Yes – he did it! Go Elon!
Last Decembers SpaceX landed the rocket on land.
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I call BULLSHIT on this, not because it is impossible or that it could be thoughtlessly routine in the future, but for other reasons.
Look at the whitecaps. The barge is about the same length as the rocket is tall. That barge is going to be rocking all over the place. The center of gravity of the rocket is high; there is no way they would risk that rocket tipping over into ocean when they didn’t have to.
Look at the angle of approach to the barge. No property owner now or into the future will allow his craft to approach landing at an angle when a vertical approach takes so many variables out of the equation. And no future landing site owner will allow his landing site to be approached in any manner but vertical for the same reason.
I’m all for the future, but this is a faked press release and you slurped it up.
You are sooooo stupid
If it is fake why would they release the fail videos of previous attempts to do this?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ecLdz1p-_Rw
A prior attempt that failed — almost successful, but rocket falls over.
My memory of the first unsuccessful landing was that the rocket DID LAND a-ok but one of the three flip down “catch arms” failed so indeed the rocking of the barge tipped the rocket over as it was not secured, or maybe it was slightly crooked on touchdown which might have even caused the catch arm failure?
Whatever……….. as posted before, knowing how finicky rocket motors are, and to be made from 3-D printers in the future…reliability of used equipment is somewhat suspect…… even if very carefully inspected and tested. Shortcuts easier to take than with fresh products.
High tech, high cost, high risk….. while people starve and drink lead poisoned water.
Excellent point, Bobbo
bobbo … I will never try to quote someone out of context on purpose. …. I gotsta know what you mean by your words below.
“…knowing how finicky rocket motors are, and to be made from 3-D printers in the future…”
As John Glynn said: “The thing that makes me most nervous about this ride is that every part was provided by the cheapest bidder.” ((close enuff))
I don’t get some points:
– Why is this necessity to land on a barge in the middle of the ocean? I think if just make the process more costly. First you have the cost transport the barge out and bring back later. They also have the transport cost of the rocket back to base to verification, repair and refueling for next mission. Since the rocket can land anywhere, a fixed spot or base is chipper, one can use it various times moving the rocket very little.
– Why the barge is so small? Lack of money to build a bigger one? Steel sheets price is the lowest in years. A bigger barge would be more stable, right?
– To land on a barge in the middle of the ocean is the most stupid idea possible because you can’t predict 100% how weather will be. If what I’m saying is bs, why they didn’t predict the ocean would be rocky on this land?
– Yes, as said before, the rocket’s center of gravity is high, and the water is shacking the barge hard. Maybe the barge is magnetized to hold the rocket stable.
– Maybe it is just a distraction because others see it and think, “it is so difficult to do it, I won’t even try”.
Its almost like you’ve never heard of development and testing.
re downrange landing requirement: my first thought is that you are wrong. Mostly an issue of timing to fire rockets very short time to land “anywhere on earth” I was thinking.
but then….seems to me they were always landing the space shuttles on the west coast and then having to fly them piggy back to the east coast. What was that all about if the space shuttle really could have landed anywhere it wanted to?
I must be wrong. No name==you sure have upped your game in these recent posts. I’ll keep digging nonetheless.
So……you’re saying I was just gamey?
Everyone here has game. Mostly games I don’t wanna play, but then, I’m gamey.
If you land the space shuttle in Florida, then congressmen in California might not fund it.
So Houston, we have a problem. NASA also has an office right above the Seinfeld cafe.
This is a real issue, as Congress came a few votes short of defunding the International Space Station. Within a few years jobs for the project were distributed across the country.
I’m with the Space Guy and +/- on this.
Apparently some of you haven’t spent any time at sea. Well I have and this looks phony to me. This is a relatively calm sea with 3-5 foot swells. IOW a good day to sail.
But even if it’s real it seems pointless to risk it. The sea is way too unpredictable a place to station your landing craft.
