Not sure how many many of you watched it but I watched it live...and it was one of the most awesome things I have ever witnessed...it literally gave me the chills. ...I'm sure Matts and Tote watched it. ...it still amazes me how the human race can achieve such incredible feats but yet are also responsible for committing such horrible acts vs each other.
Per my old buddy Orson Welles: In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed. But they also produced Michelangelo, , Leonardo Da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had Five Hundred years of brotherly love, peace, and democracy and what did that produce, the cuckoo clock, Old Four Jacks and a Jill song "It's a strange, strange world we live in Master Jack" Old Moody Blues line "Is'nt Life Strange"
^^^^ great to see Launch Pad 39A once again in action... it was a thing of beauty and inspiration indeed. Love seeing a Tesla in space w/Starman, way cool...and the dash display: "Don't Panic"... enjoyed just as much the (synchronized) landing of both OB Boosters, a feather in Elon's cap, landing rockets when no one else has or could. Less the Core ctr, which didn't fire proper (2 of 3 rockets failed to fire, actually there are 9 recovery rockets of which 3 need to fire, and only 1 fired) for its landing on t/barge. Elon stated its loss was no big deal since SpaceX didn't plan on re-using it. Most important thing to Elon & his SpaceX team, is- this successful Heavy launch opened the doors for his "BFR" in years to come.... B for big, F for F**king, R for Rocket, (no shit). How can one not love Elon? Upon his arrival to the Rocket world, I gotta' admit I was very skeptical, as were many.... Hats off to Elon and SpaceX - However we're liable to see NASA's SLS (VBFR) launch yrs prior to SpaceX's BFR... Overall, I'd bet SpaceX surpasses NASA's program(s) in delivery times, flights, costs easily, et al... Falcon 9 Heavy w/5 Mil lbs of thrust, Kerosene and Liquid Oxygen, (good ol' fashioned) kerosene... STS or the Shuttle Program used Solid Rocket fuel (APBP), while the Shuttles 3 main engines used Liquid Hydrogen mixed w/Oxygen. STS had 7.8 Mil lbs of thrust, tho' this article below shows its delivery capacity as: 65K lbs in LEO, a Shuttle weighs: 165,000 lbs, go figure this articles (1st link below) math isn't very accurate.... We were blasting Shuttle's into Orbit with a max of 65K lbs Payloads, (on top of t/OV's weight)... Saturn V Apollo had 11 Mil lbs of thrust with a 260K payload to LEO... http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/06/technology/future/biggest-rockets-falcon-heavy-comparison/index.html the future of Space X to come: https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/7/16983040/spacex-falcon-heavy-rocket-launch-schedule-spaceflight
and Yep, Elon's less costlier SpaceX is having an overall effect on future costs... http://fortune.com/2017/04/05/spacex-united-launch-alliance-rocket-price/
^^^^ imagine what the BFR's going to look like. I've watched it thrice, and the synchro landings as well. Can't help but take a daily look at Starman "waiting in the sky",.... "Switch on the TV we may pick him up on channel two" (rather YouTube) or Twitterverse... loved hearing the old classic tune to go with the unveiling of a mannequin tesla space driver. Ziggy was a monumental LP in the daze...
Yeah, ^^^ the Bowie tune was a nice touch...Matts, have you heard why the main/middle booster failed to make a successful return landing?
nothing official yet as to the cause of the middle core failure; tho' I'm beginning to hear lack of fuel/propellant (perhaps), causing only 1 engine to fire during descent...
