Wingman703

Its not far, I think less then 2-3 miles from each other. I think launch is something like 2 miles from obs bay, landing is 5miles from obs bay? E/ Launch pad Landing pad

I highly doubt anything short of gale force winds could just 'blow over' a rocket. They are not exactly light, wet or dry, and the cross section is quite narrow and aerodynamic.

Saw via the SpaceX FB page that F9 went vertical today and "the teams ran through pad operations. Working towards static fire later today."

Beat you too it, they require reservations a week in advance. Jetty Park is where I had planned to try and stake out a spot to watch the launch/landing however, as I don't see getting tickets for the viewing deck as possible(to many people, to few tickets I suspect...).

$10 to pitch a tent. I'm a broke college student yo.

Ehh, I'll give it a shot to see if I could pull it together, but its highly doubtful, what with an 8hr trip down, hour there, and then another 8hr trip back(unless I found somewhere cheap to crash for that night). If I do somehow manage to get down there, I will indeed be sure to take some pics. My greatest fear is that I would get down there and the launch would be scrubbed.

Man, this is one Launch/Landing/RTF that I would love to be able to see in person, but its an 8hr drive for me to the Cape... I'm guessing that at this point a RTLS is almost guaranteed? Every source I've see says they are going to be returning, and haven't seen anything about the barge being prepped.

Wait, Russians will start buying/trading for seats on Dragon? When was that announced?

Oh my gosh, as I'm not seeing it till the 8th, all these spoiler buttons are killing me. MUST. NOT. CLICK.... Well perhaps just that one ther- NO! STAY STRONG!

Watney would be proud.

When you refer to yawning as "opening frontal intakes!"

Same vid that was released on Yahoo a few days ago...

Didn't Elon write into the contact with the designer/supplier that the suits must look "badass"?

I held out for about two hours... then my curiosity overwhelmed me. I can safely say no dramatic reveals. Its 40 seconds of the crew making the abort decision, and then a quick cut of Watney getting hit by the dish. Set/shots look stunning just from that quick bite however. Also, all the US audiences are going to be confuzzled... all measurements are in Km, Newtons, ect, sticking with the book.

ULA's just talking smack on SpaceX, as per normal. The last 21 flights of Falcon 9 have proved that the Falcon is a highly reliable vehicle.

Elon stated that Dragon would have survived if the software had been programmed to deploy 'chutes, and that this software would be present in Dragon V1 next time it flew. Honestly though, we are starting to run this Dragon survival thing into the ground. Sure, would have been nice to see it survive and bring everything back down safely, but it didn't, and I doubt the sub they are sending down to search for wreckage is going to find much. As Elon said, its deep, dark, and a large area to search, not to mention having happened almost a month ago.

If you don't mind, I'm sigging that, with some edits for grammar

The general public doesn't really keep abreast of the happenings of spaceflight. I would be flabbergasted if it became a political issue in the next 20 years. The most that the general layman would know about it is when a rocket goes kaboom, because that's the only time its going to get mentioned in the mainstream media.

Doesn't ULA want to do recovery with a helicopter though? That seems more difficult, considering the downdraft involved.

I had taken that to mean that he knew the cause, and it was not something he expected or worked differently then he had expected.

Am I the only one slightly puzzled by Elon's previous tweet? He seemed to imply that he knew the cause("counterintuitive cause"), but then we have Shotwell the same day saying that no one knows, and she refuses to speculate. Then we have to wait two weeks for just 'preliminary' causes, as well as the SpaceX team having to break down the info all the way down to Hex-data or whatever. Is this just a case of Elon's genus, or was he speaking out the bum?

Do tanks even sit around for along time before being put to use? I had thought that the turnover time between building the rocket and launching the rocket was quite small for SpaceX, as having a built rocket just sitting around unused doesn't benefit you in any way. Gah, I'll take the hurricanes in NY instead. Stupid Chinese butterflies...

Interesting, but I don't buy it. SpaceX builds its tanks completely in-house to the best of my knowledge. Not to mention they must be tested in some form or fashion before use. On a somewhat similar note, pressure vessels are nothing to mess around with. A simple scuba tank can rival many explosives in sheer destructive power. Not surprised about the damage to their facially from that 'incident'.

So... a week from the incident, and no word yet from SpaceX on the cause. Anyone else thought that we would have at least heard something on the cause by now, considering the massive amounts of data being sent back from Falcon9/Dragon? Or is that just too unrealistic?

I still point my accusing finger at that IDA bashing stuff in, but only the after action reports will tell the tale for sure.