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SpaceX Successfully Lands Its Rocket On A Floating Drone Ship Again (theverge.com)
Early Friday morning, SpaceX successfully landed its Falcon 9 rocket on a drone ship at sea for the second time. The company has recovered the post-launch vehicle a total of three times, two of which involved the rocket landing on a floating drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. Before the launch, the landing was deemed unlikely as the rocket would be "subject to extreme velocities and re-entry heating" in its attempt to launch a Japanese communications satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit high above Earth. Elon Musk tweeted: "Rocket reentry is a lot faster and hotter than last time, so odds of making it are maybe even, but we should learn a lot either way." As a result of the successful mission, Musk followed up with, "May need to increase size of rocket storage hangar." The first successful launch was in December, when the rocket landed at a ground-based spaceport in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The second landing occurred in April on a floating drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
How does this impact me or most other people in any significant way? I don't think it does.
I'll get modded down because this is an unpopular question to ask. But it needs to be asked. Shouldn't we put our resources to better use, like stopping global warming? Can anyone give me a good answer? I'm doubting it.
No you'll be modded down because its an idiotic question to ask, not mention flamebait.
Global warming is studied using satellites you miserable cunt troll. And isnt recycling also a good way to fight global warming? Anyway, fuck you.
And how do you track the progression of global warming if replacing failing satellites remain stupidly expensive?
How does this impact me or most other people in any significant way?
To start with, you would likely not be writing this comment in the first place if it wasn't for space-based assets. While you might be able to say that your actual TCP/IP packet only traveled along a fiber cable, the work of placing that cable inevitably used at least the GPS satellite constellation along with numerous other space-based vehicles. Like it or not, spaceflight has every day impacts upon your life, no matter how disconnected and isolated you might think your life has become. It is what makes the modern civilization function.
As a matter of fact, this particular satellite was a telecommunication satellite that will be broadcasting over the western Pacific Ocean region (aka eastern Asia).
Shouldn't we put our resources to better use, like stopping global warming?
It is stuff like this that you even know about global warming. How else do you think a genuinely global monitoring effort measuring temperatures, ocean conditions, sea levels, and other factors are even followed in the first place? This is how resources are being used to help stop such environmental pollution. If you don't know what is happening, you can't stop it from happening in the future.
I promise you that at least some data packets you are going to be using in the future will go across this particular satellite. The world is just far too interconnected.
The fact that the rocket landed again successful means that anything going into space is going to be much, much cheaper in the future as competitors to SpaceX try to copy the effort and come up with at least something that can compete commercially against SpaceX. That is what is so significant about this particular flight in addition to the payload that actually got up into space.
That's why we can't have nice things.
Perhaps you're right, perhaps you're wrong -- but why do you have to foam at the mouth so much?
"using satellites you m1$era+l c#n5#*&$%brflll..."
C'mon. Take an example from this post downthread. Clear, level-headed, with actual content worth discussing. Might convince the OP, might not. But has made the world a better place. Your post, to the contrary...
Did the payload make it into the right orbit? That wasn't stated in TFA.
Landing a first stage after a ballistic re-entry is a pretty big deal. This means that SpaceX can recover the first stage in low-remaining-fuel situations like heavy payloads, geostationary injection (because it's a higher orbit) and when the booster is the center stage of a Falcon Heavy (and is really high and far downrange).
Since they've recovered 9 out of 10 engines, they've recovered most of the cost of both stages. If they can get a high recovery rate (and this more-difficult recovery argues that they might), that drives down the cost of a launch.
People at ULA watched this one and it sure wasn't good news for them. They can't compete financially with SpaceX as an expended rocket, forget about their competing with working first-stage recovery. It also blows the ULA recovery strategy - ejecting the engines and recovering just them, instead of the entire booster - out of the water.
But the big challenge for SpaceX now isn't one with astounding demonstrations of technology. It's doing the same thing over, and over, and doing it quickly, and making a profit. SpaceX wanted to reach a cadence of 18 launches this year, and they have so far launched 4 in the first third of the year. To be a profitable company and to reap the economic advantage of first-stage recovery, they will need to get higher than 18 per year.
