OT - Who Wants To Watch A Rocket Launch?
If you're like me you will welcome a nerdy break from our football/coaching saga, covid talk, etc. SpaceX has just announced a new launch time target at 440pm CST.
Yesterday's launch was scrubbed and the initial launch target today for 300pm CST has been pushed back a bit to approximately 440pm. Here is a link to a multi-stream video then some background. You can un-mute any of the streams, I am partial to the nerd in the bottom left quadrant personally.
https://multistream.co/p/CDZeEPz7vNJ/Spacebats_SN8_Launch
"The hulking rocket is an early prototype for Starship, a 160-foot-tall spaceship proposed by Musk that he hopes will be used for hauling massive satellites into Earth's orbit, shuttling people between cities at breakneck speeds and — eventually — establishing a human settlement on Mars.
The company is still a long way from building an operational Starship spacecraft. So far, it has constructed various prototypes that have been used to test how well their steel frames perform under pressure and to conduct suborbital "hop tests," which have tested how the rocket's gargantuan engines can steer the vehicle to soft, pinpoint landings after flight. Musk has said the technique is essential for recovering and reusing the vehicles as well as one day conducting a controlled landing on the Moon or Mars.
Previous test flights of Starship prototypes have traveled less than about 500 feet in the air and made use of only one engine. The vehicle that will be used on SpaceX's next Starship test flight, called SN8, will be the first to have three engines installed. And it will be by far the highest and riskiest Starship test flight yet."
December 9th, 2020 at 4:47 PM ^
Cool. I'll tune in. I'm a bit of a nerd too and find this stuff fascinating. I really want to see one in person.
December 9th, 2020 at 4:59 PM ^
I'm a bit of a nerd...
You're posting on the message board of the wonkiest blog of the wonkiest (major) college fanbase. You can safely assume that you and the rest of us are all a bit of a nerd.
That said, and setting my general ambivalence about Elon Musk aside, this is pretty cool.
December 9th, 2020 at 4:56 PM ^
Long, long ago as a kid, our parents took us to watch a rocket launch across the water from Cape Canaveral after spending the day at the Kennedy Space Center--it was the pure luck of the timing of our visit to grandma's house in Florida that afforded us that opportunity.
It was a tremendous and awe-inspiring thing to experience in person, and I would definitely encourage it as a great bucket-list item if you ever find yourself within reasonable distance of any of the launch sites.
It's kind of like hockey on TV versus live, when you see something light up the night sky, hear the delayed roar, then feel the rumble go through you, it gives a whole different appreciation for the forces involved, not to mention the pure brilliance of some of the minds that balance a giant metal cigar on controlled explosion.
December 9th, 2020 at 4:56 PM ^
I saw the space shuttle launch in Cape Canaveral back in the 90s on a family vacation. It was awesome and way more memorable than anything we did at Disney World.
December 9th, 2020 at 11:08 PM ^
Got to see a shuttle launch from Cape Canaveral at night. Cloud deck wasn't as high as I would have liked, but it was really cool.
December 9th, 2020 at 5:07 PM ^
Houston is developing a space port; spacex is pretty bid down where I live. Putting fully pot-brownie brain, i don't think we are far from having humans born of planet and having never been on earth. It is going to be fascinating to see the cultural impact, legal impact, economic, et all.
back to work
December 9th, 2020 at 6:26 PM ^
“I don't think we are far from having humans born of planet and having never been on earth.”
I think we’re at least four decades away from that, but it can’t get here soon enough whenever it happens.
December 9th, 2020 at 5:10 PM ^
Read the title. Had a flashback to September of 89. It sucks to get old.
December 9th, 2020 at 5:29 PM ^
Thanks for the heads up. Sticking around work a little longer to catch this. Really cool to watch these.
December 9th, 2020 at 5:36 PM ^
Rocket Launch? Hell, I had A F-16 crash 3 miles from my house yesterday.
December 9th, 2020 at 5:54 PM ^
Thanks for posting / just watched and that was pretty freaking cool
December 9th, 2020 at 5:54 PM ^
-1 for not sticking the landing but otherwise pretty badass.
December 9th, 2020 at 6:07 PM ^
Thought this was the mbb open thread...
