I'm just excited for the first re-use of a Falcon 9 first stage, but hey, if good ol' Elon has some new holy-shit-mankind-is-awesome stuff to shoot at us, really, by all means, Musky, bring it on.

Last edited by Saniss (2016-09-02 10:56:55)

No, the refurb is going to be used for SCS-10 in October.

This one was carrying a Facebook Internet.org satellite so I think it's a deliberate act of sabotage in the summer blockbuster spy movie vein.

Musk’s Mars moment: Audacity, madness, brilliance—or maybe all three

Great and thorough article on Elon Musk's recent unveiling of his plan to colonize Mars - some interesting points that put a few things in perspective and raise questions for the future.

Last edited by Saniss (2016-09-29 09:43:49)

Meanwhile, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg:

“I’m convinced the first person to step foot on Mars will arrive there riding a Boeing rocket.”

http://jalopnik.com/boeing-calls-out-sp … 1787458653

I wonder just how much Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building can withstand hurricane conditions. Matthew is expected to hit Cap Canaveral directly today.

I think they built it to withstand winds; more worrying is the encroaching sea because of sea level rise. They're right there.

*checks for link*

Whoo boy, actually I guess I was wrong. Reading this now, but also linked from here is, "The Biggest Threat to NASA's Future is the Ocean".

http://gizmodo.com/hurricane-matthew-is … 1787471900

When I lived in Florida, my girlfriend at the time lived in a place called Satellite Beach, which is just a few miles south of Cape Canaveral. Whenever I'd go visit her, I'd take the long way home (already a long drive to and from Orlando, which is dead-center between the coasts) and drive past the VAB just to see it.

This anecdote doesn't really connect to anything, just sumthin' I think about when Canaveral comes up.

Also, Canaveral is extracted from "caña veral," basically "cane field;" sugar cane used to grow there.

One time in Orlando, driving east at night, I saw a very confusing thing: this oddly bright, oddly slow, upward moving flashing dot. First thought was firework, second thought was helicopter, third thought was a shooting star approaching me at a foreshortened angle. It took me fifteen seconds to figure out I was watching a rocket launch from a hundred miles away.

It happened again a few months later.

It breaks your brain a little bit, especially out of context.

I feel ever since the great brain drain, the only sort of national pride/foray for a Brit, into space exploration has been the Beagles (one of which, not a good example) and Tim Peake. And that makes me sad.

"Well as a matter of fact, sir, what you saw was a spaceship."

Has anyone been watching the National Geographic Mars series?