So, I'm disappointed that Elon announced the "instant Mars demo" immediately after last month's at-sea landing. Yes, for Elon SpaceX has always been about Mars. But now is the time for SpaceX to focus on making a profit and having a rapid cadence. If Elon does that, he will have lots of $$$ and recovered boosters for Mars projects.
Bruce Perens.
On one hand, it's thrilling to see the incredible become very credible. The very idea of this kind of spacecraft landing was thought to defy the laws of physics a decade ago, considered an engineering impossibility just a few short years ago, foolish to attempt last year, and by the end of this year, it probably won't get a headline. I'm not sure I'd want to work there, but the pace of SpaceX's science and engineering advancements is astounding. Kudos to anyone who can take the stress; the output is truly impressive.
More in the moment, though, I see what they meant by "subject to extreme velocities and re-entry heating" as it appears the octaweb shielding took enough heat damage from the 2x re-entry speed and 3-engine retroburn that the shielding and some underlying componentry continued to burn for a bit. But the borg over there interpret damage as education, and I doubt we'll see the same problem again. F*ing impressive. I look forward to more info in the morning.
I think not...(*poof*)
We don't know what was burning down there. It might just have been fuel seeping out of the turbopump. They did a 3-rocket burn this time, and the other two times we've seen a 1-rocket burn.
It's got a much larger fire on the way up. I agree it was alarming, but we don't know that it represented actual damage yet.
Bruce Perens.
We are working as hard as possible to enable a hot-air windbag to be able to move to Mars.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Sort of... there's far more heat stress behind the engines on re-entry than launch. And while low-level fire suppression (misting, more or less) on the drone ship is more or less par for the course, the SpaceX operators had to be significantly worried to fire up a high-pressure nozzle toward the engines, what with the potential thermal damage from sudden uneven cooling, not to mention physically pushing it sideways. All speculation, but yeah, it was alarming.
Overall, though, another serious win for science and balls.
I think not...(*poof*)
he doesn't need to build a bigger hanger to store them in, he needs to start re-launching them! :-)
You, sir, have limited imagination.
You've had it explained to you several times. This is exactly the sort of story that Slashdot should be running. Most of its readers are interested in exactly this kind of inspiring and exciting scientific achievement (also loud rockets and flames and stuff). And that didn't happen by accident, it's Slashdot's raison d'etre.
If you don't like it, just fuck off somewhere else!
Shouldn't we put our resources to better use, like stopping global warming?
Why are you wasting time posting idiotic questions to Slashdot instead of spending every waking moment searching for a cure for cancer, or whatever you believe to be the single most important issue?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I bike to the shop, you insensitive clod!
(Besides, I'd like to see more torching their cars, until they run out of money, but perhaps that's just me).
On a more serious note: kudos to SpaceX, their engineers and visionaries. We definitely need this more than some dubious "financial products".
Still. We need asking hard questions too, now more than ever, and running over the ones asking questions like a mob of raging apes doesn't really look like progress to me.
What this particular launch did was put a communications satellite into geosynchronous orbit over the pacific coast of Asia. If you live in east Asia, you may use it. If not, you won't use this particular satellite. Either way, you more than likely use communications of some sort and will thus benefit from lower bills and improved service from cheaper satellite launches. For example, in the coming years you may be able to post your slashdot comments with a cost-effective large swarm of LEO internet satellites (which would minimize latency).
This space intentionally left blank
There's a lot of water dumped on the pad at launch, and I'm sure some of it splashes on to the bells.
I don't think they are worried about pushing it sideways, the word from Musk is that they don't really have to tie the rocket down once it's landed, and winds and rocking on something 160 feet high are probably more force than that water stream. The rocket is very bottom-heavy with the tanks empty.