1) So if something goes wrong you are in the middle of the ocean?
2) Cultists would think it is cool.
Landing in the ocean is because for heavy loads there isn’t enough fuel left to fly back to land.
It does look like a small barge but it’s actually a big rocket. And he’s never had a problem hitting the barge. Just hitting it and keeping the rocket vertical.
The rocket legs go out 30 feet on each side so it’s stable. They weld it to the deck before transport back to dock.
They do it because getting the first stange back saves tens of millions.
What do you mean about not enough fuel to get back to land?
If they landed on land, then there would be no need for fuel to get to land.
The rocket goes not only up but horizontal so the rocket is 300 miles over the ocean heading away from land at 4000 mph. It take a lot of fuel to turn around and fly 300 miles back to land.
If you complete the arc and land in the ocean at the place where the rocket would normally fall into the ocean then it takes less fuel.
OK I see what you’re saying. I was assuming the rocket got high enough to be close to orbit, so it could choose it’s destination.
Well..If they could just land a freakin Tesla on that platform, I Might buy one..
I just can’t help thinking that everyone is convinced that it’s one of the stupidest things imaginable. What’s wrong with a fixed stable platform in like a desert somewhere? Doh!
Because the desert isn’t where the rocket is.
So you’re saying they just let the rocket land randomly, and maneuver the boat to catch it?
Logic seems to escape some of the idjits. WWSD?
What would Spock say?
So you’re saying that all rockets need to be launched over water? Or do launches over land become too involved and complicated?
The problem is that if they put the barge on land, then the whitecaps would have been a dead giveaway. 😉
Heehee
Landing over water is safer. That way it doesn’t come down on a city. But in time perhaps that might change. This landing is experimental and more than half failed.
Since others can’t read your mind, what is someone supposed to be surprised about ❓
So tell me numbskull, what happens when this rocket attempts to land on a barge that’s rocking 15 degrees in either direction? With the wind blowing @ 30 – 40 kts?
Ever been on a boat?
Instead of ad hominen attacks…try answering the question.
“what happens when this rocket attempts to land on a barge that’s rocking 15 degrees in either direction? With the wind blowing @ 30 – 40 kts?”
Your answer please?
Noname, I spent a lot of time at sea as well but on something larger than a tin can, a carrier.
Went through a hurricane (edge) in ’81 and it tore part of the catwalk off around the flight deck.
But there is nothing funnier than watching a tin can fallowing us under the water more than it was above in the straights above Japan.
I believe the rocket landed on the barge and I also believe it is a hell of a lot harder to do than to bring it back to land.
When I take the time to read one of nonames comments, which is rarely btw, I always picture a yapping Chihuahua.
No offense to Chihuahuas.
Arf! Arf! Arf!
Well, I’m (still) game!!
JUST FREAKING LOOK!!!!!!!
There’s a video tape and everything.
Deniers remind me of the OJ Jury.
dipshits.
Yapping Chihuahua? You mean like Hillary at a rally?
@bobbo – I see thousands of video(tape?) of UFO’s on the Internets.
And yet you will deny those?
You little denier you.
Ya Know==fair point, but only in a vacuum. The OP video is not a youtube video coming out of nowhere.
You should expand your contextual awareness beyond the point on your head.
@bobbo – Oh, I think this video is real. I just agree with those that thinks its impractical.
And I’m not so certain about “some” of those UFO videos either. Not all of them are from nutballs.
Ya Know–well then, that is what you should have posted.
Ya Know?
Bezos is not pushing “the freaking great idea of see sickening landing operation on a tine barge”.
He wants to make space travel for people, he can’t have a miss. Not even in test flights. He knows the ocean landing is a problem that he wants to avoid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU3J-jKb75g
Besos isn’t going to orbit with a payload. Going to orbit is 25 times as difficult.
Perhaps Samsung has a secret project that beats them to it.
yea, and the others have started it, to the point where they can swoop in and beat them.
