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SpaceX Successfully Lands A Falcon 9 Rocket At Sea For The Third Time (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader writes: SpaceX has successfully landed the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean for the third time in a row. The Verge reports: "It was the third time in a row the company has landed a rocket booster at sea, and the fourth time overall. The landing occurred a few minutes before the second stage of the Falcon 9 delivered the THAICOM-8 satellite to space, where it will make its way to geostationary geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). GTO is a high-elliptical orbit that is popular for satellites, sitting more than 20,000 miles above the Earth. The 3,100-kilogram satellite will spend 15 years improving television and data signals across Southeast Asia." The company landed its Falcon 9 rocket on a drone ship for the second time earlier this month. UPDATE 5/27/15: Frank249 writes in a comment: "Elon Musk just tweeted: 'Rocket landing speed was close to design max and used up contingency crush core, hence back and forth motion. Prob ok, but some risk of tipping.'" He went on to tweet: "Crush core is aluminum honeycomb for energy absorption in the telescoping actuator. Easy to replace (if Falcon makes it back to port)."
Congratulations to everyone at Space X who contributed to this awesome achievement! You have made space flight exciting again!
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
Elon Musk just tweeted: 'Rocket landing speed was close to design max & used up contingency crush core, hence back & forth motion. Prob ok, but some risk of tipping.'
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
I agree. We should take all that science money and use it to fund more research into the effects of Patriarchy on Transgendered Bathroom Ruotines and the role of disabled lesbian single parents in raising social conciousness with ever increasing revolutionary zeal !!
Global warming and world hunger are both problems with direct benefits from cheap space access. Cheaper space access means better environmental modeling since we can have more weather and climate satellites. That also means that farmers and the like get better data which helps plan crops. Also, better weather reports along with GPS help reduce the cost of ocean and air travel making moving food and other goods easier, faster, and use less fossil fuels.
Moreover, in the long-run, not having all humans on one very tiny rock is a definite practical benefit.
Why are we doing things like this? They're a waste of time and money, which could be spent on things like curing HIV and cancer, ending world hunger, or finding a solution to global warming. Spaceflight solves none of these problems and is a complete waste of money. It's also a waste of talent because these scientists could be putting their effort into solving so many more important problems. Why go to space when we need to solve our problems here on Earth? I'll be censored to -1 because this is unpopular with Slashdot users, most of whom don't care about solving the real problems in the world.
Because we could put every available cent into solving the world's problems, and we'd end up broke, and still with all the world's problems.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
They launched a communications satellite into orbit. It's not a "waste" of anything. They aren't "exploring space." They are a company that was hired to perform a task for a company and they did it. By doing it the way they did they can reduce the cost of launches by 30%. It's no different than hiring a trucking company to haul produce to market.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Is there a time line out there when the will actually reuse a Falcon 9 rocket? What type of milestones are they looking for?
If I understand correctly the rockets that they are recovering are for evaluating purposes only. That is, they are trying to figure out the type of stress and damage a rocket undergoes so they can design a rocket that is durable enough to be launched. The last one suffered so much damage that it could never fly again. That being said, that particular landing was a difficult one. The rocket had to come in fast and hard.
I can't tell if you're trolling or doing a sarcastic piss-take of an SJW. However. "We" aren't doing it, Elon Musk and SpaceX are doing it. They are doing it because it's Musk's money and Musk's company, so they're going to be doing what's important to Musk, not what's important to you. If you disagree, feel free to earn a few billion of your own dollars and and start your own company and then go ahead and try to solve whatever problems are important to you. Best of luck in your new endeavors. You're welcome.
Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
Elon's tweeted that the landing came down a bit hard but it shouldn't have done anything but impacted the crumple zones on the landing legs. Since the legs are replaced anyways, this shouldn't impact reusability. Right now, this is the fourth successful landing, and it looks like the basics of landing have been really worked out. Whether they can then actually reuse them is still in the air.
Also, there's been prior speculation that SpaceX was going to try to reuse the fairing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payload_fairing- which is the nose cone around the payload which helps protect the payload and keep it aerodynamic during the first part of the launch. If they can do fairing recover and reuse that would be another avenue for serious cost reduction. They mentioned fairing reuse as something they were working towards on the broadcast which is as far as I know the most prominent time they've mentioned it. So it looks like they are going to be trying to seriously do that. How much this all actually reduces cost remains to be seen.
