Impressive, incredible, I don’t have the words. One amazing thing is that they have a ground based camera that can visually track the rocket from launch to recovery.

SpaceX Falcon Heavy Static Fire today.

Launch "within a week or two"?

I'm sure they have to look over the data, see if there were any issues, maybe test again? Time will tell.

WOW!!!!!

American PRIVATE ENTERPRISE at work. Do it faster, cheaper and better than the Government can!

SpaceX has been busy this week! Dragon launching from Cape Canaveral taking 4 astronauts to the ISS and a Starlink launch from Vandenberg yesterday (Wednesday), and an Intelsat G-33/G-34 launch from Cape Canaveral today.

quote:

Originally posted by djpaintles:
WOW!!!!!

American PRIVATE ENTERPRISE at work. Do it faster, cheaper and better than the Government can!

I have been saying for years that NASA needs to get out of the space launch business and let private enterprise do the actual design work and operations. NASA needs to step back and act like the NTSB and like the old NACA (National Advisory Council on Aeronautics - they would do research and design stuff and make their findings available to industry).

Government is too big, ponderous, and bloated to really do any long-term space stuff. Look at Project Apollo - that was an AMAZING project, and some would claim it validated the NASA/govt model. However, even after Apollo 11, people were IMMEDIATELY advocating to drop the program, as "we already beat the Russians to the moon, so why spend the money to go back?" Apollo was axed, they literally destroyed the capability to build more Saturn Vs, and we haven't been back for 50 years.

I envision this particular era like the 1920s in aviation - the 'Golden Age of aviation.' People would build racing planes in their garage and win national- and international-level events. The govt provided infrastructure, helped establish navigation aids, and did other stuff to help enable private enterprise to go out and do stuff. The govt didn't create the airlines.

The only way, IIRC, for humans to really make a meaningful and long-term presence in space is for industry to take over and make money off it. Once Lockheed, SpaceX, etc start traveling to the moon for Helium 3, asteroids for other minerals, we will finally see 'routine' access to space. Of course, we can't expect some rednecks to build a spacecraft in their garage, but the concept is the same. Get the govt OUT of building/flying spacecraft.

And, by 'routine,' I mean get to the point where we can have an accident that kills an entire crew without having a 2-year long flight ban. Whenever a commercial airliner crashes, they don't ground Southwest Airlines for 2 years. They keep flying, find out what went wrong, and fix the problems (not necesarily in that order). I am a HUGE space advocate, but it annoyed me to no ends that they moaned and lamented over the "Challenger Disaster" and the "Columbia Disaster." Sure, we lost 7 crew each time, but that is the price to pay for space travel. Until we can get to Star Trek level technology, it will be risky to fly into space and back.

I don't consider either of those accidents to be 'disasters.' I consider the real disaster that we suspended our entire manned flight program each time for 2 years. I consider it a disaster that the public seems to demand a 100% safety record for one of the most dangerous occupations in the world. It is a disaster that we, as a nation, cannot accept a single death in spaceflight as 'acceptable.'

I am not callous - I just want us to really become a spacefaring people. You cannot do that every time you hold a national day of mourning for every dead astronaut. When an Air Force or Navy pilot dies in flight training, a routine flight, or combat, we mourn our dead and continue on. This is where we need to get to with space flight.

*takes deep breath*
*steps off soap box*

quote:

Originally posted by Hound Dog:
where we need to get to with space flight

Agree with your post.

IMO where we need to get to is where there is some objective for each launch in and of itself. Meaning that 'to prove technology X' or to 'increase our knowledge of Y' or 'grabbing rocks from Z' is nice, but it does not pay the bills. It sucks cash and resources in. If there were profit as an end-game to X, Y or Z, that kind of expenditure would be called an 'investment' but really it's just spending.

What we need is for there to be self-financing, profitable results for the launches. Putting satellites in orbit, for example is a profitable use of space flight, but how many of those do we need (and have room for)? Once there is a profit opportunity, then the idea of getting NASA to be more of an administrative agency than a launching entity would make sense, as private industry then would step in and take over gladly.

Two of my former students and both military helicopter mechanics worked at Space X and both worked on the manned launch to the ISS.

NASA should probably be closed down.

I did around a dozen jobs for them in the past, and it was hard to keep from laughing.

The first one was a situation room for them. I was hired to program it.

I went in for the howdy do meeting, looked at the schematic and told them it wouldn't work and the reasons were numerous. It needed a redesign.

So they hired me to do a redesign, then program the system. While I was doing that, the NASA lead electronic technician told me a NASA Engineer had spent the better part of a year designing the room and still couldn't get it right. The design shouldn't have taken more than a week if the guy had to look everything up and a day for someone like me who was familiar with all the gear and ins and outs.

That's government ineptitude for you.

No way would 3 astronauts have burned on the pad during an exercise were a private company in charge... one that understands a simple amount of chemistry.

I also posit that the Challenger incident would not have occurred either except for the political hacks in the management ranks within NASA, who had no business making decisions that could impact the safety of those lost.

The hype that NASA pulls and the lamestream media lapdogs spreading the message is disgusting. For anyone with half a brain, we understand that such "news" is an attempt to justify additional bloated budgets. I recall the Antarctic (or was it Greenland?) spacerock, which NASA claimed as coming from Mars and the potential microscopic fossil evidence of life. I've got news for you - given a decent magnification microscope with the ability to rotate light and I'll eventually show you photo evidence of Nixon's face on select grains of sand.

Just love where technology was taken us ...... so cool to watch it.

Two things: I got to see a launch last summer ('21) and I plan to make a trip to see a Falcon Heavy. The heavys land back at the pad (all three of the them) and not out on a barge.

Second, NASA really sucks at the broadcast of the events. Just watch the NASA version of the launch from this past Wednesday and then the SpaceX version. SpaceX is just hands down better at broadcasting the launch, giving us relevant and timely information etc. NASA not so much. That is my opinion anyway.

I'll say. But even a tiny hair or eyelash can still get in the way. I hope to live long enough to witness a few more iterations.

Skip ahead to 3:59:30 for the launch. They are getting much better with the uplink for the landing.

Jay Leno had a great interview with Elon recently:

on Friday, SpaceX launched two missions on the same day - one from Vandenberg and one from Canaveral

They launched two missions on Wednesday, too...

The little lights aren't blinking...

I really hate to say it but Elon Musk is eating NASA's lunch at this point, he's building stuff for FAR less money that is reusable compared to what NASA is doing with the SLS which is a bunch of old technology cobbled together in a rocket that won't stop leaking fuel. I really doubt that Artemis is going to even get their test launch in this year, the window is rapidly closing:

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the SLS was never intended to work

even with 40-year old flight proven hardware, NASA has shown that it cannot integrate tried and true technology into a functioning platform

SLS succeeded in keeping people employed in certain congressional districts and if that was its real goal, then it was a success

as for building a viable launch platform, not so much

SpaceX is what NASA wants to be when it grows up.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
I really hate to say it but Elon Musk is eating NASA's lunch at this point, he's building stuff for FAR less money that is reusable compared to what NASA is doing with the SLS which is a bunch of old technology cobbled together in a rocket that won't stop leaking fuel. I really doubt that Artemis is going to even get their test launch in this year, the window is rapidly closing

Why do you 'really hate to say it'? American ingenuity/private business/capitalism are VERY good things and trump ANYTHING sponsored, funded and/or run by the government EVERY SINGLE TIME!