re: SpaceX Just Launched Falcon Heavy

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Elon is a weird dude,

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Hey brah, Elon knew his friend in the sky, Harambe, would be looking over his space flight today. He'll be sipping some Bombay tonight in thanks.

NASA is going to end up contracting out to Space-X. The SLS will never even launch.

They’ll post the full video later. They always do.

And no, there’s no other ships out there. The whole purpose of this program is to cut costs to become more competitive. That’s why it’s a “drone ship”.

Space travel is legit
Earth is spherical
Oswald shot Kennedy
Chemtrails aren’t a thing
911 wasn’t an inside job

This is amazing. Elon Musk may be a weird dude, but the man is dedicated, doesn't care for the answer "you can't do that" and strives for innovation.

I feel like it wasn't that long ago that we had scientists and real normal people making USEFUL innovations and creations of inventions. I feel it has come to either a steep decline, or just not talked about anymore. Elon Musk is one of the few innovators who won't stop at any means to create the unthinkable.



He has created reusable rockets that are able to land on a dime at a certain location in 10 years. We fist landed on the moon about 50-60 years ago and we haven't done jack shite since then. LETS GO ELON

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Another boat/ship out there is not a big cost when we’re talking about rockets.

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It's probably not about cost. It's most likely about range safety. You don't want anyone on the surface to be in the footprint of where the pieces are going to come down if you have to abort and destroy the rocket in midflight. At the altitudes the rocket reaches in a sea landing, that footprint around the landing area is pretty damned big. Think about how far the Columbia debris field stretched, and you get an idea of how large it can be. This is precisely why the U.S. has altitude limits on smaller rockets and limits their launch to wide open spaces in the desert where they can't possibly land on someone's head unexpectedly. Pretty much anything over those limits (with the notable exception of siloed ICBMs in the middle of the country) launches into the Western Test Range and goes out over the Pacific or the Eastern Test Range and goes out over the Atlantic.

For sea based landings, SpaceX will use a seagoing tug to tow the barge out to the expected impact point of the rocket, turn the automatic station keeping systems of the barge on so it stays put, then sail the tug out of the possible debris impact area and wait until the rocket does its thing and then move in to either lock the rocket down and tow the barge back or pick up the pieces and tow the barge back.

For landings at the landing pads, the rocket is targeted at a spot many miles offshore for most of its return, so debris will land in the water if a rocket fails. Only in the very last moments does the engine gimbal to move the impact point onto the landing pad and bring the debris footprint (which is very small at that point and completely within the exclusion zone around the landing pad which should be empty of humans) onshore as the rocket is in the final stages of landing. The trajectory and the expected debris impact field is closely monitored during the launch and recovery and if the trajectory begins to move off course, the debris impact field moves accordingly and these both indicate a severe failure to maintain trajectory. There is a limited corridor the rocket is permitted to fly in during all stages of the launch and recovery; if it leaves this permitted corridor or if it's trajectory will take it out of the corridor, the range safety officer (or in SpaceX's case, automated systems on the rocket with the human serving as a failsafe backup) will destroy the rocket before it can become a danger to people on the ground. Automated systems on SpaceX's rockets will just end the flight on their own internally. Ground based commands are by encrypted radio communication triggered when the RSO pushes the big red button. The result is the same, whether the computers initiate the destruction or the ground does. Shaped explosives running up and down the length of the propellant tanks detonate and cut the walls of the tanks to vent the propellant, starving the engines and making sure they shut down and eliminate both thrust and attitude control. At that point, Isaac Newton is in control and the remains of the rocket follow a ballistic arc to impact. Aerodynamic loads will likely break the rocket stack up as it tumbles and turns sideways into the slipstream.

Every launch from the East Coast launches into the Air Force's Eastern Missile Test Range. The range has trajectory and position limits that require the destruction of the rocket stack if the limits are violated. The intent is to end the flight before things get out of hand enough to endanger anyone on the surface. One of the things SpaceX does to get permission to land at its landing pads (or launch, for that matter) at the Cape is to file its range safety plan with the proper agencies (Air Force, FAA, etc.). This plan outlines the expected launch and recovery trajectories, projected maximum debris impact fields for the entire launch and recovery, the landing plan if a recovery is planned, the impact point if a recovery isn't attempted, etc., and the set of limits that SpaceX will use during the flight to trigger destruction of a failed or malfunctioning rocket before it can get far enough off course to be a danger to people outside the Test Range. Everyone has to agree the range safety plan is good for SpaceX get a license to launch.

/novel

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This dude probably also questions if water really is wet!!!

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But water isn't...

Oh nevermind.

Obama tried to shut down SLS. Would have saved some money

Way to long and you didn’t answer the question as to why previous ship landings had video footage from a distance and not this one. And don’t just copy and paste for this answer.

I’m not saying it’s fake I just don’t see why they couldn’t get footage.

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Maybe they do have the footage but don't show it just to piss you off

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I agree

It detaches further out and is going much faster than the side. Just not enough fuel and globe to work with to get it back to land. They could if they launched from Texas.