gangzoom Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 (edited) I don't care what you think about anything, but I still cannot believe a private company has pulled of landing a rocket in the sea after an orbital launch. It took the whole of Europe clubbing in together to even build a reliable rocket to even get into space. The engineering required to pull this stuff off is just crazy!! Edited April 9, 2016 by gangzoom 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GMballistic Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 Impressive maybe but why would you ever need to do that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lexx Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 So you can reuse the launcher. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GMballistic Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 So you can reuse the launcher. Yes but why does it need to land on the sea? ...or was that just proof of the most difficult scenario in which to land?, ...so landing on terra firma would be a doddle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stutopia Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 Safest place to practice GM if it all goes turbo, now VAG have killed all the polar bears. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lexx Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 The ballistic trajectory of rocket launches takes them very water so if things go balls up there's no chance of items landing on someonesale house. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GMballistic Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 Cheers both. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobbyZ Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 Pretty cool, but it would've been far more awesome if they landed it on a helipad on the back of a massive luxury yacht 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commander Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 It's not like it was a flat calm day either by the looks of it... Impressive stuff! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stutopia Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 I do wonder about the concept of reusing something that's been through such a serious amount of stress, but hey ho, I won't be riding one any time soon! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke0549 Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 lucky there wasnt chop! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobbyZ Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 No different to reusing anything really though Stu- it just needs to be built for it and maintained appropriately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Husky Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 Impressive maybe but why would you ever need to do that? It's pretty significant, and although I agree that on the face of it, it seems super simple and "haven't we done that already surely" it's a big deal. Reusable rocket; super important, simply put, it lowers cost. the cheaper space flight is, the more of it we can do, the more research in space we can do and the more we can expand our horizons scientifically and as a species. They have already landed a reusable rocket on ground once before at Cape Canaveral, but landing in the sea is important as they will be landing a third of their rockets in the big blue in the future. What's the deal with the water landing? It is the tricky one! It is a tiny moving target in an enormous shooting range, making it far more difficult than other landing types, if they can get this one sorted, everything else is a piece of cake! You also have to remember that thus far, all of their attempts have resulted in KABOOM sounds with attached fireballs, super good that's on the water. But here's the important bit about the water, they aren't tied down to a fixed landing spot which costs a lot of fuel to manoeuvre to. The drone ship can position itself in a handy dandy place for the rocket to come down at, a lot easier moving the bit down here than the one up there. Less distance = less fuel = less money = more space! What did we do with the rockets before? Wasted, most are tossed into the void and forgotten about. rocket costs 60 mil, fuel 200k, it's easy to see where the funding is being wasted and why this is so important. Here's the vid of the landing, it's looking pretty damn sci-fi with the landing gear deployment and the fact they nailed the target so amazingly accurately. and a big ass Gif if you don't want to open Youtube And if you want to listen to a lot of very excited people from the live stream, here you go (volume warning my god the crowd are loud) Drone ships: Pretty cool sounding and and have awesome names: JRtI, just read the instructions and OCISLY, Of course I still love you. These guys are autonomous vessels and are able to position themselves within 3 meters of the target location even during a storm, which is nuts. These guys can be left to sort themselves out, or someone can take control and drive them around remotely. Don't forget they are also putting the BEAM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigelow_Expandable_Activity_Module up there for testing. This is an awesome technology, inflatable space habitats that will make a lot more possible for a lot less. They are going to be testing one of these for the next two years to see how it fairs in comparison to a normal module. if it's all got the go ahead it's going to massively reduce the payload required for expanding our foothold in the big black; Just think, one rocket blasts of, delivers a whole space station, then comes back down to earth and lands on a barge that sailed itself into position, back home in time for dinner. God dammit, it's exciting times! /engineering nergasm over 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve916 Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 Launch a rocket from a boat and then play the video backwards 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JetSet Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 The engineering required to pull this stuff off is just crazy!! Indeed, I'm going to look up how on earth it manages to re-enter the atmosphere without burning up. Pete 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Husky Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 The engineering required to pull this stuff off is just crazy!! Indeed, I'm going to look up how on earth it manages to re-enter the atmosphere without burning up. Pete Heat-shielding?... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ekona Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 Borg regenerative shielding. Duh! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gangzoom Posted April 10, 2016 Author Share Posted April 10, 2016 Pretty cool, but it would've been far more awesome if they landed it on a helipad on the back of a massive luxury yacht Pretty sure that's possible. Now all they needs is empty volcanic island and we can have Thunderbird 1 in real life . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P15UL T Posted April 10, 2016 Share Posted April 10, 2016 Ever since I was a little boy - like most of us I've loved this stuff. But as I've got older I've started to question the videos and pictures that nasa and other space organisations put out. It always seems like there missing something. Can't really explain it but in my head what im seeing isn't real. Kinda like when you watch a really good viral video online but you just now it isn't real even though the cgi is very good I'm not saying this stuff is fake but from my perspective there not showing you multi camera angles of this amazing feat of engineering landing on a moving object. With all the high powered telescopes they have I'd love to watch this thing coming back into earths atmosphere and flipping round to land backwards. It would be amazing. Think my doubts always come back to them putting man on the moon 40-50 years ago in a tin can yet we won't do it now.?? Surely it's a no brainier. People get so hyped up about landing a unmanned rocket backwards - how cool would it be to see a live hd video of folk walking about the moon filming earth :-) Just my thoughts Paul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ekona Posted April 10, 2016 Share Posted April 10, 2016 Tinfoil hat, table 1! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P15UL T Posted April 10, 2016 Share Posted April 10, 2016 ;-). Just because someone tells you something dosnt make it true :-p Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Husky Posted April 10, 2016 Share Posted April 10, 2016 You can actually watch a lot of live feeds from the ISS, also if you have never watched them, I'd say to go and look at all Cmdr Chris Hadfeild's videos from the ISS on youtube. It's all above board and real. The amount of telemetry data from the rocket landing will be immense, remember they didn't one shot this, you can watch all the footage of the previous ones blowing up. The rock samples from the moon landing are agreed as legitimate extraterrestrial, the soviet union at the time didn't dispute it and they had every reason to. The moon landing happened and you'd have a tough time convincing me that it's some conspiracy considering we did it over and over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flex Posted April 10, 2016 Share Posted April 10, 2016 This all paves the way for our move to Mars, just in case we're hit by a big**** off asteriod. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JetSet Posted April 10, 2016 Share Posted April 10, 2016 The engineering required to pull this stuff off is just crazy!! Indeed, I'm going to look up how on earth it manages to re-enter the atmosphere without burning up. Pete Heat-shielding?... Just read up on it, nothing new really (other than the pinpoint landing) . Basically, only the first stage is recoverable and that doesn't need heat shielding as it never leaves the Earth's atmosphere, The Space Shuttle's twin boosters were also recoverable and reusable but they landed in the sea using parachutes. There were plans to recover Stage 2 but that would require heat shielding which is much too heavy. Pete 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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