Jump to content

You know you're in the future when...


efaardvark
 Share

Recommended Posts

  • 3 weeks later...

YKYITFW the Earthlings send 184 rockets of 37 different designs from 9 different launch complexes to orbit.  In one year.  That's over 3 launches per week.  All but 8 launches successfully delivered their payloads. It's even more amazing when you realize that most of them were multi-payload launches. Every Starlink launch carried at least 41 satellites for example. Also, several F9 launches were Dragon / CRS missions, 2 of which were Crew Dragons 4 and 5 carrying people as well as cargo to/from the ISS.

This doesn't include any of the sub-orbital rollercoaster joyrides from Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin.  We also have SpaceX's Starship prototype's first orbital launch attempt coming up in "a couple months" (Elon time) to look forward to.  Largest rocket ever, over twice the thrust of the Saturn V, capable of getting 100 tons to orbit in a single launch, and totally reusable.

We're not living in the Apollo era anymore, that's for sure.

  • Agree 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, efaardvark said:

We're not living in the Apollo era anymore, that's for sure.

This is true, and I'm glad I lived through the excitement of the Apollo era and was able to watch each of the missions as they happened. Sitting with my parents in our living room in the early hours of the morning to watch the Apollo 11 moon landing is something I'll remember for the rest of my life.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Animedragon said:

This is true, and I'm glad I lived through the excitement of the Apollo era and was able to watch each of the missions as they happened. Sitting with my parents in our living room in the early hours of the morning to watch the Apollo 11 moon landing is something I'll remember for the rest of my life.

Same here.  I was born in ‘64 so one of my earliest memories is watching the moon landings on our family’s first TV.

(Side note.. the TV was a Heathkit that my dad built.  It was b&w for the first moon landings but later he upgraded it to color for the Miss America pageant.  :D )

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

YKYITFW CNET gets taken over by a chatbot. (Not exactly, but I can do clickbait too.  :D )

Seriously though, I find it interesting that the company execs seem not so much worried about the poor-quality AI-generated articles being published without attribution as about Google's possibly finding out how to detect them and reducing their prominence (and thus ad revenue) in google searches.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looks like both the booster and the launch stand survived the static-fire test.  Musk tweeted that one engine was disabled by command and one was shut down by the vehicle software but the remaining 31 would still have been enough to get to orbit.  So I guess next up is launch and, hopefully, orbit.
 

 

There's still the question of, "just how do you land this thing?" however.  The "chopsticks" seem to work well enough for stacking and unstacking, but the choreography of snatching flying things out of the air is going to be on a whole other level.  :D 

karatekid-chopsticks.gif.467dfd5d49b38b97281509ea5168f355.gif

 

  • Awesome (Sugoi) 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, efaardvark said:

Looks like both the booster and the launch stand survived the static-fire test.  Musk tweeted that one engine was disabled by command and one was shut down by the vehicle software but the remaining 31 would still have been enough to get to orbit.  So I guess next up is launch and, hopefully, orbit.

WOW!! That was spectacularly impressive! 🚀

Link to comment
Share on other sites

YKYITFW NASA sends a nuclear-powered helicopter (octocopter) to explore Saturn's moon Titan...
 

 

 

Currently funded and in prototype/testing phase here on Earth:

 

There's also the Psyche mission to a metal asteroid that's probably the remnant core of what was once a planet in the asteroid belt..

You won't have to wait as long for this one since Psyche is launching later this year and the asteroid belt is a lot closer than Titan.  Probably launching this year.. at least we're already doing software testing.

Edited by efaardvark
  • Awesome (Sugoi) 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...