SpaceX sticks the landing

Not sure if this will work.

http://livestre.am/5lsMx

It works.
But you should fast forward to about 27 minutes to get the ten seconds that are worth watching. Just my opinion. Those ten seconds are great!

I enjoyed the cheering from the SpaceX employees. I never worked anywhere, or on a project, that generated that much enthusiasm. I'm quite envious of them.

Just those few seconds.

Onboard view of landing in high winds

How is that even fucking possible?  The barge is so small it is being tossed about by waves -- the surface must be pitching.  The rocket is so tall that it looks like it would fall over.

If I had less confidence in Elon Musk's truthfulness I'd assume this was CGI.

The drone ship names still kill me. Iain Banks was a good writer, and well worth the tribute.

SpaceX's Musk: We'll reuse today's Falcon 9 rocket within 2 months

Quote :

It was still pretty dangerous, and Musk said SpaceX estimated there was at least a 33 per cent chance of failure. The ship was pitching about three degrees during the landing, despite its four engines working overtime to keep it in position. The rocket could land in about double that level of pitching, but it would be very difficult, he said.

Right now SpaceX engineers have boarded the ship Of course I still love you and are inspecting the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that landed. Specially designed metal shoes will be fitted over the landing legs and welded to the deck to hold it steady for the trip back, but heavy winds are expected in the next day.

I still don't get how this is cheaper or easier than disposable boosters.

Building the rocket costs about $60 million. Refuelling etc costs less than half a million. That's quite a difference.

By the way, the thing stands way tall, and looks like it's bound to fall over on the barge. But someone pointed out to me today that it mostly consists of big fuel tanks sitting over a very heavy motor. So when it comes in to land, with the fuel tanks pretty much empty, its center of gravity is actually very low, making it quite stable.

Nevertheless, they're going to WELD the feet to the barge to tow it to port.

That tells you something about how stable it isn't.

NoCoPilot wrote:

I still don't get how this is cheaper or easier than disposable boosters.

Upon reflection, on the names of the barges and on the nature of Elon Musk himself, I think he has taken to heart John F. Kennedy's proclamation, "We choose to go to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard."

I think he's intentionally doing things the hard way.  He doesn't want to duplicate what NASA has done, he wants to do what they never could do, or never thought of doing.

Peeps, this is TOTALLY COOL.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/29/11541506/spacex-rocket-landing-ocean-360-degree-vr-virtual-reality

NoCoPilot wrote:

I think he's intentionally doing things the hard way.  He doesn't want to duplicate what NASA has done, he wants to do what they never could do, or never thought of doing.

I think you're giving Musk too much credit. He's doing things that he thinks will make money for him.
Most of what he is doing - everything except the landing - is duplicating what NASA developed and has been doing for decades. Most - maybe all - of the engineering in his rockets was paid for by us tax payers.

Wrong. NASA never put up a rocket powered by hyperbole.

Well, yeah. There's that.

Two of them pretty much simultaneously. That I've got to see.

SpaceX Will Attempt to Land Three Rockets at Once

A lot of the videos aren't too clear, or cut out at the critical moment. This one is pretty good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzQpkQ1etdA