Right now, even without reuse, SpaceX is substantially cheaper than every other company for the medium size payloads. (They aren't launching the really small ones and until the Falcon Heavy is set up they won't be able to launch the really big ones). So even without reuse they are having a substantial impact on the market. The other major players, ULA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Launch_Alliance (which is a joint Boeing and Lockheed company) and Ariane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Launch_Alliance (the big French rocket launcher who is currently the biggest rocket launch company) are both planning on reuse programs, but they are essentially playing catchup. ULA has a plan for just reusing the engines which may be interesting. Ariane has a similarly interesting idea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adeline_(rocket) but neither imagines reuse any earlier than 2020, by which point, SpaceX will have been doing full first stage reuse and probably even doing reuse for the Falcon Heavy and will be working on their next generation Raptor rockets. That's not to say that ULA and the others aren't doing interesting things - their ACES proposal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Cryogenic_Evolved_Stage is really neat, but in terms of reducing cost through reuse, SpaceX is way ahead of everyone else.
Interesting, so does that mean that non capitalist countries already have a cure for every condition he mentioned?
Global warming and world hunger are both problems with direct benefits from cheap space access.
There is no "world hunger," there is only local hunger, which is due to local governments who enforce low levels of economic freedom.
Global warming will react to widespread carbon taxes.
AC trolling is a waste of time and money. Discuss.
Simple, none of those make anyone any money.
Or work.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
but don't forget that Science is not Just One Thing
these folks are most likely complete rubbish in doing things like assembling Bikes or Cooking 9 course dinners or raising children (without using lots and lots of drugs).
besides this kind of thing makes the 0.001% crowd need to Prove Their Manhood (which can be done via giving pallets of money to Other Causes).
Why pay for an internet connection to bitch on slashdot when you could use that money to feed a starving child somewhere in the world? How dare we allow mindless entertainment like sports, movies, or video games to exist when the money from any one of those industries could pay to keep people fed across the globe?
The truth is, there are far more useless things out there than telecom satellites and research spacecraft, and in fact, the satellites you dislike so much contribute directly to solving those issues you complain about (like collecting data about icecaps to better inform climate scientists). You're either trolling or completely ignorant.
So good work, Spacex! Landing pencils is quite a trick, and yer doin' it.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Why are we doing things like this? They're a waste of time and money, which could be spent on things like curing HIV and cancer, ending world hunger, or finding a solution to global warming.
Yet another person unfamiliar with diminishing returns on single investments...
Ezekiel 23:20
I'm interested to know that having recouvered the First Stage, how many times can it be refurbished and reused before failure rates effect the launch?
And, perhaps heven if it's not reusable as a whole, are there indevidual parts that can be reused? It's got to be made of top quality materials, so perhaps there is value in simply shredding it all up and recycling the basic material?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
He said, on the Internet.
You are welcome on my lawn.
so he's the boss of a company distributing solar panels, making electric cars and created reusable rockets which is all well and good but now he's beating so many levels in Candy Crush that's cleared entire areas I haven't even heard about?! but... that's my specialty. STAY IN YOUR LANE ELON! >:(
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Social Justice: When an SJW gets punched in the face.
Hell of a sig there, Hanzo. Advocating violence. What are you, twelve years old?
> There is no "world hunger," there is only local hunger, which is due to local governments who enforce low levels of economic freedom.
Failure to keep the peace is not the same as "enforcing low levels of economic freedom". But it remains an ongoing fact of life for millions of people around the world. It need not even be caused by incompetence or malice. Take a good look at how AIDS has destroyed economies in Africa over the last few decades.
What do you mean "we"? We are not doing things like this. A communications company in Thailand is doing this because it has the odd idea that people in Thailand deserve to have a modern communications infrastructure and will be willing to support it financially.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Africa has been growing quite strongly over the last few decades.
