SpaceX test firing the Falcon 9 | Hacker News Reader

SpaceX test firing the Falcon 9

spacex.com

Also just to manage some expectations.. the rocket will not fly.

This is just a firing of the engines I believe.

They REALLY need to say that on the page. This has the opportunity to spread virally and the crowd doesn't manage expectations very well :)

Yeah, I just managed to embarrass myself in half a dozen IRC channels. More so than usual.

Which part about "STATIC FIRE TODAY" did you miss?

For an enthusiast, it may not be clear exactly what "Static Fire" means. While Static means non-moving, it also means the hissing noise on mis-tuned analog connections, and it's not inconceivable that it has another overloaded meaning.

> For an enthusiast

I think you're misusing that word. A space flight and/or specifically SpaceX enthusiast would recognize the terminology instantly.

Assuming you mean something like "amateur" or "layman", thinking anything without the word "launch" in it is in fact a launch still seems a remarkable leap of illogic.

In my dialect, enthusiast == amateur and parent used it appropriately.

I'm afraid your dialect is rather singular.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/enthusiast

http://thesaurus.com/browse/amateur

I'm not sure you checked the definition of amateur in that dictionary.

My guess would be, the "static" part.

Even worse, it was just a 2 second test.

It was still a bit unclear: What the static firing intended to be just 2 seconds, or was it cut short?

It was intended to be two seconds [1]

[1] http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=20120427

Linking to the press release : http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=20120427

Would have prevented some confusion. The good news is that the test appears to have gone as planned so they are still on track for the May 7th launch.

The mission to the ISS is scheduled for May 7th [1]. Exciting times!

[1] http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/30/11472882-wat...

Yes this was just a little tease before that grand event. I hope all goes smoothly.

Countdown was halted at 47 seconds... Team reviewing data... Now clock reset to 13 minutes. Test fire possibly aborted?

From their twitter: "May recycle and try again today, watch for update."

http://twitter.com/#!/spacex

Just in: Flight computer aborted rocket hold down firing. Anomaly addressed. Cycling systems to countdown

Might not be long now?

there are entrepreneurs. and then there is Elon Musk.

Just my luck to switch to this and see the top comment:

  elonmusk Woohoo, rocket hold down firing completed and all looks good!!
  41 seconds ago · reply · retweet · favorite

bugger, I always seem to just miss the boat. Oh well, I guess it wasn't too spectacular from the comments here.

It fired for two seconds. There really wasn't going to be much to it anyway, unless something went tragically wrong.

Still nice to see them proceeding through all the hoops, though.

Countdown has resumed (~12 minutes)

Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJKs0dEbyEk

Countdown sequence resumed! now at 13:50

Looks like they got over some of the difficulties

"Final Readines Poll in progress"

Countdown sequence resumed at T-13

I just tuned in, and it looks like the clock is still holding at T-13.

It's moving again... T-12

Was the test successful? Rather underwhelming visually.

"SUCCESS - 2 second burn!"

http://twitter.com/#!/SpaceX/status/197056890595852289

Looks like it. This is extremely exiting stuff in general but I agree with you on this stream in particular.

Hehe yeah not quite as thunderous as a Saturn :P But consider this like the rocket version of a Prius :)

And with Saturn V once you turned it on, you were going to burn through all the fuel whether that was a good idea or not :-)

I can't imagine how the astronauts felt sitting on top of that behemoth. I don't think I'm exaggerating at all by saying that I would've shit my space-diapers long before the countdown reached zero.

I saw a fascinating talk last week from the guy who heads up the NASA vibration lab. According to him there is so much vibration of your head during launch that its damn difficult to read the gauges much make intelligent choices about what to do next. This was a real concern for the Constellation program which had a lot of vibration issues.

According to their twitter, yes. "SUCCESS - 2 second burn!"

http://twitter.com/#!/spacex

Yeah, all the water and steam obscures the view... They did say "good static fire" before ending, though.

The antici ...

pation.

Looks like its back on, countdown is at just under 12 minutes.

T-00:03:30..

That was it?

Yeah I kinda felt that too, but then I thought "that's a spaceship!"

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