Originally Posted by DaFace (Post 13252836)

Lots of things happening lately - I just haven't been keeping up. A few notable things:

-Zuma appears to be indefinitely on hold until they figure out their fairing issue (whatever it is).
-CRS-13 is on the clock for a week from now. This will be the first launch back at the repaired SLC-40 site that was damaged last year. Also, this will be the first time an ISS mission is launched on a previously-flown booster.
-Iridium-4 is coming up in about 3 weeks off the west coast.
-Falcon Heavy is pushed back to early January (but not a set date yet)

And on that note...

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Falcon Heavy to launch next month from Apollo 11 pad at the Cape. Will have double thrust of next largest rocket. Guaranteed to be exciting, one way or another.</p>&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/936781265675599873?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 2, 2017</a></blockquote>
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And I think he's serious... ROFL

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Payload will be my midnight cherry Tesla Roadster playing Space Oddity. Destination is Mars orbit. Will be in deep space for a billion years or so if it doesn’t blow up on ascent.</p>&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/936782477502246912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 2, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Originally Posted by DaFace (Post 13277356)

Almost looks like they didn't even clean this one off. Wonder if they're trying to make it 100% clear that this is a reused booster since there will be more press than usual. :)

https://i.imgur.com/6eSOymH.jpg

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Sooty is looking good on the pad! Set for launch tomorrow at 11:46:57 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CRS13?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CRS13</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/spacex?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#spacex</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/falcon9?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#falcon9</a> <a href="https://t.co/ukUTWHjYFY">pic.twitter.com/ukUTWHjYFY</a></p>&mdash; Craig Vander Galien (@Craig_VG) <a href="https://twitter.com/Craig_VG/status/940312789113065473?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 11, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Originally Posted by GloryDayz (Post 13277741)

Have you seen the price of paint?!?! Heck I'm buying automotive paint to paint my son's hockey goalie mask, and it's like $90, so this space-grade stuff might sink the program!

Originally Posted by Molitoth (Post 13280670)

I've been hiding under a rock apparently.

Last night I accidentally came across a documentary of Elon Musk on Bloomberg and the story of this guy kinda blew my mind. I had heard his name frequently but never had done any research into who he was.

This dude rules, and now I'm closely watching SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity.
GoGo Gadget Sustainable Technology.

Originally Posted by DaFace (Post 13281131)

Yeah, he's about as close to Tony Stark as we'll likely have in our lifetimes. My main hope is that he's done enough to inspire other bright minds out there that the innovation will continue after he's gone.

Originally Posted by Molitoth (Post 13281296)

I cannot believe all of the negativity and anti-belief in Musk even after what he has done. I understand that his timeline goals are VERY aggressive... but my goodness, some of these people online want to hate him and every idea he has so much.

I hope he can continue to prove everyone wrong.

Originally Posted by DaFace (Post 13281409)

To some extent, he's won regardless. NASA now is aiming for Mars. All of the big auto manufacturers are making EV's. And solar power is cheaper than ever.

I don't think he'd care in the least if SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity are all out of business in 50 years because someone else beat him to setting up a base on Mars, another car company built electric cars that are way better than Tesla, and all of our houses are solar powered by some other company that did it better than Solar City.

He's not in it to make money. If he changes the world by getting other companies to start innovating to keep up with him, that's just as good as him succeeding with his own companies.

Originally Posted by DaFace (Post 13281409)

To some extent, he's won regardless. NASA now is aiming for Mars. All of the big auto manufacturers are making EV's. And solar power is cheaper than ever.

I don't think he'd care in the least if SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity are all out of business in 50 years because someone else beat him to setting up a base on Mars, another car company built electric cars that are way better than Tesla, and all of our houses are solar powered by some other company that did it better than Solar City.

He's not in it to make money. If he changes the world by getting other companies to start innovating to keep up with him, that's just as good as him succeeding with his own companies.

Originally Posted by Molitoth (Post 13280670)

I've been hiding under a rock apparently.

Last night I accidentally came across a documentary of Elon Musk on Bloomberg and the story of this guy kinda blew my mind. I had heard his name frequently but never had done any research into who he was.

This dude rules, and now I'm closely watching SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity.
GoGo Gadget Sustainable Technology.

Originally Posted by Donger (Post 13282621)

Delayed until December 15?

Originally Posted by RINGLEADER (Post 13282435)

I saw that documentary and it is epic.

Most people don’t realize he made his money early but then lost almost everything. We he talks about waking up crying because he had basically made some stupid mistakes with his money you realize how close the world came to never seeing any of his vision realized.

