Administrative, Business, Space

Congrats, SpaceX

36 Comments

I got up to watch the launch last night, and stayed up until panels deployed, then went back to bed for another four hours of sleep. Heading off to the airport now, for a long flight to DC (two and a half hour layover at DFW). Hope to see some of you at one or the other or both conferences.

36 thoughts on “Congrats, SpaceX”

  2. Nice news to wake up to, but lots of work still to be done and it’s still a test flight. Wishing them every success, but worried that the usual media hype will end up extremely negative should anything not work as planned.

    1. Eric,

      Yes, Congratulations on the great launch, but I still have my fingers crossed the rest of the mission is as successful.

  5. Getting into orbit, panels deployed, is already a significant achievement. Every step they successfully take from now on will make it just that much better. Those steps aren’t easy, though. I was on the edge of me seat for the whole ascent, especially the minute after they passed the European gate. I expect there will be more moments like that over the next week.

  6. Hmmm…might have to head downtown…

    Very excited, though tempered by the amount of work still to do. Based on initial elsets, their orbit would take them within 55km of ISS with no maneuvers.

  7. Awesome, watched it at the office. Took an hour off, discovered Flash hadn’t been installed, frantically tried to install it but somehow couldn’t download. At T-10 min I tried if perhaps it did work under IE, and fortunately it did. Great moments when there was a roar from mission control and when the solar panels deployed just before the video link went down.

    1. Also, very pleased. Congrats to SpaceX!!!

      BTW, George, did you see my comment here? There’s actually no room to wedge in a contribution from humans. The whole edifice is built on quicksand.

    1. Hey, Larry, hope you have a good time at my “home” (I work over at Lake Yellowstone Hotel). It’s too late for a warning now, but I hope you budgeted enough time for a great visit. That’s a common trap that people fall into when visiting Yellowstone. The typical ten hour drive through just isn’t going to see that much.

      1. I spent a week out there and in the Grand Tetons back in the early 90s. Glorious.

      2. I just got home. We arrived at the east entrance on Monday afternoon. It was beautiful and warm. Since we were staying in West Yellowstone, MT, we had to cross the park. That took perhaps 2 hours. The next day was considerably cooler (mid 50s) and it rained a lot but we still spent over 9 hours in the park. Wet, cold but a fantastic day. Wednesday was about 10 degrees cooler with a lot of sleet and snow flurries. Another 9 hours in the park. We woke Thursday morning to an inch of snow. Some of the park was closed so we had to spend two hours driving the inner loop to make it to the south entrance. The park was gorgeous with the snow and we saw a lot of wildlife. Our plan was to spend some time in the Grand Tetons but the visibility was poor. It was noon by the time we arrived at the Grand Tetons. We ate a picnic lunch and kept driving, spending the night in Rawlins, Wyoming. We woke this morning to high winds and reduced visibility in places but made it home by noon. Tiring trip but worth it. Yellowstone’s terrain in places reminded me of some science fiction alien worlds (and no doubt it was an inspiration for some of them).

  11. As with Elon Musk, I too felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders (though admittedly a much lighter weight than Elon’s). And the intense excitement exhibited by the SpaceX webcast hosts and the employee/guest gallery nearby, was joyful and inspiring to behold.

    1. I was under the impression that the cremains were tucked away in the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, and NOT in the Dragon spacecraft. The article you linked to seems to intimate that. Here’s another article about it:

      Scotty to be Blasted into Orbit

      1. Yeah Shotwell said at the NASA post launch conference that the Ceres payload was in the second stage not in Dragon.

          1. Naw, it’s all good. Scotty didn’t spend much time on the bridge; he was down in Engineering, getting POWER out of those ENGINES! So he’s exactly where he should be. 🙂

  13. It was really great! It was their second Dragon launch but this one has all the systems required for doing cargo flights to ISS. I am less than happy with the way berthing is done using the robotic arm (seems error prone to me) but the Japanese do the same thing. Seems like the US docking port made for Shuttle isn’t as accommodating for automation as the Russian docking system?

    Hopefully the rest of the test flight will happen uneventfully and we will see the astronauts at ISS opening the Dragon capsule in a couple of weeks.

    2. As I understand it, they will be ecstatic to simply get the Dragon berthed with the Canadarm. Actual docking is planned to be a few flights up the road, nobody is ready for that this early in the program.

      1. The animations show crew Dragon actually docking. But are they planning to upgrade cargo Dragons for docking before the crew Dragon flies?

      2. Hmmm, thought I read that they were delivering a small cargo to the station. Would be a shame not to.

        1. They are delivering non-essential crew items, including food. Mass varies from 600 to 1400 lb, depending on the source–I think it’s a little over 1000 bls.

  16. Wow I wish I worked there. We have some work with Orbital, but no SpaceX that I know of.

    One of my friends works at National Instruments on LabVIEW, and he is STOKED.

  19. Dragon still seems to be performing well, and has been ticking off the milestones one by one. There have been no problems that I’m aware of. I’ve been habitually checking NSF.com like an addict taking hits off a crack pipe.

    Their SpaceX Party thread has been awesome. It’s a brilliant idea and keeps people like me occupied and away from the more serious and technical update and discussion threads.

    OMG it’s the SpaceX Party Thread!

    1. Watch out for Jim. He’s a big meanie! 🙂

      P.S. I learned yesterday that my company HAS delivered equipment to SpaceX, and the chassis were my mechanical design. Wow. I told the EE who said so, that he’d made my year.

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