When they turned the water on, the nozzle was tilted upward. It wasn't aimed at where the flame was. So it's not too clear what was going on, but I agree that nozzle looked like it was commanded or the result of some sort of fire alarm.
Bruce Perens.
Why should we be impressed by them repeating already demonstrated science? You think this is a nerd site or something?
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
It effects you the way early sea exploration did. Without that, I would be living in some other country, if I was living at all.
Bruce Perens.
So, I'm disappointed that Elon announced the "instant Mars demo" immediately after last month's at-sea landing. Yes, for Elon SpaceX has always been about Mars. But now is the time for SpaceX to focus on making a profit and having a rapid cadence. If Elon does that, he will have lots of $$$ and recovered boosters for Mars projects.
Perhaps, but the reality is that Elon did not design these rockets himself. What he did was convince the best minds in rocketry to move to a startup company with fewer resources than the companies they were leaving, longer work hours, and greater job insecurity. His ability to create a vision and convince people to buy into it is his real strength (as was Jobs etc) and that is what he knows best. Talent isn't easily attracted by 'we will ramp up production to xxx units per year'. It is attracted by 'we will change the world...' etc etc.
Having said that, you are right that at some point Elon needs to deliver in quantity, both with SpaceX and Tesla. The reality is that changing the world normally requires a lot of boring grunt work and it will be interesting to see if he is a good enough business manager to pull this off. Worryingly, this lack of pragmatism is what sunk Jobs before his second coming. He got carried away with the vision on things like Lisa and this got in the way of making a commercially viable product. One just hopes that Musk's reality distortion field has not developed to a level where it engulfs the host yet.
Reusable rockets is one of the key technologies to bring down the cost of space travel. Once it comes beneath a certain treshold, you get a positive feedback loop in the form of space-based industries. The end result is hopefully having it cheap enough for colonization.
So, potentially, it's the beginning of industrial-scale space travel, which would be just as much of a change Industrial Revolution has proved to be. But even at absolute worst, it means cheaper satellites.
One of our worst problems is that our resource management system is still based on the feudal model, with money taking the place of land, and our nobility is just as corrupt, selfish and inept - and nowadays just as hereditary - as the preceding bunch. If one of them actually does his job - invests the resources under his control into advancing humanity - should he be attacked for it just because you'd rather see him take on some other cause?
You got modded down because you got handed a bar of silver and are whining it's not gold.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Cheaper launches means more launches which means more satellites which means better services, more bandwidth and more experiments conducted and more information gather which results in new ideas, new inventions and new aspects of your life which will affect you.
Are the costs of the extra fuel required for landing plus recovery and refurbishment of the engines and control systems (I assume the rocket body is scrap) less than simply building a new one? I guess it must be if not now at least at some point in the future but I'd like to see some figures.
The GPS satellites have a limited lifespan. They need periodic replacement, which means we need more launches. If the US can buy those launches for less money, then there is more money for beer.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
How does this impact me or most other people in any significant way? I don't think it does.
Right at the moment, it doesn't. However, that first stage that landed may be used to launch a communications satellite that might be used to transmit your sports, game shows, and reality shows to you. Or perhaps it will be used to launch a weather satellite that will let the barley farmers produce a better yield for cheaper beer. As far as putting your resources to better use, cut your military spending by 1%. You'd still have the biggest, baddest military on the planet by far, but you'd have an extra 6 billion dollars to put towards global warming.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
The headline ends with the word "again", making it sound like this is a repeat of a prior event, but in reality this is very much a new achievement. The first two successful landings were from relatively light payloads sent into low Earth orbit (LEO). This mission was sent to geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO), a much harder destination. The max payload for GTO is well under half what it is for LEO, because you need to get the satellite going much faster.
To get a big satellite to that orbit, SpaceX has to push the launch vehicle a lot closer to its limits. The engines burn longer, on the ascent, leaving the rocket with less fuel to try and slow itself for landing. At the same time, the first stage boosts to a much higher suborbital peak. It therefore has to re-enter through more atmosphere, while going faster, with less fuel to slow down. The increased speed and distance means more heating of the bottom of the rocket, which doesn't have anything like the heat shielding a Dragon capsule (or similar) would. Fortunately, it's not going as fast as an orbital capsule... but it's still going a lot faster than it would be on a launch to LEO.
