Posted on 12/21/2015 8:08:25 PM PST by Jack Hydrazine
I’m just glad as hell they finally did it. I was screaming at the screen in the final seconds , “STAY UP! STAY UP!”. My two boys were also yelling behind me. When the engines shut down and it was standing there safe, I was screaming and yelling for all I was worth, as were my boys.
We broke out a bottle of sparkling cider for dinner and toasted SpaceX’s success.
Yes, they had to prove to the Feds that they could safely bring the booster back under control to a pinpoint landing. The last thing they want is to have it go out of control and land in a populated area.
Where are all usual suspects denigrating Musk because he just makes an overrated electric car and owes his profits (meager as they are) to government subsidies?
Well done Mr. Musk. A great accomplishment.
Oh I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed
The private spaceflight company brought the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket back to Earth for a soft touchdown tonight (Dec. 21), pulling off history's first-ever rocket landing during an orbital launch. (Blue Origin, the company led by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, landed its New Shepard booster successfully last month, but that occurred during a suborbital test.)SpaceX successfully landed this way in a suborbital test BEFORE Blue Origin. Blue Origin may have the lead in the development of a methane-burning engine -- for now -- and gets paid more per pound to orbit (that's gubmint for ya). This landing was superb, nailed it, and after the launch failure earlier in the year, SpaceX needed this, bigtime. Congratulations to SpaceX, and I look forward to the Falcon Heavy test in 2016 -- they're the ticket to Mars colonization. Getting this launch down is a necessity, obviously there are no cranes or other infrastructure on Mars, and the methane-burning engine will be needed because methane fuel is available on Mars (kerosene not so much). Thanks Jack!
It’s truncated, but at the end of that last vid linked, the crowd starts chanting “U - S - A”.
Oh, and the launch itself? SpaceX used one Falcon 9 to orbit eleven satellites.
:’)
Landing, as viewed from a chopper (a little too dark right at the end, but nice shot!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCBE8ocOkAQ
It was very stable on approach this time. Looked very smooth. It was a bit windy last night, too.
Where are all usual suspects denigrating Musk because he just makes an overrated electric car and owes his profits (meager as they are) to government subsidies?
Well done Mr. Musk. A great accomplishment.
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Hearing all the SpaceX employees chanting USA was great, too.
Amen to that. I had the stamp books that NASA put out, and they would send stamps from each of the different launches and test rockets. Coooool times.
It also looks like they hit the center of the landing zone, too.
SpaceX put the last six months to good use.
Can The U.S. Reclaim Its Market Share In Space? Elon Musk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw1p9nO-8Z4
Why Make Rockets Reusable?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B5av0BOajU
Why Is Making A Reusable Rocket So Difficult? Elon Musk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIVCCaYWGpk
Why Invest In Making Life Multi-Planetary? Elon Musk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SECSxUbXTA
What Is The Business Model For Mars? Elon Musk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fS1FxBq64A
Elon Musk: I’ll Put a Man on Mars in 10 Years
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiPJsI8pl8Q
I neve understood why they wasted time trying to land on a pitching barge deck.
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It gave them the data to convince the government to allow them to attempt to land back at Cape Canaveral.
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