For interest's sake, the idea of a crushable hhoneycomb landing leg arrangement was used for the Apollo Lumar Modules. It was very light as it only needed to be used once, unlike a hydraulic or spring system. Have a look at page 6 of the LM Structures document at http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a...
Cheaper space access means better environmental modeling since we can have more weather and climate satellites.
What's actually wanted is more high-resolution data, sensors in between the sensors. We need more weather stations. I am appalled that we don't have a standard for IoT weather stations yet. I want to make the data publicly available, though not directly from the device but through some kind of gateway. But I also want a cheap, good weather station, with just an ethernet connection and no other interface. I suppose I could build one, but I'd have to buy an anemometer for calibration anyway.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You fuckwits make posting as AC seem like something only masturbating pinheads do
pretty much
I resent your trivialisation of all ACs
Here's a nickel, kid. Get yourself an account.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Isn't hitting a target 100's of miles precisely a military technology? I mean just imagine the cylinder carry exploive n the drone ship is an enemy target. So we are now in the time when a private company can own tech similar to ICBMs.
Thanks for dropping your personal politics into this in completely unrelated way. http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/ is a bit relvant. Note that if you think that "Social Justice Warriors" are a political group that objects to rocket launches, then this says more about you than any actual political group. Most people who care about social justice don't even have this on their radar screen at all. You appear to be taking every political position you don't like an labeling them all as "Social Justice." Maybe this means you should try harder to actually understand the political groups you don't agree with?
Some African economies have been doing well. Sub-Saharan Africa is devastated by AIDS. Swaziland, Botswana, and Lesotho are the worst hit with over 20% infection among working age adults South Africa is a close follower in those numbers: that's not a surprise, it borders on or actually contains those countries. That information is roughly 5 years old: I'm afraid that if it's gotten noticeably better, it's because many of the AIDS victims have since died.
The chart at http://www.avert.org/professio..., based on 2015 data, is also compelling. Sub-Saharan Africa is suffering very badly from AIDS. The attrition of the work force, and the cost of treatment to try and preserve the workforce, is devastating.
We need more weather stations.
We need more weather stations in remote areas such as the Arctic. Areas where most people would be able to install an IoT weather station are already sufficiently covered by existing ones.
Why are we doing things like this? They're a waste of time and money, which could be spent on things like curing HIV and cancer, ending world hunger, or finding a solution to global warming. Spaceflight solves none of these problems and is a complete waste of money. It's also a waste of talent because these scientists could be putting their effort into solving so many more important problems. Why go to space when we need to solve our problems here on Earth? I'll be censored to -1 because this is unpopular with Slashdot users, most of whom don't care about solving the real problems in the world.
It is not a waste of time and money! Spaceflight is a frontier in science and engineering, which is cross pollinated with all other fields of science. From agriculture, environment, communications, astronomy, medicine, meteorology. and so on. Which in turn is about having easy, cheap access to information and education for all humans. Including poor people in remote areas. And tracking and understanding global warming.
And that is only the start. One of Space X's goals is to make access to space real cheap, so that sending up something won't cost 450 million dollars. People seems to have a hard time imagine the opportunities that will arise when launching a rocket will cost 1/100th of the current price. A whole new industry will form. Very small companies, cities, universities will be able to build and operate satellites, even maybe travel up and conduct research in a not too far future.
Solving problems in space means solving problems on earth.The earth is in space after all. If we ignore that we will miss out on endless possibilities and maybe miss serious threats to all of mankind. Including the cures to the problems you mention. If people reasoned like you all the time we would still be stuck in some middle ages like society.
Reality is never simple, and you never know where you will find the next great invention that helps mankind to prosper.
Oh, the human toll from AIDS is large. But those economies are still growing strongly.
automatic memory management
Usually poorly managed. Leading to performance hits and/or exaggerated memory requirements. Which can be fixed by using manual memory management like the one in C.
usable code-as-data
Polymorphic code? This is usually considered as a vector for injecting exploits in a C program. Ideally you want the code segment to be read-only and non-modifiable at runtime.
A lot of times something that is defined as a breakthrough or a great idea is in fact a terrible idea in practice.
Not to say that there is nothing left to be invented (or re-invented) in software. It only takes a look at CUDA/OpenCL, modern refactoring tools, or code inspection tools to realize this.
Usually poorly managed. Leading to performance hits and/or exaggerated memory requirements. Which can be fixed by using manual memory management like the one in C.
Performance is best achieved by means of an elegant architecture, not by means of a thousand and one special cases. Whatever you "win" by having a primitive language model, you lose, e.g., by inability to perform useful algebraic transformations such as loop or stream fusion across large pieces of your program (or don't you consider redundant memory accesses as "exaggerated memory requirements"?). It's not entirely clear that the C way wins in modern very large applications - at least not without an excessive time investment (and perhaps causing a lot of unnecessary bugs), which could have been better spent elsewhere, for example by going for better algorithms.
Polymorphic code? This is usually considered as a vector for injecting exploits in a C program. Ideally you want the code segment to be read-only and non-modifiable at runtime.
There are so many ways of employing that principle, many of them working at compile time (I believe that even GCC opened its pipeline using MELT recently for ordinary compiler users, although the language is not at all suitable for using such things in production). You don't need to modify code segments at run time, although quite often, it helps - inline caches, for example, or code customization in running applications. Also, if it's a vector for injecting exploits in a C program, then don't write a C program.
Not to say that there is nothing left to be invented (or re-invented) in software. It only takes a look at CUDA/OpenCL, modern refactoring tools, or code inspection tools to realize this.
"Modern"...you mean the copies of the things already available in the 1980s or early 1990s?
Ezekiel 23:20
The governance of these countries has far more to do with economic growth than AIDS. For example, here is a kleptocratic dictatorship with a closed-access economy and low economic growth, and another with a level of democracy, open-access economy, and a high level of economic growth:
Swaziland 1.5% 5-year compound annual GDP growth, GDP $7,797 per capita. Economic Freedom Status: Mostly Unfree. "Swaziland's economy is mired in stagnation, destabilized by poor governance, ongoing social unrest, and a lack of progress in structural reforms. Undermining macroeconomic stability and much-needed economic development, the mismanagement of public finance has aggravated the country's fiscal crisis over the past five years. The inefficient regulatory framework continues to curb the emergence of a dynamic private sector....King Mswati III rules Africa's last absolute monarchy. Political parties are banned, and rights groups accuse the government of imprisoning journalists and pro-democracy activists. Parliamentary candidates are handpicked by chiefs who are loyal to the king, and international observers declared the most recent elections, held in September 2013, not credible."
Botswana 6.0% 5-year compound annual GDP growth. GDP $16,036 per capita. Economic Freedom Status: Mostly Free. "Botswana's economy has been diversifying, largely because of foreign investment attracted by low taxes, political stability, and an educated workforce. The country continues to set an example in the management of large endowments of natural resources. The level of corruption is the lowest in Africa. An independent judiciary enforces contracts effectively and protects property rights....The Botswana Democratic Party has governed this multi-party democracy since independence from Britain in 1966. President Ian Khama won a second term in October 2014, though the BDP for the first time garnered less than 50 percent of the vote as opposition groups gained significant support from young and urban middle-class voters. The 2014 elections were the most competitive in Botswana's history."
Botswana is doing well _for the wealthy_. They import 90% of their food, and the poor are starving to death. The middle class, whose income comes from unrenewable mineral wealthy, are spending roughly half their income on food. The poor are starving because they simply cannot afford the imported food.
I'm sure it still sucks to be poor in Botswana, but it is better than in other sub-Saharan African countries with lower levels of economic freedom. Botswana is slowly growing out of poverty.
From World Bank Botswana Poverty Assessment 2015
"Living conditions of Botswana have improved over the past decade and poverty has reduced significantly. This decrease was accompanied by a considerable decline in both depth and severity of poverty, indicating that consumption has improved among the poor. While rural areas led the poverty reduction, the share of the poor living in urban areas has increased. Botswana's progress toward reduction of extreme poverty and inequality was among the world's strongest in the second half of 2000s. During this period, the economic growth has been strongly pro-poor. Botswana is one of the top performers in Africa when measured by annual consumption distribution growth for the bottom 40 percentile...Botswana has a historical opportunity to build on recent achievements and move towards eradicating extreme poverty within one generation."