Demonstrating that the first stage can be recovered even after a launch to GTO is a really big deal. In it's own way, it's as big a deal as the first two successful landings. In December we saw the first ever landing for an orbital booster, then a few weeks ago we saw the first ever landing at sea (which is necessary for GTO boosters to have any hope of landing, but that launch was a LEO launch). Today, we saw the first even landing of a GTO launcher. That is a huge deal!
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Is there a decent video of the launch and landing? That Verge article is just animated GIFs and tweets.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
The last video of the first 'landing' was clearly a reversed video of a rocket taking off, it looked dodgy as HELL, so presumably that's why there is no video of this 'landing'? All I see are two useless animated gifs.
Stopping global warming is easy enough: just reduce the population to sustainable levels. 99% of all people are soon to be rendered useless by automation anyway, so why postpone the inevitable?
Welcome to The Verge.
http://www.theverge.com/2014/1...
Slashdot should not use them as source of anything. They are allmost as bad as buzzfeed.
I recall that back in the 1990s Bill Gates wanted to build a satellite based cell network. It failed partially due go launch costs. The joking image showed Bill tossing satellites up by jumping on a springboard. More immediately, we need more weather satellites to improve weather forecasting, to keep GPS working, and better communication to far flung places. I recall possibilities of better balanced high speed bearings made in space, balanced better due to microgravity, so cheap launches could spur that. Long term, Musk wants to colonize Mars, and further. He's making the space elevator look less necessary after all.
The landing is at about 9:10 here but there isn't very much to see: it was a night landing from a nearby camera - the moment of landing is invisible in glare. You get to see the glare, then it fades to reveal the landed rocket.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
And a fuckitty fuck fuck to you too, good sir! :)
The ability to do manned repair of satellites lowers the cost of the satellites and improves their longevity. That helps weather prediction, which affects food availability and food prices worldwide. This also paves the way to refuel and upgrade LEO satellites, and the next generation of such craft should be able to reach geo-synchronous orbits. It also paves the way for manned manufacturing in space, where zero gee make the creation of large, uniform crystals or silicon wafers for computers much easier, and certain types of electrolysis based chemical synthesis and analysis becomes much easier.
It also paves the way for solar satellites to harvest solar power and send it to non-polluting power stations on Earth, which can provide far more energy than is available from fossil fuels or fusion, and far more safely than fission.
Cargo cult.
If it is cheaper, they can improve services faster and they'll be a bit cheaper too.
How does this impact me or most other people in any significant way? I don't think it does.
About as much as anything else.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Hopefully they'll post an aerial video soon, though the quality will still be less than that amazing video of the daytime landing.
On the live feed, a bunch of people sort of sighed or went "aww" as the screen lit up with the glow... I guess it kind of looked like the rocket had exploded, and the video was frozen before that so you couldn't tell what had happened. Then the exhaust and glow start to clear and you can see the intact landing legs and engine nozzles, and all hell breaks loose.
I was dancing in my chair. What an incredible thing to see...
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
I'm not sure I'd want to work there, but the pace of SpaceX's science and engineering advancements is astounding. Kudos to anyone who can take the stress; the output is truly impressive.
I get stressed whenever I have less work than I can handle, and feel great when I can really make a contribution and the work is twice the amount I could handle with confidence, and I need to find a solution that saves the whole project. The rush I get when I make the deadline in those circumstances is amazing.
Working with slower folks who need to have everything explained twice is also creating a lot of stress for me. I prefer smart co-workers that just need a few words, or none at all, and where we can count on getting things done because we're all very good at what we do and can trust each other in that.
Working for Tesla or SpaceX would be about the best job I could imagine having. Apart from building my own company ofcourse, which is what I'm doing now. But I'd settle for equity if I could help build those companies. They make tangible contributions to a better world.
Of course, I'm not an American so this option is mostly nonexistent. Still... I could dream :)
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
I'm not sure I get it right, but here's my impression.
One-time rockets impose tight conditions on all parts' lifespans and quality: they must live through the launch with five nines reliability, yet making them last any longer is a waste of resources. Putting backups is a waste as well.
The reuse, on the other hand, means that (1) long lasting parts are not a waste and (2) backups are not a waste. This means that longer lasting, less reliable parts (i.e. closer to civil manufacturing, think commercial aircraft) can be used which in turn means much simpler production and QA. And *that* will drive the price tag down (eventually), not saving half the mission cost at half the mission cost.
*If* my assumptions are correct, *then* we're going to see a slight increase in engines number/power, and a series of successful launches/landings *despite* failing engines.
WYSIWIG, but what you see might not be what you need
How does that affect me?
Everything becomes a little bit cheaper because society now has to spend less money on launches. You have to pay less tax because the government get cheaper launches. Your internet may become a little cheaper because internet companies have to pay less for launches. You can get slightly more TV for the same money because broadcast companies pay less for launches. And so on.
You can also reverse the question. What would happen if launches became much more expensive? We would get less satellites and that might include less accurate weather forecasts, less service for farmers to optimise production, less optimal GPS service and so on.
Everyone benefits from this. Even the launches not made by SpaceX are going to be cheaper, because competitors have to do it cheaper to compete.
not already covered in the summary here.
How does your existence impact me or most other people in any significant way? I don't think it does.
I'll get modded down because this is an unpopular question to ask. But it needs to be asked. Shouldn't we put our resources to better use, like stopping global warming instead of keeping you alive? Can anyone give me a good answer? I'm doubting it.
Those GPS satellites were put up. There was no requirement for rocket recovery to make that happen.
What this does is make launches cheaper.
How does that affect me?
You, madam, have a limited imagination.
Solar power, also known as beamed fusion
There isn't any chase plane video for this landing.
The chase planes that took the video's you're referring to for the previous landing is from a Nasa plane as that was a Nasa flight to ISS. As this wasn't a Nasa flight and Space-X doesn't have a chase plane, no video...
Posted AC to preserve mod points.
Wouldn't it be a better idea to have a large container of water (on the water), and just slow it down enough that it doesn't get damaged, then land the thing in said container of water?
Or something else, like a huge foam, huge aerogel, a huge ball-pit. (preferably with noisy children in it)
I mean, let's face it, the rocket itself is a fairly sturdy thing, it won't break that easily if it lands in something soft enough. Circles are strong.
Why the boner over trying to land it upright?
I mean, it is a fantastic achievement and I love hearing of their success, but it would be far easier with the soft-land at side-angle surely?
In the end, it will end up flat anyway when it gets carted off back to land.
This takes out an extra few steps and just lands it on its side.
It would also use less fuel since the longer side has more impact on its speed.
Part of that effort to build the satellite network resulted in the Iridium satellite constellation. A combination of 1990's electronic technology (it wasn't all that good... really) along with as you said the extremely high launch costs caused the companies to go bankrupt. Iridium itself has gone through several sets of owners, and it was kept on life support financially basically because the U.S. military couldn't find any alternative that could provide global coverage like Iridium was doing.
To give an example of the technical capabilities of Iridium, the first generation had a data throughput speed of 2400 baud for individual customers. That might have been sufficient for reading a few e-mails in the 1990's, but is grossly slow for current needs. The costs for Iridium phones are also insanely expensive compared to what was promised.... and frankly the satellites couldn't handle the crush of millions of users in that first generation either to spread those costs around.
Bill Gates' plan to have a large number of cheap satellites might have worked, but as you have pointed out it needed cheap launch costs to make it possible. $10k/kg to orbit is not cheap.
Antique,
Sorry, but where is the proof to your assertion that manned repair of satellites lowers their cost and improves their longevity?
As far as I know, there is only one example of a satellite being repaired in orbit (the Hubble Telescope) and, pulling together the costs of the shuttle flights to the satellite, I think you would be very hard pressed to demonstrate that it was more cost efficient to fix it rather than simply replace it.
Personally, I love the concept of having a permanently manned outpost to maintain and refurbish satellites but I don't believe it is cost effective or reasonable any time soon - if it were, then I would expect a big part of the ISS' mission would have been to provide this service.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
"It also paves the way for solar satellites to harvest solar power and send it to non-polluting power stations on Earth"
Last time I tried that in Simcity it didn't end that well ...
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
No you'll be modded down because its an idiotic question to ask, not mention flamebait.
Not to mention that he's asked the same question on a bunch of posts over the last week. I miss the Moo-Cow Troll and the Appy-App-Appers Troll.
No you'll be modded down because its an idiotic question to ask, not mention flamebait.
Judging by the responses in this thread, the troll made a good catch today......
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
It is another step on reducing launch costs, which makes it more economically feasible for us to take miserable trolls that benefit from the advances of science while actively trying to undercut science, and shoot them into the Sun.
When the troll is obvious there is no need for clever discussion. So, fuck you!
At one time, it was said that it was impossible to come up with a flyout plan that would result in a recovery. X appears to have found one.
At one time, similar story with landing on a moving target. They appear to be getting there on this as well.
Next challenge is starting to reuse some of the parts.
Some static test firing of the recovered engines to see what they can actually still do would be interesting.
Perhaps a 'something old and something new' launch with 1 engine on it's second trip?
Maybe a launch with a whole booster and water ballast?
That seems more interesting than building a bigger bone yard.
What this does is make launches cheaper.
Yep exactly. Speaking of the GPS satellites which were put up, between 1978-1985 we put up 10 satellites. In 1989 and 90 we put up another 9 more to cover the world. Between 1990 and 1997 we replaced all of those satellites with 19 new ones. Guess how many of these 38 satellites are still in operation? Zero. The current satellites have an operational life of 12 years.
The single most significant cost of keeping our GPS system functioning is getting cheaper. How does that affect you? You tell me, this is coming out of the budget paid for by your taxes, not mine.
Well, he IS a script...
No you'll be modded down because its an idiotic question to ask, not mention flamebait.
Not to mention that he's asked the same question on a bunch of posts over the last week. I miss the Moo-Cow Troll and the Appy-App-Appers Troll.
Pretty sure those trolls all died from Systemd exposure
Though your second question may be unpopular I don't think that's the problem with it.
Asking the "shouldn't we put our resources to better use" question certainly makes sense when talking about human spaceflight. The claim some others here are making that the reason this is important is future space colonization is not really credible. And maybe you could make a case for questioning the value of some NASA probe missions.
It simply doesn't make any sense when talking about satellite launches. We all, directly or indirectly, rely on satellites every day; we will need to have some number of launches every year for the forseeable future. To do this in a way that is less expensive, more rapid, and more environmentally friendly really is a big deal. This IS putting our resources - resources we're already using - to better use.
There really isn't a way to make your first question reasonable. Though will be some benefit to everyone from this, you may well not call it significant. But it's possible to live your life in a way such that practically nothing in the news impacts you very significantly. So if you're only interested in what directly and significantly impacts you, quit wasting your time reading news on the internet.
At its best, Slashdot has been a site where impressive feats of engineering have been publicized and celebrated. (e.g. the Top 10 Hacks long ago.) If "news for nerds" isn't the "stuff that matters" to you, don't spend your time here.
We don't know what was burning down there. It might just have been fuel seeping out of the turbopump.
As the booster uses fuel as the working fluid in the hydraulic system (in a total-loss manner), it probably was fuel from the hydraulic system leaking/draining. A concern I had was that since this is a total-loss system (the fuel is not recirculated, but rather dumped when "the other side" of an actuator is powered) the booster could have run out of fuel/hydraulic fluid before it touched down. Wonder how much was left in the tank?
