We’re probably not the only ones, but due to the soup, there probably weren’t very many. Because we screwed up.
Left later than planned, took 154 over San Marcos Pass instead of staying on the 101 to Buellton, got stuck behind a tour bus, passed it, got stuck behind another nimrod, got stuck in traffic in Solvang, was on road from Solvang to Buellton at launch time, pulled over, and watched it ascend, about 25 miles away, through a break in the clouds.
Drove down to Surf Beach, which had been reopened after the launch, talked to people about what had happened, then spent afternoon driving down Foxen Canyon road wine tasting (with other disappointed launch viewers). Back in LA.
OT, via Glenn, If there’s a rock and roll heaven, you know they’ve got a hell of a band.
Yeah, I grew up in the area and personally never take 154 if I can help it. Aside from slow nimrods, you just hear about too many people driving off the side. Even if it wasn’t me, I wouldn’t want to get delayed because of a crash. Glad you at least got some good wine out of the deal.
Rand,
sorry you missed the launch, but I can think of about 1200 worse ways to spend a day compared to a scenic drive interrupted by a glass of wine every so often.
Cheers.
For those of you who haven’t seen it, Elon posted a video of the landing on Instagram and they came damn close. Makes me think that my assessment of a deeply throttleable engine as prerequisite is wrong. I think they’ll make hoverslam work for barge landings.
Given the landing gear leg that failed to latch properly (possibly due to ice), this landing attempt would’ve failed on land just as it did on the barge. It appeared the touchdown was perfect. SpaceX has a good track record of identifying and fixing problems quickly. This one sounds like an easy fix. Even then, there will almost certainly be new problems in future landing attempts (along with successes) as they work the bugs out of the system.