That is wisdom right there.

Missed this somehow. First re-use of one of their flight-proven Falcon 9's:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ses-10...072200113.html

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...nap-story.html

A bit unrelated to the main theme but related to rocketry, here's a bit of trivia:

Here is a picture of one of the nuts that held the strap-on booster attached the core of the Shuttle launch vehiecle.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jetforme/5028220753
The Shuttle had big ones for sure. And to think every gram counts when calculating the launch.

I'm not sure if you're reading the description right. It says it's one of the frangible nuts for a hold-down bolt. Not for how the booster was attached to the rest of the launch system.

Could quite possibly be my bad for reading wrong a post where the image was linked up.

Your pyrotechnic nuts, that it. Goodness gracious!

When my father retired from NASA, some of the folks he worked with at KSC gave him a plaque with half of one of those nuts mounted on it. It's quite impressive to hold even half of one.

Elon Musk's presentation for his plans to colonize Mars. I was skeptical that landing the Falcon 9's first stage booster back on Earth would be doable, especially on a barge so was very impressed when SpaceX pulled it off enough times to show it can be done. However, I must admit to finding a whole lot of what I saw in his presentation to be more of a sales pitch that needs so much to happen on a scale never seen before that I guess I'm skeptical again. For one thing, having 42 engines in the booster stage has me thinking about how well the Russian N1 worked out and it only had 30 engines in the first stage. There are many other issues but that one point really stands out for me. How many of those 42 engines are going to be mission ready for the next launch after having the fuel module loaded? Anyway, here's the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFA6DLT1jBA

It will be interesting to see how the next few years go and hopefully, my skepticism is doused again.

Here we go:

http://www.spacex.com/news/2016/09/01/anomaly-updates

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBcoTqhAM_g

^ Thank you for the link.

As I thought there was absolutely no conspiracy over this explosion it had a natural causes due to some technical failure and temperature.

Markus

SpaceX finally did it
 

https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/artic...eslandung.html

:up::)

Has been quite a walk from the first tumbling and exploding starts all those decades ago, to a successful vertical(!!) landing on a tiny spot in the sea :yeah:

Well, to be fair it's their first landing in the Pacific, they've landed on the barge in the Atlantic a few times already. Was a damn good landing though, right on the center circle. It's good to see them back in top form after the Cape explosion.
The next big milestone to come up is next month when SES-10 is launched using a first stage booster that has already been up once. Then there's the un-crewed Dragon 2 test flight to the ISS due in the latter half of this year, and then hopefully a crewed one in 2018. In fact, 2018 should see the end of the Russian monopoly on crewed space launches, because NASA also has a crew capsule on the way, the CST-100 Starliner, providing they don't have to bin it due to budget cuts.
After that...well...as Buzz Aldrin would put it:

http://media2.whosaystatic.com/88634...40_762x762.jpg

I've never felt so enthused since man walked on the moon.

Exciting times ahead.

Until you've seen it come down and land from your back yard like I have, you'll never know how impressive it really is..

While it would always be exciting to see that, the amount of excitement would be indirectly proportional to amount your backyard was supposed to be the LZ.

Dazzling SpaceX Launch Brings Out The UFO Buffs...
 

Last night (12/22), SpaceX launched a rocket carrying ten communications satellites from Vandenberg AFB in California. The launch was notable not only for the fact it was done using a previously flown and recovered rocket, it also provided one of the most spectacular light shows ever. In spite of the fact local media in SoCal had reported the imminent launch earlier in the day (in fact, SpaceX had released the launch info a week earlier), the sight caught a very large number of observers unawares, with a surprising number of people actually thinking it was a UFO. I knew about the launch and deliberately made sure I would be able to watch the rocket as it flew over LA. Here are a few videos of the sight:


News Report:

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2017/...enberg-spacex/


Video shot by onlooker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BXLd48QYs4


The launch could even be seen as far away as Arizona:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3_4...4&pbjreload=10


The phone lines for fire and police were clogged by calls from people reporting the spectacle. A local reporter, who was driving in to the studio at the time, reported drivers stopped cold on the road or pulled off to the side of the road; she said one truck driver was staring at the object and rear-ended a car in the lane next to her. When I saw the launch, I was standing in front of a high-end private gym and workout studio and patrons and workers came outside when they saw the beginnings of the contrail through the gym windows. It was kind of funny listening to the speculations of what the objects and lights were; I finally told them about the rocket launch and they seemed disappointed it was something rather mundane...








<O>

Great pictures. Why can't British Telecom organise something like that for us?

Most impressive :cool:

Too busy over charging its customers. :rolleyes: