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OT - SpaceX's Crew Dragon launch attempt at 2:49am ET March 2, 2019

Milland

Diamond
Joined
Jul 6, 2006
Location
Hillsboro, New Hampshire
For the night owls or folks in other time zones, there's a NASA live broadcast of the first launch of the SpaceX Crew Dragon launch to the ISS. This an unmanned launch, but computer automation controlled, so sorta on-topic.

NASA feed here: YouTube
There's various press conferences and other topics prior to the actual launch attempt.
 
^ Ya know, when it quit being a national thing and became just another ego-enhancer for some worthless rich guy, I pretty much lost interest.

When it was the whole nation doing it, it meant something. It was ours.

Now it ain't shit.
 
^ Ya know, when it quit being a national thing and became just another ego-enhancer for some worthless rich guy, I pretty much lost interest.

When it was the whole nation doing it, it meant something. It was ours.

Now it ain't shit.

You're just a bundle of chuckles, aren't you. I disagree, I think (for all his faults) what Musk has done with space science and engineering is extremely impressive and inspiring.

Are you worried he's going to be a space pirate, plundering your booty? That's a reason for concern...
 
And good on.

If you have never seen a night launch live and in person from even many miles away it is a true beauty to behold.
Even a daylight one.
A fan of the space program since a child and watched it all.
Know where I was sitting when John Glenn first went up. Vividly remember watching the first step on the moon. At this time every school science paper I wrote was about the space program.

Then latter in life with traveling money we used to book a hotel in southern Daytona beach on shuttle launch dates and SWMBO and I watched Mr.Glenn's ride which some may call propaganda but was a very special treat to me.
It's not the same as a video, hard to describe, it just climbs so slowly as if it will never work, the air just shakes and crackles around and inside you, then it seems to defy the all the rules.
You have to see one live to appreciate it. Words or TV screens just don't do it justice.

Now people just think ho-hum, ...far from it.
Get your ass next to one of these things going up and tell me that you are not impressed.
Bob
 
Yes, it's a "total body" experience. I only saw one shuttle launch, STS-58 in 1993, but the ground and air shaking and pounding you is something you don't forget.

The best comparison I can make is being near the starting line of a Top Fuel drag race, where you can feel each cylinder pulse rattling your chest. That's similar to the Shuttle, but instead of 100ft from the launch site, you're four or more miles from the pad. The energy being unleashed is simply staggering. That's literally staggering, not hyperbole.
 
There cool to watch even on TV, I'm in AZ so we get to see the smaller ones launch from NM and Ca every once in a while. would love to be there when one launchs that would be beyond cool.
your comparison of the top fuel cars was spot on, but I always liked fuel Altereds ;)
 
For my part the most amazing thing they do is land the booster on a barge.
Talk about “next level”.
I’m waiting for them to work out the bugs on shroud recovery.
 
For my part the most amazing thing they do is land the booster on a barge.
Talk about “next level”.
I’m waiting for them to work out the bugs on shroud recovery.

Agreed, but watching the simultaneous landings of the two boosters from the first Heavy launch was cooler. Too bad they missed the main stage barge landing, the trifecta would have been amazing.
 
Agreed, but watching the simultaneous landings of the two boosters from the first Heavy launch was cooler. Too bad they missed the main stage barge landing, the trifecta would have been amazing.

You do realize it was not a miss as such right? The trajectory for all falcon landing attempts requires a dog leg in the final moments to the landing zone, anything wrong the booster intentionally avoids everything it can and do to time constraints this is fully automated. The ones were it comes back to land its even programed to specifically avoid all the flight buildings and similar.

Hence sure yes it missed the barge, but at seconds before that it had already worked out it was not going to make a successful landing on the barge hence went exactly were it was spose to and caused minimal damage to the barge - the most valuable piece of infrastructure in the area.

The recent one they dunked in the ocean just off the coast do to a hydraulics fail has spurred them to add a fully redundant control system, hence there rapidly bringing in the kinda backup systems the aviation world spent decades implementing in a matter of months. What i like about space x is how dynamic they are progress wise, it kinda is the bit i fear the manned nasa flights might fuck up and slow the pace of developments. Nasa seams really good at damn near linching its self in red tape.

FYI falcon heavy there should be a couple coming up soon, one spose to be mid-end of month then early April, problem is being the only launcher in that class, few places are truly designing satalites and such to make full use of its launch potential, both the upcoming launches could be done with multiple falcon 9 launches as there all multi satellite pay loads.
 








 
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