this when the hatch opens, Elon pops out and shouts 'Ta-Daaaaa' '
The political movement against commercial spaceflight was never based on facts, evidence or common sense. I see no reason why this will change any of that sadly.
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He did say it would be hurmerous.... maybe its William Shatner! He came 'round from the drugs during re-rentry.... "ELOOOOOOONNNN!!!!"
Over on NASAspaceflight.com someone suggested a sensor laden test dummy in a flight suit - so SpaceX can say 'after analysing the data we can showthe whole mission was within the safety parameters set out by NASA'.
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Well one of the cubesats has been identified:
Go Army!
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Great news. My congratulations to everyone involved.
A dawn of a new day, perhaps...?
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I can't believe I forgot this was today... But hurrah!
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Just saw the picture of the guy who did the repairs on the nozzle, baseball cap, shirt, jeans and a pair of tin snips, almost as if they looked up handymen in the phone book.
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Seems like first stage was damaged beyond repair after all.At least they have much more data now. Hope they pinpoint what exactly happened to stage.
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Wow, he's not only a rocket guy, but a tailor and toolmaker too?
I couldn't resist.
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Well they seem to feel they are making progress, and it is one of their longer term goals, like that propulsive landing for the manned Dragon.Seems like first stage was damaged beyond repair after all.
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Elon : (May have got the wording wrong)And the secret payload will be revealed tomorrow - and is something to dow with montypython!Anything Orion can do Dragon can do better
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My money would be on an ex-parrot.
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I think thats a bit cocky about Dragon vs Orion to be honest - but given the day he's had, and that he probably hasn't had a solid 8 hours sleep since the test fire.... I think he's speaking with his heart rather than his head, an a bit of leeway should be given.
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Actually yes, a parrot would fit the bill!
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True, and I suspect what he means is Dragon could be readily upgraded to do those things, and of course its hard to be sure about how it stacks up since we haven't got an actual Orion to compare it to.
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Best comment I seen on this ballsy annoucement about Dragon being better than Orion:
Anything is more capable than powerpoint-spaceship...
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The guy's sure got chutzpah; but I guess he's earned it today.
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I wonder if when COTS was launched NASA ever imagined they would find themselves the ones playing catchup? Or did they expect all the contenders to go the way of Rocketplane Kistler?
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A great flight today but I have to wonder about this:
(link)The restart of second stage went perfectly; the second stage went up to 11,000 km – and that is with the trimmed, repaired nozzle. Reaching an altitude that high was not part of SpaceX’s primary objectives, but nice to have, Musk said.
Needless space junk or will it reenter soon because of an elliptical orbit?
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