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SpaceX's Falcon 9 Appears As UFO In Australia
RobHart writes "ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Commission) has reported extensively on a bright spiraling light that was seen in Eastern Australia just before dawn. It has just broadcast a report from an Australian astronomer who has suggested that the light was probably the successful Falcon 9 launch, which would have been over Australia at that time on its launch trajectory."
Update: 06/05 22:20 GMT by T : Setting aside the literal exhaust fumes, reader FleaPlus says, It's "interesting to look at the reactions from those in Congress who control the purse-strings for NASA (one of SpaceX's biggest customers). The successful launch was congratulated by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL and former astronaut) and Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL), both praised and criticized by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) due to the successful launch being a year later than previously predicted, and blasted by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) for merely replicating what 'NASA accomplished in 1964,' who added that the company's success 'must not be confused with progress for our nation's human spaceflight program.'"
FWIW, I have a substantial blog post with details, including a rant against the ABC story. :) This was definitely the Falcon 9 second stage, despite the UFO guy's protestations: the timing, position, and appearance all match.
*** Phil Plait, aka The Bad Astronomer http://www.badastronomy.com
Everyone who watched knows the Falcon 9 was launched in the upwards direction, not the downwards direction needed to reach Australia.
Also, Australian UFOs spiral in the opposite direction to The Vistors who arrive in the northern hemisphere.
A doubter quoted in the article says "Firstly, the time of the launch was 18.45 GMT, which translates to 4.45am EST, the duration of the flight was 9 minutes 38 seconds - this is a full hour before the reported sightings."
Did he forget that we're on DST right now? He should have looked up the EDT time, not EST.
all the bright spiraling lights that were seen over norway, canada, and 4 corners of the world were falcon 9 launches ? what, are these guys using a ship for launches and, for some godforsaken reason, needing to launch from arctic circle, just north of norway, then to go to the other corner of the world, australia, and to launch from there ? give me an effin break.
Read radical news here
You keep using these words. I don't think they mean what you think they mean.
from UFO Research NSW Oh. That explains it...
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
Congress Reacts To Successful Falcon 9 Launch
Oz has every right to be worried when pieces of spacecraft come flying over them.
He gets paid to lie to us.
In fact, the bright light (pink), was a spaceship full of gay niggers from planet anus.
SpaceX has been kinda quiet about it... But the second stage did try to do another burn over Australia to make escape velocity. The burn didn't go as planned, probably due to the fact of the uncontrolled spiraling of the first burn. They were targeting escape velocity, but it only burned for about 8 seconds. After scrambling to keep a couple of ground stations up to track it, they found it tumbling still in about the same orbit as the first burn. As usual Elon put a good spin on it saying they just wanted to do a quick burn to slightly change the orbit. When you don't release what your targeting to the public before hand its easy to call that a success, but in actuality, that's not what they had planned. Still a great day for SpaceX for a first launch of this rocket.
and nobody outside Australia knows about it, and we all think it is just some UFO flyover when they launch a rocket in to space.
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Some perspective: I used to live in Huntsville, AL, and I currently live in Austin, TX.
Shelby's just trying to protect the funding of of the Marshall SFC NASA group in Huntsville, AL. In their defense, the HSV group kicks a lot of ass, and is a welcome outpost of science and engineering in Alabama.
KBHutchinson is just an ignorant asshole.
...over the key word "Probably"....
Amazing how we can get to space but don't know how...
SpaceX is trying to make rocket launchs come off an "assembly-line". This alone would be an impressive feat. Comparing this to a 1964 launch would be like comparing the 8086 cpu to modern quad core. My amature opinion on the launch: I don't think spacex has been totally successful as mentioned by quite a few other posts. They keep spiraling out of control, they need better rocket/jet rudders or something to improve their out of atmosphere control.
I'm in Adelaide and was walking to work between 4am and 5am local time, I wish I saw it!
May his gulf shores be tainted with oil for years to come!
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) for merely replicating what 'NASA accomplished in 1964,' who added that the company's success 'must not be confused with progress for our nation's human spaceflight program.'"
