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SpaceX Successfully Launches, Recovers Falcon 9 For CRS-12 (techcrunch.com)
Another SpaceX rocket has been successfully launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center today, carrying a Dragon capsule loaded with over 6,400 pounds of cargo destined for the International Space Station. This marks an even dozen for ISS resupply missions launched by SpaceX under contract to NASA. TechCrunch reports: The rocket successfully launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 12:31 PM EDT, and Dragon deployed from the second stage as planned. Dragon will rendezvous with the ISS on August 16 for capture by the station's Canadarm 2 robotic appendage, after which it'll be attached to the rocket. After roughly a month, it'll return to Earth after leaving the ISS with around 3,000 pounds of returned cargo on board, and splash down in the Pacific Ocean for recovery. There's another reason this launch was significant, aside from its experimental payload (which included a supercomputer designed to help humans travel to Mars): SpaceX will only use re-used Dragon capsules for all future CRS missions, the company has announced, meaning this is the last time a brand new Dragon will be used to resupply the ISS, if all goes to plan. Today's launch also included an attempt to recover the Falcon 9 first stage for re-use at SpaceX's land-based LZ-1 landing pad. The Falcon 9 first stage returned to Earth as planned, and touched down at Cape Canaveral roughly 9 minutes after launch.
Which is what I always had hoped for the shuttle program
Because it's American. Europeans coming to a foreign site insulting the local culture is immature and rude. Why do all of you feel the need to do this? We don't visit your websites and insult you for continuing to pronounce Aluminum wrong. Please kindly go invent your own reusable rocket system and then you can feel free to measure its payload capacity with whatever units you prefer.
Actually, Elon failed to convince him not to be a fossil-fuel boosting climate change denier.
It's a completely different rich guy who failed to convince him to be a racist, bigoted asshole.
On that last note, I find it really sad that only the black guy felt the need to cut ties; in my opinion, it shows you that none of them have any principles unless it hits close to home.
IIRC (it has been a long time since I studied physics), mass was measured in Newton's. The definition of weight as distinct from mass is that all matter has mass all the time, but it only has weight when that mass is experiencing the force of gravity within a gravitational field.
the Kilogram is a measure of mass. However, due to the way that scales and the like are calibrated here on earth, it corresponds to the weight as well. Force is measured in Newtons (F=ma), so if you hold a 1kg object suspended in the air, you need to apply 9.8 newtons of force to prevent it from moving.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Nah. Pounds measures currency.
There's a joke about that.
"There are two kinds of countries: the kind who have sent men to the moon, and the kind who use the metric system."
I got to take a private tour of the SpaceX testing facility in Texas a few weeks back, I was a few feet away from the team installing the flight computers on top of the Stage 1 in the hanger in McGregor a few weeks back.
Amazing stuff to see in person, and really emotional to see the same Stage 1 launch today and land.
(On another note, the people in the hangar were listening to Katy Perry as they were working. Sorry guys, I had to.)
Scientists, especially rocket scientists, need to distinguish between mass and weight (force). In SI, it is very clear: mass is in kilograms, weight is in Newtons. Pounds can be mass or weight, depending on what system you use.
In Imperial, traditional use treats mass and weight as interchangeable, both measured in pounds. Scientific use must make a distinction, hence must choose whether a pound is mass or force. If you choose to treat a pound as mass, then the unit of force in your system is the poundal. If you choose to tread a pound as force, then your unit of mass is the slug. Both systems have been used, but I have little idea as to their current prevalence as I am both a scientist and living in a non-backwards country, so I only know these systems like I know farthings, shillings, crowns and guineas. (There is/has been yet a third option, using pounds-mass and pounds-force. This would require various formulae to have factors of 32 (feet/sec/sec) in them to make them work.)
More details at Wikipedia.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
This post demonstrates that any sufficiently advanced idiocy or ignorance is indistinguishable from trolling.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Pounds can be considered as either mass or weight.
The imperial unit of mass is the slug.
Kilogrammes are what the world uses to measure weight (and mass).
Pounds are what the US, Liberia and Myanmar use.
True! But since we're monkeys with ten fingers we invented a decimal counting system that we all learn as children. That pairs really well with a measuring system that is ALSO base 10.
If your counting system is base 10 and your measuring system is base... um, 32? Or is it 5238? 12? Anyway, anything other than base 10, it makes everything difficult.
There is nothing universally good about the number 10, we only think that because our monkey ancestors gave us 10 fingers. A more advanced alien species might have 12 tentacles and think our base10 system is retarded.
A base 10 number system *is* retarded compared to a base 12 system. Even the illiterate medieval craftsmen who came up with many of the half-assed pseudo-duodecimal measurements used in the imperial system could sense that. With Roman Numerals making arithmetic almost impossible anyway, why not?
However, given that we ended up standardizing on base 10 Arabic numerals, all of that became moot. Trying to mix half-assed base 12 with base 10 is FAR worse than just using base 10 for everything. It's willfully choosing to double down on retarded.
There's a joke about that.
"There are two kinds of countries: the kind who have sent men to the moon, and the kind who use the metric system."
The actual joke is that NASA, the company that landed the men on the moon, now mostly uses the metric system, and was partly using it back then.
In fact, the guidance computers of the Apollo missions were programmed in metric, but displayed/input in English.