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
1. Affordable Reusable space flight means less cost per flight saving you tax money.
2. Technology to automatically land a space craft back can be adapted towards self driving cars, machine operations, and other areas where humans cannot react fast enough or would be too much of a dangerous situation to do so.
3. Earth is a limited quantity. A future in space travel will help insure our survival.
4. Knowing what we don't know and finding new questions to ask is how we progress.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Do you think that relatively inexpensive Earth observing satellites would be a good tool for observing the effects of global climate change?
There seems to always be small fires on engines after landing. Just was more prominent this time because being a night time landing at sea there was no other view to show off.
Someone asked about this after the first landing, and the answer was basically "eh, it's fine and to be expected," a mix of the special paint they use (that is designed to burn off... which is why the bottom of the falcon is white going up and black coming down... and left over fuel / fluids.
It also paves the way for solar satellites to harvest solar power and send it to non-polluting power stations on Earth, which can provide far more energy than is available from fossil fuels or fusion, and far more safely than fission.
Uh, solar power is simply redirected fusion. That is, after all, how the sun works.
There was something very significant to see in my opinion. Pause it at 9:15 just as the camera adjusts to the flare, and look at the drone ship itself. If you do a search and find an overhead shot of the drone ship, you'll see there are two circles on it - a large outer white circle, and a smaller, yellow inner circle, with a logo in the center. The legs are visibly within the yellow circle, aside from the leg on the left which is out of the frame. They landed *more* precisely than they did on the previous landing.
In other words, even with a harder situation, a more difficult landing, they continued to improve the outcome.
Stopping global warming is easy enough: just reduce the population to sustainable levels. 99% of all people are soon to be rendered useless by automation anyway, so why postpone the inevitable?
Nah, stopping global warming doesn't need us to get rid of 99% of people, just the ones emitting most of the CO2.
Say 300 million from North America and 500 million from Europe. That should just about fix it.
"More CO2, more plants, more foodstufs." But those foodstuffs have less nutrition per unit material (as shown by actual research in how plants grow in higher CO2 levels).
"How does this impact me or most other people in any significant way? I don't think it does.
I'll get modded down because this is an unpopular question to ask. But it needs to be asked. Shouldn't we put our resources to better use, like stopping global warming? Can anyone give me a good answer? I'm doubting it."
1. More so than any tv show or movie would.
2. Well since we use satellites to monitor weather and climate change and this means that launching them will cost less it actually is helping at least monitor climate change.
3. You posting on slashdot uses electrical power which generates C02 so STOP IT!
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
While we're talking Iridium, they produce the brightest satellite flares, which can be rather striking. The website Heavens Above even has a helpful page where you can see when and where they are visible.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Here you go. For future reference, just tack an "&t=8m53s" on the end of the link, substituting whatever value for minutes and seconds you're looking for. I linked a bit earlier than 9:10 to establish context.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
The after-burning is expected. The same thing happens on a pad safe during an abort. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... This is the aborted launch from SES-9, and you can clearly see that there are flames under the rocket post-abort, but this same rocket launched 4 days later (had to make a new launch window) without issue.
What the heck is a 'sig'?
There are no stupid questions. But there are a LOT of inquisitive idiots.
Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.
I also remember the Iridium constellation. It was massively expensive. When they tried to pass onto consumers. Not only with 5000$ "phones" but with insanely priced subscription packages that really put them out of reach for anybody without either extreme need or for government/industrial/military use. So while it seem to be sold as a "personal" solution, it really priced itself out of that market pretty quickly.
It seems that that could not be true, or else the dinosaurs never would have existed.
The nutrition was enough for huge lizards(birds?) to survive on, it should be enough for humans.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
It also paves the way for solar satellites to harvest solar power and send it to non-polluting power stations on Earth, which can provide far more energy than is available from fossil fuels or fusion, and far more safely than fission.
Uh, solar power is simply redirected fusion. That is, after all, how the sun works.
