Originally it was for yesterday IIRC but got pushed back to make sure everything is as easy as can be. Hoping they stick the landing.
I am awake. SpaceX livestreamSpaceX coverage starting at 4:30[/url] NASA TV link which may or may not work because NASA has all the Internet skills of the average Tibetan. After several days, I still haven't found a way to get from their TV schedule to any actual video feed.
Well watching that was utterly useless. I won't know if the first stage landed or not until it hits the Drudge Report. NASA didn't even seem to know they were going to attempt to land the first rocket stage in history. I'm glad this wasn't the NASA crew in the 1960's or we wouldn't have seen any coverage of an attempt to land on the moon until days later, as an afterthought. Their total, staggering ineptitude boggles the mind, and I find myself in agreement with all the SpaceX employees who say their boss lives in an impenetrable anti-reality bubble.
At the time (60s Apollo), the whole world was watching. I think you were the only person streaming last night besides Elon.
So I woke up at 1:30 PM and checked all the NASA mission coverage. Still not a word about the landing attempt. Sure enough, I had to go to the Drudge report to find out the attempt failed, as the first stage made a pretty hard impact with the barge.
I assume "landed hard on the drone" means crashed into it, engulfing both in an enormous cloud of fiery combustion. Hence, "we couldn't get any video of it." Still, a rocket stage coming back for an almost-soft landing is in itself a pretty impressive feat.
Yep, that's my take as well. Breaking needs work, but everything else seems to have tested successfully.
Musk has released pics of the crash. It blowed up real good. http://gizmodo.com/this-is-spacexs-rocket-crash-landing-on-a-barge-1679890015
I think all gturner wants us to know is that his only news source is Drudge. Mission accomplished. Anyway, close! However I do wonder what's the big advantage to letting it crash into the sea and recovering it from there. Landing a rocket must mean lots and lots of additional fuel.
Most boosters crash into the sea and are not recovered. They're at the bottom of the ocean. The only exception to date were the shuttle's solid fuel boosters. These had parachutes for descent and floated so they could be recovered and reused. The whole package wasn't economical though. This is what I thought too, but it requires just a few percent of the total fuel capacity to bring back the booster for a soft landing. The trick is controlling it and they've shown they can do that. The previous attempt crashed because they ran out of expendable hydraulic fluid to vector the engines and move control surfaces. My money's on them to nail the landing tomorrow. Figuratively speaking.
Well, to be fair, Drudge does seem to have an interest in things which are long and hard, even if he doesn't admit to enjoying them.
