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Comment by Andrew_nenakhov | Hacker News Reader

I've already seen conspiracy theorists online who claimed that loss of signal during every first stage landing is a proof that it's all a hoax.

Like, they switch footage to another droneship with a rocket that was always there.

I wonder if these people believe in flat Earth, too?

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That doesn't make much sense when there is uninterrupted footage of boosters landing on land, and the actual boosters themselves are also often filmed when they arrive on land later with the barge. But then, conspiracy theories are not required to make sense at all.

I don't think it's a hoax, but it's pretty annoying to have the video cut out at the crucial moment. How hard would it be to buffer the transmission by a few seconds? I don't need to see it exactly live, but I'd like to see it "almost live" which would be exceedingly simple to do.

I read that the loss of the connection is very likely hardware related but I wouldn't be surprised if SpaceX simply doesn't want to livestream something that may crash with a high probability. Nothing to do with the anti-science flat earth movement.

Yes, shakes the whole rig causing the satellite dishes to not transmit most of the times. Last time they missed we got a perfectly streamed cloud from the booster crashing in the ocean instead. Also such a low priority, spend engineering hours on the perfect feed which they either way collect in a couple of hours or more pressing matters.

That would make much sense as the one that failed, wouldn't of shaken the ship and not misaligned the transmitter, which will be directional and not large tolerance if satellite or even microwave based to another ship. So may well be that we will never see a live landing unless filmed from another ship due to the money shot causing the whole ship to shake and lose signal alignment.

Oh you can see how that will pan out, only get to see the failures live - but logical explanation for it all, so simple that even that won't stop the conspiracy rabbles. Still, just have to laugh as it's almost the perfect troll on conspiracy nuts the way it works.

Well, they likely could stream from another ship, bit affected by shaking. And I think it should not be a 'low' priority task, given how big this is for marketing and PR. Literally millions of people are watching these livestreams. I bet if they placed some Disney/HBO logo on a landing pad, it would more than earn back the additional expenses.

> I bet if they placed some Disney/HBO logo on a landing pad, it would more than earn back the additional expenses.

Huh, that reminds me; a friend and I had a half-serious plan as teenagers, to get Microsoft to invest in our venture to secure the (then) remaining Buran orbiter, build a rocket and a launchpad for it, in exchange for plastering the shuttle and the rocket top-to-bottom with Windows logos.

It would be amazing to have it live in perfect quality, completely agree.

I found this video in some other comment and I think it highlights how incredibly violent the landings actually are, even from very far away https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBlIvghQTlI

Antennas don't like vibrations. They have also live streamed cores that failed to land. So this take doesn't make sense

SpaceX has actually very openly admitted to all of their previous failures in this area: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ

Then they would not put out this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ with music even.

They don't seem to have a problem showcasing the landing failures, see their video "How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster", which made HN front page back in the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ

I've seen a few missions where the link didn't fail and viewers got to see it come down onto the droneship. It sure seems to be a crapshoot whether the link stays up for the landing, though.

Why fake this?

What am i giving to spacex and nasa by believing this? Its barely a drop in the budget.

I know you're not saying that, just baffles me.

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