Everything is redirected fusion, even including geothermal, because fusion is how radioactive elements in Earth were made. Only non-fusion energy production mechanism I can think of is gravity, in other words tidal power (also black hole accretion disks, but we don't have any, yet).
Just to elaborate on that point, the biggest barrier to space exploration, by a mile, is how much it costs to escape Earth's gravity. This goes a long LONG ways towards lowering that barrier.
And ultimately, space exploration is the key to our long term survival, and may even be the short-term future of our economy.
Couple this with the fact that the em-drive, astonishingly, has passed 6 tests so far and seems not to be pseudo-science. I wasn't expecting that. They need to get one on ISS and see if they can raise the orbit.
Bruce Perens.
Yes, it looks pretty much like what we saw.
Bruce Perens.
Could have been random chance on the precision...
Yeah, it'd depend on what one counted as "nutrition". Pure sugar or various other organic compounds? Probably higher concentrations (by a small amount, since there has to be more of something to have less of something else, percentage-wise). That's what the carbon dioxide would go into. However, it's uncertain whether those would be human-edible/digestible as opposed to primarily being just more cellulose structure or other similar roughage that would pass through.
Inorganic bits various animals need to survive (e.g. iron, calcium, zinc)? Probably going to be in lower concentrations -- roots will extend further, presumably, and pick up some extra, but the growth will be primarily made up from additional organic compounds.
As for Dinosaurs? Some probably would have been able to digest plants differently, like how cows can digest grasses, but humans can't. If we're only counting things as "nutrition" if humans can digest it, it's easily possible to have less nutrition without being impossible for dinosaurs and the like to survive on it.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
I remember when Slashdot was the home of intelligent, thoughtful commentary.
Here we have Exhibit A as to why this site is in the throes of decline.
Actually, a whole host of exhibits. Dumb commentary, 'news' posted days after its made the rounds elsewhere, and every thread turning into a political shit flinging contest.
Aye, poor Slashdot. It's true I once knew ye.
SpaceX is owned by Elon Musk, who owns Tesla. He has two goals in life: "Save Earth" and "Make Mankind a multiplanetary species". The goal of Tesla is to fix global warning - go and watch Elon's introduction of the Model 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?.... Yes, go and watch the first few minutes - you see that he really cares about global warming more than his cars. So yes, this guy is putting everything into saving Earth and saving Mankind. His Gigafactory is about bringing down cost of batteries. and TODAY, he was slamming the fossil fuel industry publicly at SpaceX. Name one other person doing as much single handedly to stop global warming. He might win a Nobel Prize for stopping war in the Middle East by getting us all off our addiction to oil.
Looks like a growing fire on the booster on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
at 10:17 it's quite a bit larger. Is this normal or another tweak that needs attention? I think that they try blast it with an extinguisher shortly afterwards.
Irrespective, a most excellent outcome; big smiles our our faces! :) :) :)
outstanding achievement on record. congratulate the team Spirit
Yes, I agree totally. We are trying to have an intelligent conversation, while idiots like you bitch about the things that make Slashdot what it is.
Dumb commentary,
Um, the whole point of Slashdot is the comment section.
'news' posted days after its made the rounds elsewhere,
This is how Slashdot works. If you see something interesting somewhere, you write up a submission about it. If you don't like that, go read Fox News, it seems like it would be more your speed.
and every thread turning into a political shit flinging contest.
Really? I only see that from that AC republican spammer. Most of us are discussing the points. I challenged an assertion that I did no understand, and was given an intelligent well though out response.
My background isn't the intricate details of biology, but on /., there is someone who knows exactly how these systems work. I asked a question, and got an answer, isn't that the basis of how intelligent conversations work?
Aye, poor Slashdot. It's true I once knew ye.
And finally, no, you never knew Slashdot, as your complaints are the complaints of a newbie who doesn't understand the basic facts about how Slashdot functions, therefore you couldn't possibly be a long time reader or commenter.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
More co2, more plants, more foodstuffs. More people able to survive.
Moron.