Business, Economics, Space, Technology and Society

Elon’s Good Week

21 Comments

First he sells several billion dollars worth of cars, then he lands a rocket on a ship, live on television, while throwing a private expandable hab into orbit.

From SpaceX’s standpoint, they now have another used rocket that they will almost certainly refly, for testing if not another operational mission.

[Update a while later]

Here’s Nadia Drake’s story.

I tweeted prior to flight that they were probably expecting a successful landing, given that (unlike last time) they weren’t downplaying chances of success. Nice to see Elon confirm that.

[Update a few minutes later]

And from Ken Chang.

21 thoughts on “Elon’s Good Week”

  1. The landing conditions were definitely sub-optimal regarding wind and sea state, but they pulled it off anyway. Bravo.

    1. Yes, I was looking with worry at the rocking. But the F9 stack at that point is quite bottom-heavy and the span of the legs is fairly large, so I suspect it was more stable that it looked.

      Would be nice to land a tad more on center, but SpaceX certainly seems to be on a march to success.

      1. > Would be nice to land a tad more on center,

        Actually, upon further review of the video, it did land almost exactly on center at first. It bounced once, maybe twice and moved a couple meters.

  2. The center of mass of that empty rocket has got to be extremely bloody low.

    Investing in a larger barge still seems useful though.

    1. I was going to suggest they should have bought the British aircraft carrier the Royal Navy auctioned off a couple of years back.

      Then I realized the barge is probably bigger :).

      1. I had notions along those lines. I was thinking it would be plausible to rig a more than satisfactory ‘deck extension’ on a ship that has more space above the waterline without as much worry of just, flat-out swamping.

        In any case, they’ve shown that it isn’t just going to come in like a missile or a rock, and thus the ‘target’ can have more money sunk into it without expecting it to be wiped out.

        But looking at the actual statistics, I’m not sure any longer:

        The beam of the droneships is 52m.
        The beam of the Invincible-class aircraft carriers is 36m.
        The beam of the active UK helicopter carriers is… less.
        The beam of the USS Ronald Reagan is 76m.

        The droneships appear to have basically had the outrageously maneuverable tugboat-class engines/props/etc installed, although I could be completely mistaken there. (It’s a -barge- with a bowwave in the video.)

  3. I’m skeptical. They still have to get the stage back through hundreds of miles of treacherous ocean, potentially filled with pirates.

    Eventually they’ll lose a few lower stages to Caribbean pirates, and then Carribean pirates will use those stages to expand into space piracy.

    What, did you think space pirates started in space? No, they started as regular ocean going pirates who seized returning launch systems.

    2. “I’m skeptical. They still have to get the stage back through hundreds of miles of treacherous ocean, potentially filled with pirates. ”

      Robert Newton will cast his one gleaming eye on them boosters and declare – “Aye mateys that there booster is just what we needs to cop thos payloads and retire to Tortuga. bear a hand, now bear a hand…”

  4. I watched the whole thing at work and it took a couple of hours for me to stop shaking. The Glenlivet 18 helped. I’ve never had it before, but I bought a bottle on the way home. This was certainly an occasion that deserved it.

    (Language warning) I’m not a fan of rap music, but this is hilarious.

    1. I actually did laugh out loud.

      I see that Elon tweeted that out after the landing then deleted that, which is understandable but too bad. He’s entitled. 🙂

      1. If that song hadn’t already been written and recorded before Friday afternoon, it would be by now. It’s perfect.

  5. Two different companies launched and landed two different rocket boosters in back-to-back weeks. So we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.

    1. Six days apart, actually. Who would have predicted that five years ago?

      The Space Age is just starting to get interesting.

      1. And there is every indication that the hits are just going to keep on coming. Fun times ahead, friends. And not very far ahead either.

  9. The importance of at sea landings is hard to overstate. As Musk himself said in an after launch & landing interview, this enables a slew of first stage recovery possibilities for those higher delta-v missions where there isn’t enough fuel reserve left to fly the booster back to land. This will also be key for recovery of the core stage on the Falcon 9 Heavy.

    This was a huge milestone for SpaceX and an historic moment for the rest of us space enthusiasts. Congrats SpaceX.

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