Sir Sam Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 I light of todays launch, I got some new desktops for my slideshow: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DirtyComanche Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 Pretty darn classic, if I do say so. Too bad they were unable to land the core. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ωhm Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 SpaceX, nicely done. two of the three boosters made it home safely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Sam Posted February 7, 2018 Author Share Posted February 7, 2018 Ya too bad the core missed out, but seeing the other two land at the same time was cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A-man930 Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 I just hopped on here to see if anyone on CC was following this. Absolutely incredible! What a magnificent PR stunt! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A-man930 Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 for those not in the know: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete M Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 skip to 21:40 for liftoff. booster landing was epic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yellaheep Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 Gawd I knew absolutely NOTHING about any of this. Amazing space travel progress! I watched the video of the launch and flight, those boosters landing was something out of a CGI high quality movie or something. Unreal that they've made space travel that much more "reusable". 90 million vs 1 billion launches. Crazy! I wasn't able to find anything on line that talks more in depth on the purpose of the Tesla and probe it's mounted to. Is this anything like Voyager? Or simply space junk for aliens to find some day........? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DirtyComanche Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 16 minutes ago, yellaheep said: I wasn't able to find anything on line that talks more in depth on the purpose of the Tesla and probe it's mounted to. Is this anything like Voyager? Or simply space junk for aliens to find some day........? I don't believe it has much purpose, they were just proving the new rocket (which more or less was a success). Typically when doing this inexpensive objects are fired into space as there's a good chance it isn't going to work out, often just concrete or a steel weight. Ol' Musky knew he could get two birds stoned at once firing a Tesla out there, as they needed some dead weight and the whole thing came off as an excellent PR stunt for both SpaceX and Telsa Motors. Plus he earned major points with the geeks (potential employees) by playing Space Oddity and including an epic Douglas Adams reference on the car's display. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
89eliminator Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 so.....the earth isnt flat? been following SpaceX for a while. crazy what these guys/gals are doing with no where near the same amount of money that NASA has. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnj92131 Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 57 minutes ago, 89eliminator said: been following SpaceX for a while. crazy what these guys/gals are doing with no where near the same amount of money that NASA has. SpaceX is doing something very different today than NASA's historic job. SpaceX is driving down the cost of a maturing technology - putting satellites in earth orbit, by injecting some price competition into the earth satellite market. Both NASA and the Russian/Soviet space agency were true pioneers - doing what had never been done in history. The Saturn Rocketdyne F-1 engine is still the most powerful liquid fueled rocket engine ever built at a 1.55 million lbs of thrust. Designed, but never built improved F-1 engines would be rated at 1.8 million lbs of thrust. Each Merlin 1D rocket engine used in the Falcon 9 has 140,000 lbs of thrust. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjeff87 Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 In addition to the radio display, there's a copy of the Guide and a towel in the glove compartment. Seriously. I LOVE it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fiatslug87 Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 7 hours ago, 89eliminator said: so.....the earth isnt flat? Looks flat, just circular. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DirtyComanche Posted February 8, 2018 Share Posted February 8, 2018 Here's a cool video of the boosters landing. If you have good speakers I suggest turning it up (unless there's people/animals around you might scare) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A-man930 Posted February 8, 2018 Share Posted February 8, 2018 3 hours ago, DirtyComanche said: Here's a cool video of the boosters landing. If you have good speakers I suggest turning it up (unless there's people/animals around you might scare) Amazing. I NEED to see this in person one day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DirtyComanche Posted February 8, 2018 Share Posted February 8, 2018 Just now, A-man930 said: Amazing. I NEED to see this in person one day. Me too. If I'm ever nearby when they're doing a launch/landing I will do what I can to be there. That's a marvel of engineering unfolding in front of your eyes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buxmj Posted February 9, 2018 Share Posted February 9, 2018 Got to see a shuttle launch when I first moved to Orlando back in '90, it was amazing, just before dawn, it seemed like it was forever before we heard and felt it after the liftoff and we were just across the river in Titusville. Then last year one of my former students got me, my wife and daughter into the VIP section to see the Osiris Rex liftoff. He is one of the rocket scientists guiding the project to deep space and back. Awesome thing to see and experience. Buck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skorpyo Posted February 9, 2018 Share Posted February 9, 2018 16 hours ago, buxmj said: Got to see a shuttle launch when I first moved to Orlando back in '90, it was amazing, just before dawn, it seemed like it was forever before we heard and felt it after the liftoff and we were just across the river in Titusville. Then last year one of my former students got me, my wife and daughter into the VIP section to see the Osiris Rex liftoff. He is one of the rocket scientists guiding the project to deep space and back. Awesome thing to see and experience. Buck. I moved to Orlando in '92 when I started HS, I remember watching them from there too. I also remember waking up once from hearing one. Pretty cool to see, even from that distance. Very cool you got to get so close for a launch! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnj92131 Posted February 9, 2018 Share Posted February 9, 2018 Took my kids to watch the last landing of the Shuttle Challenger at Edwards Air Force Base in 1985. Great memories. But watch the videos of Walter Cronkite report on the Space Race. There you see the most trusted man in America reporting live on the most public and spectacular project ever carried out. Only public thing I can imagine more emotional was the end of World War II. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Sam Posted February 10, 2018 Author Share Posted February 10, 2018 I went to watch the second to last shuttle launch.......and missed it because of delays of the launch and our flights. I met Buzz Aldrin when I was......maybe 10-11? He had co-authored a science fiction book and was signing copies, got a signed copy of the book, and took in a paper poster of him on the moon and got that signed. Good stuff to keep around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terrawombat Posted February 25, 2018 Share Posted February 25, 2018 Starman is what happens when a total tech junkie also happens to be on the top 50 list of richest people in the world. I poke fun at a former co-worker about the fact that Musk was able to put a Tesla up in space, but he has been waiting over 9 months for the Tesla he ordered... The engineering feats Musk has accomplished with his SpaceX rockets are absolutely impressive and I believe it's just a small sample of the innovative technology that we will see in the future. It is no secret that SpaceX recruits and hires some of the most talented engineers in the world and it's been documented by current and former employees that he is very demanding and never eases up when it comes to pushing the envelope. While this is probably a similar approach that many companies have used to stimulate innovation and advance technology, I believe SpaceX will continue to be successful because Musk does something else for his employees - he ensures that they are well compensated for their efforts. I have been working with a guy for the last 6 years whose son worked at SpaceX up until last year. After getting married and starting a family he decided to move back to Virginia so his kids could grow up around family. His son is my age and has only worked for SpaceX and one other company since he graduated from college, but sounds like he could comfortably retire in a few years due to the stock options he received from Musk's publicly traded companies while he worked at SpaceX - namely Tesla. When my co-workers son left SpaceX last year I remember they hired some sort of financial adviser or legal counsel to help manage the 5,000 or so shares he had in Tesla. At today's market value that is nearly $2 million bucks. Granted, Tesla could have tanked (and can still tank) but I still wouldn't mind having a couple thousand shares of that in my portfolio right now :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Sam Posted February 25, 2018 Author Share Posted February 25, 2018 20 minutes ago, terrawombat said: I still wouldn't mind having a couple thousand shares of that in my portfolio right now :) I wouldn't mind having a portfolio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terrawombat Posted February 25, 2018 Share Posted February 25, 2018 5 minutes ago, Sir Sam said: I wouldn't mind having a portfolio. Honestly, how to start and manage an investment portfolio needs to be one of a few topics that is part of a mandatory class in every high school. Topics also studied in that aforementioned class would include "Credit cards, and how not to use them" "Your credit score and why it's important," and lastly, "Everything you don't want to know about taxes." Not saying you don't know how to create one or even need to (for all I know you have a vault of gold coins that you swim in like Scrooge McDuck), just speaking from my own experiences with various people I've met over the years, both young and old, that don't do much in the way of investing and honestly think that the government is going to adequately take care of them when they retire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Sam Posted February 25, 2018 Author Share Posted February 25, 2018 1 hour ago, terrawombat said: Honestly, how to start and manage an investment portfolio needs to be one of a few topics that is part of a mandatory class in every high school. Topics also studied in that aforementioned class would include "Credit cards, and how not to use them" "Your credit score and why it's important," and lastly, "Everything you don't want to know about taxes." Not saying you don't know how to create one or even need to (for all I know you have a vault of gold coins that you swim in like Scrooge McDuck), just speaking from my own experiences with various people I've met over the years, both young and old, that don't do much in the way of investing and honestly think that the government is going to adequately take care of them when they retire. I'm more into real estate personally. But the gold vault sounds nice too. Still, it would be nice to be rich enough to blast a 50K tesla roadster into space. It's one thing to have 50K to spend on a recreational toy tesla roadster. Its another to have enough to shoot that roadster into space on a whim never to be seen again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete M Posted February 25, 2018 Share Posted February 25, 2018 well, depending on whose calculations are right, we may well see it again. or it might crash into venus. who knows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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