SpaceX Launch Livestream: CRS-8 Dragon Hosted Webcast

What Space-X doesn't give you is a firm launch date. Spaceflight Now listed today's launch as "Delayed from Aug. 13, Sept. 2, Jan. 3, Feb. 7, March 20 and March 29. [March 16]" This is Space-X's biggest problem. They're about a year behind on their launch manifest. They don't even put dates on future launches any more. Customers don't like this; some have switched to Arianespace or ULA or Russia for their satellite launches.

Space-X is trying to catch up. Next launch date is April 28th, and there are two launches a month scheduled for the next few months. First Falcon Heavy launch is scheduled for November, but that may slip.

My favorite was when you'd get a false start, enough to get you off the launch rod and flop onto the ground right as the main motor took off. We called those land sharks.

This is widely believed, but not true. Here's a nice example of a small model rocket with active guidance.[1] It's launched at a 45 degree angle and then corrects to vertical. After beginning descent, it pops a parachute and lands safely. Built by a 13 year old girl.

For rockets above a certain size, you have to start talking to FAA air traffic control, and they're going to insist that you operate in some unpopulated area. But that's not about whether it has guidance technology.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTND_wot9zI

I'm expecting to see Teslas on Mars before I die.

Edit: Not unfair to assume that it was motivated by anti-competitive interests before any real concern about possible effects on their pad.

gimbal is very intuitive, you just write down three angles: pitch, roll, and yaw. to imagine the objects rotation when I give you the three angles, you just apply them one after the other.

however, there is an issue. When the object's rotation is large enough that say, roll becomes 90, suddenly pitch and yaw correspond to the same 'thing '. which means one axis of rotation can no longer be realized.

in practice this can be seen with physical gimbals (three concentric rings, one per axis) or in numerical gimbal representation, where values might end up being unworkable.

quaternions eliminate this problem by using four values instead of three (quater, quattro, quad bike - the prefix stands for 4) 3 values are the components of a 3d vector, and the 4th is how much rotation to apply around it.

The above post argue that this 4th value seems like an extra degree of freedom, it isnt. it simply is a matter of representation if coded correctly.

The chanting seems a bit over the top, especially for a private company mission to serve the International Space Station.

/s

In a indirect way it did, (standing on the shoulders of giants, heritage of the people working there, etc,) however, unlike the other companies you mentioned, SpaceX only hires American citizens (because of government contracts and ITAR.) So it's basically an all-American effort.

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[1] I probably wouldn't think much of a USA chant during a Facebook or Google product launch. While these companies do plenty of wonderful things, I view space travel as several tiers of importance higher.

Patriotism can have a hugely different emotional response depending on where you live. It can connote “home!” or “remember, we have weaponized drones hovering above your head”.

Imagine this video feed was from Iran, and ended in a patriotic arabic chant. Would you think, “it is good to see that they are Iranian and proud”?

It is not about being offended. It is about political undertone and tacit military implications.

(That said, I am proud, as a fellow human, of what was accomplished. Also, I live in a country pretty solidly allied with the US.)

Yes, it does. The country has a lot to do with it. Particularly our values, culture, etc. that enabled this to be possible here and nowhere else.

This is a peacetime effort that is likely to improve all of mankind. If you want to criticize the celebratory reaction to killing someone then I will probably agree with you. This is something else. Pride in one's nation and it's achievements is not inherently shameful.

Do you believe that nationalistic displays are never appropriate? Why is it ok to celebrate your nation during World Cup but not after a significant technological achievement in peacetime?

My first thought is, then what if people around the world started to care about spaceflight to the same degree they pay attention to the World Cup? But considering the broad geopolitical implications tied up in spaceflight and ballistic missile technology, this does become weird and problematic in just a few steps, doesn't it? Hopefully, from here on out, all of the jingoism will just be noise, and all of the major wars will be, at worst, cold.

Osama Bin Laden doesn't deserve any civil person's remorse. He helped orchestrate the murder of 3000 civilians. Give no pause to people who have absolutely no respect for the civilized world and cannot be reasoned with. The world will not have peace as long as religious extremists exist. Osama Bin Laden's existence would have only brought more senseless violence.

