Skipjack wrote:
I think Musk is looking towards the military there, even if he is not saying it.
I am sure the DOD is very interested in the ability to rapidly deploy 800 soldiers to anywhere in the world within less than an hour. And on top of that, the thing lands vertically. It does not need a runway.
This is Phillip Bono's Ithaca concept, which was also supposed to transport 800-1000 troops anywhere in the world in less than an hour. Pegasus was the commercial vehicle. Ithaca was the military transport. There was even a nice sketch of several Ithaca's lined up on a carrier with one of them lifting off.
Its all in Phillip Bono's "Frontier's of Space" book that was published sometime in the 70's.
Looks like SpaceX got ten Iridium satellites up in one shot last night, and then stuck the barge landing. The judges deducted 0.1 points for not being exactly dead center in the inner circle, but awarded a high degree of difficulty in launching 10 satellites successfully, a barge landing, and because night flights are really pretty.
This made me look up the Iridium. It is smaller than I thought ... under 700 kg. I've watched these things "flare" for years, and remember them being described as being as big as a bus, but evidently that is mostly solar panels. The orbit is very low.
700kg = the original batch of satellites launched in the 90s, NEXT or both?
In any case, even with the old ones, it Wikipedia says the flare was from the antennas, not the general size. Curious if the antennas on NEXT may not need to be as big. They looks significantly different, but having trouble finding pics with scale...
I believe they are attempting two launches in the one week. Now that is an impressive schedule!
I would have been very impressive if it was another 10 Iridium’s, however I believe the next launch is a single satellite. Re-used first stage though!!
Sadly I missed the launch as I had other commitments. I take it that it was "boring", ...again.
Looks like I may be able to watch tomorrow's!
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)
Dreadfully boring , next launch Cape Canaveral, Florida. On Wednesday, the company is scheduled to launch a hybrid broadcasting satellite to be used by both SES and EchoStar.
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.
I checked SpaceFlight Insider, and they confused me as to the "Flight Proven" status of the launch.
In any event, I suspect it will be extremely boring, again.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)
The judges deducted a mandatory full point this time for poor video feed on the first stage descent, with the Russian judge deducting two points on account of it being (in accordance with the plan), boring.
Looks like Falcon Heavy is slipping to December as earliest launch...
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)
Skimming through the top level questions and responses and found this gem from Musk:
Elon Musk on Reddit wrote:The advantage of getting somewhere in 30 mins by rocket instead of 15 hours by plane will be negatively affected if "but also, you might die" is on the ticket.