What is Apple going to do if Samsung goes thru with its purchase of Nuance, who developed Siri?
“HE did it”?
Don’t you mean THEY did it?!
I hardly think Elon Musk accomplished all this bullshit all by himself. But if you need a scapegoat or whipping boy then by all means, be sure and give your accolades to the money boy — not any of the minions who worked on/at it.
That’s soooooo “murcan” to be so totally brainwashed when you give credit to the guy with all the money (as if people with obscene amounts of money really even need credit).
If you want my opinion (too late), this is a complete waste of time and money. Hasn’t anyone heard of jet/rocket powered airplanes? Pssst! They land much more safely when they land HORIZONTALLY! Or how about PARACHUTES?!!! But since proven technology these days may already be copyrighted, thanks to the likes of Disney or Microsoft, then let’s take a time trip back to the 1930’s Buck Rodgers engineering era. Back to the ancient idea when powerful cylindrical phallic shaped devices “screwing” up the earth was en-vogue. Ya! That’s the ticket.
Seriously. Only an IDIOT would admire this crap. However, I will concede that it is quite an accomplishment towards world peace, ecological tranquility and the betterment of mankind. (If you believe that then I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn you might want to buy.) It’s not like anyone is trying to escape planet earth or anything.
Elon does have thousands of employees. He didn’t do it himself. But he did start SpaceX and designed the rocket.
The world suffers from at least 2 kinds of ills:
1) Facebook “likers” and other douchebags that like shit even a mindless zombie wouldn’t go for.
2) Those that think their barely polished turd of a critique represents “deep thought”.
You, sir, are a number 2.
Both figuratively and literally.
Elon wants in on the taxpayer fueled Aerospace market. As long as NASA isn’t “privatized” and has to show a profit for any of its missions. It will continue to attract speculators like Elon, to join the ranks of the other aerospace and defense contractors. Sucking on the taxpayers nibbles, because there’s not enough wars to profit from.
I assume the rocket landed on a barge, in the ocean, because fresh water lakes like Okeechobee are off limits. Spilled rocket fuel would pollute them. And landing on land, requires leases, permits and other complications. Whereas the ocean is free to splash down in, blow up, set fire to, pollute, or crash land a rocket into. You can even repeatedly nuke it, and the UN says nothing. Just ask France.
Most interesting post we have seen.
+100 points.
The tech being implemented by SpaceX reminds me of the sixties, innovations in manufacturing and thinking outside the box. The 3D direct metal laser saves time and design can be much more complex.
Wikipedia.
“All Falcon 9 versions are two-stage, LOX/RP-1-powered launch vehicles.
The Falcon 9 tank walls and domes are made from aluminum lithium alloy. SpaceX uses an all-friction stir welded tank, the highest strength and most reliable welding technique available.[48] The second stage tank of a Falcon 9 is simply a shorter version of the first stage tank and uses most of the same tooling, material and manufacturing techniques. This saves money during vehicle production.[48]
Both stages use a pyrophoric mixture of triethylaluminum-triethylborane (TEA-TEB) as an engine ignitor.[49]
SpaceX uses multiple redundant flight computers in a fault-tolerant design. Each Merlin rocket engine is controlled by three voting computers, each of which has two physical processors that constantly check each other. The software runs on Linux and is written in C++.[50] For flexibility, commercial off-the-shelf parts and system-wide “radiation-tolerant” design are used instead of rad-hardened parts.[50] Each stage has stage-level flight computers, in addition to the Merlin-specific engine controllers, of the same fault-tolerant triad design to handle stage control functions.”
The rockets are reminiscent of the Russians space program. Except for the silicon tech of course.
Would you please provide links to where you got your information? Thanks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_metal_laser_sintering
Thanks very much. Very interesting.
If you liked the articles check out this video, this part would be impossible to machine.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=cRE-PzI6uZA