December 9th, 2020 at 6:09 PM ^
Funny, my 11 year old son just texted me this
December 9th, 2020 at 6:19 PM ^
I'm wanting to see us blow out the rockets.
December 9th, 2020 at 6:39 PM ^
I saw one from the SpaceX VIP viewing deck. It was dope as fuck.
December 9th, 2020 at 7:08 PM ^
I lived in Daytona for a couple years. You could see the launches from there.
December 9th, 2020 at 7:23 PM ^
Can't wait to be on my way to the Lithium mines on Mars to work off my indentured servitude only to have it burst into flames because Musk is an incompetent with great PR.
December 9th, 2020 at 8:20 PM ^
If you ever want to grab a beer after your shift, there’s that little hole in the wall bar at outpost epsilon 438-7.4, let me know.
December 9th, 2020 at 8:24 PM ^
Yes, the multibillionaire that kicked off the gig economy by starting the Silicon Valley boom with Paytrust, founded and engineered the best and most profitable rocket company in the world (in only 10 years), built Tesla from scratch, and is now sending men into space, is an incompetent person.
Sometimes, the hate people display is awe inspiring...
December 9th, 2020 at 8:42 PM ^
Sometimes peoples ignorance about how the elite really became elite is awe inspiring
December 9th, 2020 at 9:03 PM ^
Sorry, Paypal. But otherwise, please enlighten us...
December 9th, 2020 at 8:42 PM ^
Sometimes peoples ignorance about how the elite really became elite is awe inspiring
December 10th, 2020 at 12:38 AM ^
Musk's parents owned an emerald mine in apartheid South Africa and then he purchased the title of founder of Tesla.
December 9th, 2020 at 8:45 PM ^
That’s all true, but he’s still a douchebag.
December 9th, 2020 at 8:51 PM ^
This is true...
December 9th, 2020 at 9:57 PM ^
I may think Tesla and that cult is dumb but Elon Musk is probably the most successful and greatest visionary business leader of our time. He is also insane. Hey, if that's what it takes.
December 9th, 2020 at 10:04 PM ^
I'd go with Steve Jobs, but you can't go wrong with either choice... Jobs had his owns quirks, just like Musk does. That level of visionary talent, like with great performers/artists, comes with some flavor of weirdness!
December 10th, 2020 at 12:23 PM ^
Jobs got lucky with one product. Everything else he'd done was middling success. Apple was on the verge of failure a couple times and Jobs was ousted at least once due to that.
Marrying the iPod with a phone was a stroke of genius that Jobs had the business and marketing accumen to capitalize on. But if someone (Jobs?) doesn't have that one epiphany Apple might be an interesting footnote in history by now.
And smartphones would be a lot less interesting.
December 10th, 2020 at 12:40 AM ^
The gig economy is just an erosion of workers rights that keeps people in constant precarity. It fucking sucks.
December 9th, 2020 at 8:17 PM ^
This has been on my bucket list for quite sometime. Unfortunately the killing of the NASA shuttle program in 2011 severely hampered this dream. One thing I can thank Musk for is reinvigorating space flight in conjunction with NASA. A night launch would be the absolute best.
December 9th, 2020 at 8:19 PM ^
Thanks for the post. I caught the stream with 7 minutes to blast off. I took your suggestion and listened to space hype man in the lower left. I would be lying if I said he didn’t get me all fired up.
my daughter is doing some schooling on space so I grabbed her and we watched together. I thought that last flip to try and land was so wild.
Again, thanks, this was cool.
December 9th, 2020 at 8:28 PM ^
I missed it! Stayed at work a little late, but had to bolt when they held the countdown at T-2:06. Will have to watch the replay now...
FWIW, Musk gave it only a 1 in 3 chance of surviving because everything they were doing was brand new - with new HW, new SW, and an utterly new design. Looks like they got a lot of information out of the flight, though.
December 10th, 2020 at 9:43 AM ^
Went to watch the Space X it was awesome. Couldn’t get onto Merritt Island as the Tesla, Air Force, and all essential personnel were there. Ironically the movie Hidden Figures was on my DVR which moved as well. Three Afro Americans ladies back on the initial NASA launches resolved the math for Glenn’s recovery, another made the IBM work. Well worth the watch. They saved the launch and were recognized by Glenn or Google the trailer. God Bless these pioneers.