The bit he left out was the fact that America as a "nation" has lost the space race altogether. Unless of course you count buying seats on Soyuz spacecraft as part of the "American manned space program"... Yes America put a man on the moon - but what have they done SINCE then, Shelby - while YOU were in office? In fact, while Elon Musk was busy building a billion dollar company (PayPal) that many people use every day, all you did was suck up taxpayer dollars feeding off of society and pretending to be important. Then Mr. Musk goes on to found another visionary company while you just whine and bitch and believe that you actually contribute to society. Truth is that Shelby can be replaced instantly by someone just as mediocre.
SpaceX has demonstrated it can now lift useful, heavy payloads into orbit. This is the beginning of a business model - one that never worked for NASA. Instead of whining about how America did this a long time ago he should realize that this is not costing the taxpayer anything at all AND is the beginning of regular self funding, sustainable space flight. A boon to ALL of humanity.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Cat: I hate to go all technical on you, but: All hands on deck, Swirly Thing Alert!
Silly Republicans, space is for kids.
I'm still laughing at the people in the background of the news footage (http://news.ninemsn.com.au/technology/1064435/ufos-seen-zooming-over-eastern-australia).
"I don't think it's a supernova now that I look at it..."
Yep. Definitely makes you proud to be an Australian.
would be consistent with the increasing roll rate apparent in the onboard video as the second stage approached burnout. Haven't gone to YouTube yet to review, but it was clear that although the vehicle made it to orbit and may have made it through the intended insertion window, attitude (roll axis) control was not happy. I hope SpaceX will discuss what happened...purely as a matter of engineering curiosity, I wonder if it was a problem with roll G&C or whether a nozzle/bell burn asymmetry put a torque on the vehicle that was beyond G&C roll control authority, or ???
No, Falcon 9 was never intended, nor did it have the delta V needed, to achieve escape velocity. Orbital velocity (LEO) ~ 5 miles/sec. Escape velocity (Earth) ~ 7 miles/sec. Nowhere enough propellant on board to achieve the latter. If there was an engine restart after the ascent burn, it may have been an attempt to raise the perigee, a routine astrogation move to circularize the orbit.
As opposed to NASA who's Ares I-X rocket is where NASA was in 1957.
spacex for better or worse, has made slow but steady progress towards a manned orbital launch platform and will be ready
years ahead of Ares.
'...it looked like a row of lights, maybe four lights', he said.
Obama is trying to develop a viable space program that works and we can actually afford. The first part of that is a lowering
the cost to get stuff to orbit. Spacex will be part of that plan
...Without timothy posting non-stories from his beloved Australia?
Anyone?
Hi all,
Troll here, are we all going to just let this moment pass us by, or acknowledge that something amazing has happened on planet earth, what's the next step? contact on tv with live alien beings? disclosure project is nearing their goal!
But since we know what it was, wouldn't that make it an _Identified_ Flying Object?
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Is this the same sort of light that was seen above Norway not long ago?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8406633.stm
So vote Republican.
Blar.
Senator Shelby seems to have forgotten...that "precious" Constellation program that was cancelled was little more than an oversized version of what NASA did in the 60's anyway.
<voice type="Jean-Luc Picard">
There are FOUR LIGHTS!!!!
</voice>
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
" and blasted by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) for merely replicating what 'NASA accomplished in 1964,' "
lol. what an idiot.
he must have forgotten that a new born baby doesn't automatically have
the total sum of knowledge from its parents and grandparents.
it would be the same, as to say that it is no feat, to learn and understand
special and general relativity, because "it's just replicating what someone
figured out 100 years ago".
mister senator, THIS IS, still, ROCKET-SCIENCE!
Wasn't Hayabusa due to crsh, er, land in Australia anytime soon ? Bringing an asteroid sample. After disappearing, being given up lost, then reappearing and being reaquired much later? With a successful sample they ('them' science folk) thought it hadn't caught, at first ?
I'd only be worried if, recently, a probe to the edge of the solar system started to malfunction and start transmitting incomprenhisible data streams. Or a Galaxy sattellite went dead except for aircraft GPS functions and bent-pipe transmision - coasting away to a Lagrange point. I'd really be worried if anyone had made, like, one or two movies about it already.