Fly a German flag from a pole in your front yard. Really! People here in the USA do it sometimes. (or go European, or both if you want to treat Germany like Americans treat states)

Find something good in the news and celebrate it. I checked the news today. OK, maybe today isn't a great day for Germany, because the best I found was this: http://www.thelocal.de/20160309/firemen-free-mens-penis-from... Uh, well, it's something. Celebrate it. Germany! Germany! Germany!

Be sure to also check the French and Russian news in case a bit of Schadenfreude is called for. When you find something suitable, wave your flag and say: Germany! Germany! Germany!

I'm pretty unpatriotic, but I still recognize that people can be patriotic and aim for the advancement of all humanity.

I can certainly understand how those from other countries, particularly Europe, might view the USA chants as over the top nationalism, but I think it's a stretch to assume that those taking part in it somehow view today’s accomplishments as solely the purview of Americans.

I was born in Eastern Europe and while I immigrated to the US at an early age, I have at times felt uncomfortable by the more visible aspects of American patriotism. Since it was brought up in a post above, I found the widespread celebrations of UBL’s death to be distasteful and jingoistic, and this is coming from someone who has deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq multiple times. I too feel that it can, in certain contexts, come off as overly nationalistic. Context is, as usual, important though, and in this context I view the SpaceX USA chants as pretty harmless.

I also find the insinuation that the employees taking part in these chants are guilty of nationalistic fervor to be insulting. There are many employees here, myself included, who didn’t have the good grace to be born in the US but have nonetheless adopted America as our homes and are now allowed to work on some of the coolest space launch vehicles in existence. The fact that some might express themselves in this manner doesn’t bother me, even if it isn’t something I would do myself. I for one don’t partake in the USA chants, although this arguably has as much to do with my relatively low key personality as it does with a conscious choice to refrain from outward shows of patriotism. I’m the kind of person that would politely clap at a touchdown or slam dunk rather than yell and cheer. One of my supervisors however, a Canadian citizen and US permanent resident, has a much more boisterous personality than I do and always joins in these chants. I know one or two Brits here who do as well.

It’s also important to understand the atmosphere during these launches. SpaceX isn’t exactly the easiest place to work, I just finished a 58 hour work week ending in a 12 hour shift before launch, I was not alone in this regard. People are tired, stressed, and somewhat on edge. While the live feed featuring the employees may look staged or choreographed, I can assure you that their reactions aren’t. The moments after a successful launch are an incredible relief and you can feel the energy in the building. The excitement is infectious and if that boils over into chants of U-S-A then so be it.

I’m also not sure what could be done to prevent this from happening. Again, those from other countries might view these chants as strange, but they really are very innocuous here in the US. I don’t see it as overly nationalistic, but again, context is key. Even as someone who doesn’t actively take part in them, if we got word from above that these chants were no longer allowed or discouraged, I would be extraordinarily pissed. Employees are already sacrificing a lot for this mission, they don’t need their spontaneous celebrations micromanaged.

SpaceX is an American company, located within the borders of the US, staffed largely by US citizens or permanent residents, funded largely(exclusively?) by US taxpayers, investors and companies, relying primarily on a US educated workforce, and 60 years of American led R&D in space technology. If all of that culminates in a successful launch and first stage recovery on a freakin’ ship in the middle of the ocean, I for one, can certainly excuse the USA chants.

I hope that my post doesn't come across as overly defensive or sensitive, it has been a long week and I certainly may be guilty of being overly emotional, but it’s always somewhat disheartening to see a thread relating to a successful SpaceX mission turn into an admonishment of perceived American nationalism.

They both have their "plans" on what to do, and the rocket basically is doing everything from what it can "see". There is no back-and-forth communication happening at all.

That same container can move from my desktop to any environment.

The next step would be some way to secure the booster, post landing, in a structurally supportive way, on the barge. I can't wait to see how they pull that off.

It was in the post I was replying to.

> It's a species-ending impact or some other localized global catastrophe that would cause the loss of 100,000 years of culture, art, and history.

Do you plan on building museums on mars or something? Whatever you plan on doing on mars in order to preserve "culture, art and history", you can do it for much, much less money on Earth.

> Everything we've worked for during the entire history of the human existence can be erased in an instant.

That's a gross exaggeration.

Also does the US government give SpaceX access to the military GPS signals?