awesome

Yeah, that's the impressive part to me as well. I guess when you have computers that are three decades more advanced than those in the other technology being used, they're capable of some pretty crazy shit.

Of course, now they have to figure out a way to slow it down from falling at incredible speeds and THEN stabilize to land, but their track record gives them a lot of benefit of the doubt that they'll pull it off.

This is amazing stuff. really looking forward to them getting things off the ground.

Yeah, as I alluded to in the OP, I knew they were making good progress and had already completed a few cargo missions to ISS, but I had no idea they were so close to manned missions.

You have to think their eyes lit up when Russia started making threats about not allowing U.S. astronauts to hitch a ride in the future. If they can figure it out, that company is going to make an enormous amount of money.

I can't wait until they light off the Falcon Heavy. That's going to be fun to watch (and listen).

Well, you can't win 'em all...

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/se1KcS8RtUY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

General story is that this was a test flight, and some sort of anomaly was detected that would potentially carry the rocket outside their (very small) safe zone, so the rocket essentially self-destructed by design.

Obviously a major malfunction.

ROFL

Challenger humor. That is dark.

NASA says it's on in 2017.

http://www.iflscience.com/space/huma...-united-states

NASA has just announced that Boeing and SpaceX have been selected to lead the Commercial Crew Program, founded in 2010. Boeing’s CST-100 and SpaceX’s Dragon V2 will be used to launch humans into Low Earth Orbit and to the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral beginning in 2017. This will be the first human spaceflight launch on American soil since the space shuttle program retired in 2011.

(more at the link)

i think we are going to see a resurgence of space travel and exploration in the 2nd half of this decade. My son is in school to be an astrophysicist. The field expects to grow in the next 10 years and explode in 20 years. It's the ground floor now.

They are expecting private businesses to sprout up. Not to just build the vehicles, but find minerals that they can profit from back on earth. Find water for the long voages.

Just a heads-up for anyone who cares that SpaceX will be trying to land the rocket on a barge vertically after the launch to ISS this Friday at 12:20pm Central. They only give it a 50% chance of success, but it should be interesting to watch.

Info here:
http://www.spacex.com/news/2014/12/1...atform-landing

I THINK they'll have the live stream here (and probably a variety of other places):
http://www.spacex.com/webcast/

Launch in 20 minutes if anyone cares.

http://www.spacex.com/webcast/

Noice, will watch :thumb:

Beats the hell outta Kevin James in "The Zookeeper".

Launch canceled.