Highly recommend finding and watching.

Originally Posted by Donger (Post 13284975)

Great shot of her ass there

Originally Posted by DaFace (Post 13284984)

Just saw a nose cone fly off the 2nd stage. Didn't realize it did that.

Originally Posted by Donger (Post 13284992)

You mean the fairing?

Originally Posted by Molitoth (Post 13285015)

So what happens to the second stage of Dragon? Does it re-enter the atmosphere and burn up, or does it float around forever?

I just lost my feed.

Originally Posted by DaFace (Post 13285018)

Here's the nose cone I was talking about.

https://i.imgur.com/aV8zcbJ.jpg

Originally Posted by unlurking (Post 13285109)

For those of us that missed it this morning...

Originally Posted by bigjosh (Post 13286601)

over 6000kmh Jeez. I am slightly ignorant to what spacex is trying to accomplish. I shall look into it deeper. But I love what Elon has been able to do with tesla and solar.

Originally Posted by DaFace (Post 13286602)

SpaceX's mission statement pretty well sums it up:

"SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not. Today, SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of enabling human life on Mars."

Originally Posted by Molitoth (Post 13286789)

NASAs footage of yesterday. Some cooler shots of the landing.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UDQ3Y9iPARY?ecver=1" frameborder="0" gesture="media" allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Originally Posted by DaFace (Post 13298131)

It's alive!!!

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Falcon Heavy at the Cape <a href="https://t.co/hizfDVsU7X">pic.twitter.com/hizfDVsU7X</a></p>&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/943420026593337344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Originally Posted by Donger (Post 13298421)

The two "boosters" are previously-flown? Wow.

Originally Posted by DaFace (Post 13298444)

Yep. They wanted to do all three, but apparently they had to do more modification on the central core than they'd expected, so it wasn't easy to "convert" it.

Originally Posted by DaFace (Post 13300518)

Iridium is up tomorrow evening. This will be a previously-flown booster, but sadly they appear to be ready to start moving out some of their old cores in storage, so they aren't landing this one.

This is by choice - they could easily do it within the mission parameters - but the scuttlebutt has it that they're wanting to get rid of most of their "block 3" cores to make room for the block 5 cores which will, theoretically, be able to fly 10+ times.

Still sad to see a perfectly good booster destroyed. :(

Originally Posted by DaFace (Post 13301314)

Oh yeah. It's happening.

https://i.imgur.com/A4YSU6R.png

And user-submitted illustration.

https://i.imgur.com/TC1RKZB.png

Originally Posted by eDave (Post 13301424)

Wait, your launch description in the OP says they are landing on the droneship. Did they recently decide against that?

He needs a booster graveyard. But I suppose it's cheaper to just let it fall into the sea.

Originally Posted by DaFace (Post 13301570)

Yeah, everyone thought they'd land it as usual, but apparently not. Interestingly, it still has grid fins but no legs.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DRng3I0UMAAsm__.jpg

Aside from storage, I'm sure there are quite a few costs to recovery like the drone ship and crew, extra fuel, the legs, etc. that they just decided to save rather than recover another one that won't ever be used again.

Originally Posted by DaFace (Post 13300518)

Iridium is up tomorrow evening. This will be a previously-flown booster, but sadly they appear to be ready to start moving out some of their old cores in storage, so they aren't landing this one.

This is by choice - they could easily do it within the mission parameters - but the scuttlebutt has it that they're wanting to get rid of most of their "block 3" cores to make room for the block 5 cores which will, theoretically, be able to fly 10+ times.

Still sad to see a perfectly good booster destroyed. :(

Originally Posted by DaFace (Post 13302041)

I also neglected to post this from earlier in the week:

<blockquote class="imgur-embed-pub" lang="en" data-id="a/MQcEE"><a href="//imgur.com/MQcEE">Space X mystery craft</a></blockquote><script async src="//s.imgur.com/min/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Apparently they're trying some sort of crazy contraption (maybe a net?) to catch the fairing after today's launch. Who knows if we'll hear anything about it, but it's fun to see how out of the box they can go.

Originally Posted by unlurking (Post 13302694)

lol

Pretty much. I don't expect we'll get any coverage of Mr. Steve, but that would be very cool to see. If the theory of catching a parachuting fairing with a big net is correct that is.

EDIT: Although I always did like watching the IRDM satellite deployments. Wish they would mount more cameras so we could see all of them detach though, instead of just the one side.