SpaceX Nails Falcon Heavy Launch (February 6, 2018)

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
Elon Musk and the SpaceX team once again made history today with the successful launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket. We don't post nearly as much real life science and space news as we used to, but today's remarkable achievement deserves all the recognition it can get. It's hard to believe that just three years ago, there were many headlines about how SpaceX was failing and we just weren't ready to jump the technological hurdles that the company was proposing. Now they've landed nearly two dozen rockets vertically and make it look routine.


Today's launch was significantly more challenging, however, yet they were able to both lift a payload into orbit and return multiple boosters simultaneously back to the launch pad. It's possible that the third booster may not have properly landed on target at sea, but Elon Musk's personal Tesla Roadster is now on its way towards the Mars orbit and the whole mission has been a huge success. They plan to start ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station next year and launch the first mission to Mars in five years. It's possible these dates could slip, but SpaceX's impressive track record inspires a lot of confidence that they will eventually succeed in reaching another planet in the near future!











Jump to 21:00 to get straight to the action!


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Original update published on February 6, 2018
 
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Such amazing. Elon Musk musst be so proud. This is MUCH MUCH better then any Superbowl, WM oder something other Event. THIS IS THE FUTURE! We don't need Aircraft Carrier, Nuclear Bombs or Tanks -we need more like this! The rest is waste of Money!

I'm nearly crying to see what they done! Give this guy some Billions and soon we walk on Mars or have a Orbit Station above Saturn, Jupiter! Wing Commander is coming - soon!
 
Oh, dear, @Deathsnake... here we are, celebrating a magnificent success of private enterprise, but then someone must come along and spoil the mood by complaining about public spending. Look, I'm going to be a bit snide here, because comments like yours really deserve a harsh response. Firstly, since you appear to be German, let me point out it was aircraft carriers and tanks that saved the rest of the world from the Germans - so, you know, it was Elon Musk's Canadian and South African grandparents liberating Europe from... ahem, hopefully not literally your grandparents, but certainly the grandparents of people you know. This might seem like an offensive, personal argument, but it has to be said, because if you are indeed German, you have no moral right to criticise anyone on arms spending. Ever. Secondly, in the subsequent five decades, it was American aircraft carriers, tanks, and above all, nuclear bombs, that kept your parents and yourself safe from joining me and my parents in the Eastern Block. What you're seeing today in the Falcon Heavy launch is the triumph of American carriers, tanks, and nuclear bombs. So be happy, celebrate, and next time you want to complain about armaments, imagine what it would be like to be living in the Deutsche Demokratische Republik. National defence is never a waste of money. And also - what's it got to do with anything? SpaceX is a private corporation - it is completely unaffected by government spending priorities. That, in fact, is the best part of the whole thing! That this is not somebody arbitrarily spending taxpayer dollars, but someone putting their own money into the project, instead.


And now, getting back to the topic at hand - what a wonderful thing this is indeed! Every time there's another SpaceX launch of some sort, I keep expecting them to run into some sort of disaster, because it just seems like they keep going and going without ever running into real difficulties. Or maybe it's just because when they do run into problems, they just brush them off and keep going. Regardless, it's a really amazing thing. Definitely looking forward to seeing more SpaceX successes.
 
Yea. My Grandfather was in WW2. First Normandy then eastern front. I even have his old Papers of the Wehrmacht telling my Grandfather parents that he was Missing in Action and the Papers from the Soviets with returning home documents on parchment paper. He told me all the time - they lie to him and the others. Say all the time - the Russians want to attack Germany. They have to be stopped :/ Today - Fake News. He got prisoner of war by Partisans about August 1944 and after the War the russians take him and a lot of others to a lake - they got 10 min to get on the other side for the return home documents - all othes - are killed - 1. August 1945. Told me that as I was a chield until he's gone. So about 20 years i hear that again and again.
I share it here - my Grandfather past away in 1999 :( I never go to the german Bundeswehr because he don't want that i go the same way as he have to do. Imagine those papers are 74 years old. He was a PAK Gunner 7,5
WP_20180207_10_38_22_Pro_LI.jpg WP_20180207_10_38_34_Pro.jpg
Still I think if Overall no one Building tanks and so on the world would be more at peace. So even today the Germans sell a lot of tanks, ships weapons and so on to Dubai etc. I don't get it but hey - Money rules :(
 
...we need more like this! The rest is waste of Money!

I'm nearly crying to see what they done! Give this guy some Billions and soon we walk on Mars or have a Orbit Station above Saturn, Jupiter! Wing Commander is coming - soon!

Please bare with me because the following happened today,
Today I saw this post from WCNews and I am glad that Chris made the post. At the same moment that I was watching the video, the 24 years old practitioner that we have in the office, I remind you that we work on the IT sector, made the following comment:

"Nice rocket but what a waste of money!"

I was about to ignite myself but my brother cooler than me asked a question?

"Do you know what the stars are? The ones that you look at durring the night.

And he answered without being sure with a question.

"Planets?"

This boy today, since my position wouldn't let me to hit him with a Mace nor scream at him with a WC1 taunt, earned a day off. I just told him to leave the office.
Sadly, this is not the only situation of no space interest, not even to the basics from the younger that I have encountered lately.

Elon Musk, although a banker, makes the difference.
I loved the Asimov's Foundation comparison with this launch, I think we are going there whether some like it or not!
 
LOLOLOLOL.

From Mister "I can nothing except Flames" Smart:

SpaceFX just spent approx $90m to test a new rocket, and send a car to an orbit around Mars.


Meanwhile, after SEVEN years, those clowns at CIG can't build a video game with $180m.
:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
This boy today, since my position wouldn't let me to hit him with a Mace nor scream at him with a WC1 taunt, earned a day off. I just told him to leave the office.
Sadly, this is not the only situation of no space interest, not even to the basics from the younger that I have encountered lately.
You kind of have to pity these kids, but also understand them. You live in Greece, right? So this kid, being 24 years old, for all his adult life has been hearing nothing but "financial crisis". I can kind of understand why he might be inclined to look at everything that doesn't offer an immediate benefit, as a waste of money.

I think there is also something that our generation had, that even 20-something-year-olds didn't have. When we were teenagers, NASA stuff still occasionally made the news. Sure, we didn't get to witness the Moon landings, but who didn't know about the space shuttle, for instance? But for people like that kid you mention, space has always been old news. It's really kind of sad.
 
Still I think if Overall no one Building tanks and so on the world would be more at peace. So even today the Germans sell a lot of tanks, ships weapons and so on to Dubai etc. I don't get it but hey - Money rules :(

It's about more than money. It's a nice thought to think that if there magically were no weapons and nobody made weapons, then we'd be more peaceful, but that's obviously not reality. The fact is that there are hostile/aggressive people out there, and we've seen that even small poor states can build dangerous weapons (and small poor states potentially have great incentive to do so), so until everyone is united under one world government, there is a need for military defenses.

And this has great benefits to society! Much like the space program, military development pushes the technological envelope. Drone technology, body armor, emergency medicine, GPS, and even the internet itself are all spinoff advancements of the modern military. And where does SpaceX get the engineers that it takes to design and build rockets? A large chunk learned how to do what they do after cutting their teeth on military aerospace programs at Boeing, Lockheed and Northop Grumman.
 
Ok we are not a reference. But the german army slow much down since the cold war.

In the 70 and 80 we have over 8000 Tanks - Leopard 1+2+Marder, lots of Artillery, about 100 ships und 400 planes

Now we have with a new Report update what is ready
244 Tanks - only 98 ready
48 Tiger Helicopter - only 5 ready
41 NH90 Helicopter - 15 ready
89 PzH 2000 Arty - only 34 ready
133 Puma tanks - 70 ready
145 Eurofighter - 48 ready
89 Tornado Strike Jets - 33 ready
6 Stealth Submarines - None ready - all in repair
9 Frigates - 4 ready
5 Corvettes - 2 ready
14 Patriot Missiles - 5 ready
55 Mars Missilelauncher - 20 ready
from Boxer and other armored vehicles also about only 40% ready

Building Projects
150 new heli
5 new Corvettes
10 new frigates
100 new tanks
200 new planes
- if they come - my bet is not even 50%. A Joint Support Ship the Navy Need is now that we using the netherlands JSS together


The Bundeswehr is a Top 10 army but in fact we maybe hit Top100

From a must have of 185.000 soldier, doctors and staff we have only 155.000 - 30.000 less then it should be. No one want to be in german a soldier anymore. The german newspapers flame all day about this army, the citizens laught about this army. From a min. Percent of GDP of 2% we promise back in the days the army get a Long time only 0.7%. Meanwhile it's up to 1.12%. And a lot of Problems - the Navy should have already 2 of the new 4 F125 Class frigate who replace the old 8 F122. The F122 are all gone - but the replace frigates takes more time and a lot of Errors - not before 2019 done, the old Transall Planes are 50 years old and the replacement A400M is full of Errors - and it should carry Puma Tanks - it cannot. And so one. Defending Germany would take maybe a week then it would be over. Ammo also always low - in a Nato Manover the german tanks uses broomsticks as machine guns and call PENG PENG because they guns are not done and no ammo :D

In other words - this army would no one miss if they Close it. My Generation - Born in 75 know how you turn to first place without any gun - Money. So my gen know of Work, build a house, have Kids, playing Computer and Videogames and watch movies. The youth of today did not even want a single Germany - they want the United States of Europe and Bruessel and Merkel do everything that this happen. So soon it doesn't matter if you Born in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Austria or another Country in west europe - soon we are one.

Thats my 0.2 Cent - the army of Germany will die with the United States of Europe and no one will cry. So more Money free for such Projects to get to space as soon as we can!
 
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Thats my 0.2 Cent - the army of Germany will die with the United States of Europe and no one will cry. So more Money free for such Projects to get to space as soon as we can!
You are mistaken. Even if Germany did not have an army, not a single cent more would be spent on space exploration. It would make no difference whatsoever. For governments, space exploration is currently an irrelevance. Again, SpaceX is a private corporation. No government in the world - including the USA - is currently interested in anything more than lip service when it comes to space travel. Of course, this will change the moment private corporations make settlement of Mars and exploitation of resources there viable - then we'll see a very rapid change in government attitudes indeed.

(also, I think you will find that if the Fourth Reich... sorry, United States of Europe, ever are formed, the German army will not disappear, but instead become the backbone of the European army. Hopefully it won't come to that, though, since support for the European project is at an all-time low)
 
If Germany is the Military Backbone of the European army then game over ^^ If you where a german then you would understand what I'm trying to say. Just this:

Our Military is in the Hands of Ursula von der Leyen.

Now! Plans for the army are:
Family Friendly worktimes - maybe just work on 2 or 3 days in the week
Vehicle and tanks should not vibrate like that because of pregnant women
Kindergarten in every barracks

Just wait until we fire with flowers ;D In fact -the german army is so weak and demotivated because of outdated parts, Radio, low Ammo and fuel all the time so every european army is much stronger then we are. We learn from the past - Army is bullshit! Just have one because we are a part of the NATO. If a European army is build France, Spain (GB is out) or Italy should take Control. We can't - or better we won't. As I say - the citizen are not behind your own army and government.

Again to space - I hope the private corperations rush quickly in exploration and settlement of moon and mars so that our government Change their attiudes asap.
 
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A few points.. firstly I see you mention Dubai? I'm not entirely sure why? The amount of money that the UAE puts towards foreign aid is second to none as for Space the UAE government has put forth plans to colonize Mars.

For those that don't know as its a common mistake is Dubai is not a country its an Emirate (like a state) in the United Arab Emirates and a lot of the money made from tourists etc. in Dubai is going towards this (its not oil money as Dubai has no oil all the oil is in the capital of the UAE Abu Dhabi where I live)

Now as for the military as someone that has served in the Royal Air Force I would have to say money has to be spent on defence without a doubt in fact the UK doesn't spend enough IMO. A European military wouldn't work for multiple reasons we have NATO and that is good enough.

I think we really need to stop reminding Germans what happened in the past and make them feel bad for something that happened before they were born, I lived in Germany when I was young and loved it and my Grandfather came to visit a few times. Now bare in mind he fought during WW2 and was a POW at Auschwitz and if he could say he loved the German people and it wasn't their fault and they were lied to there's hope for us all.
 
Hey guys,
Just listen this is getting waaaaay too political and is loosing it's magic. If I may say, you all have a point on this matter. People where interested about space as long as the differences between US and USSR existed. I recall going to the movies in 1996 for Star Trek: First Contact and it wasn't over crowded but I had to wait on the line to get inside my home town's big screen. Les than ten years later on Nemesis (2003), I was almost alone inside a movie theatre down-town Athens together with my brother because the movie just wasn't played anywhere else. That day I knew that it was really over, people lost their interest
Even, Carl Sagan admitted that one of the reasons that the well known 80's series Cosmos aired because people were starting to loose interest about space exploration after the Apollo 11 mission and the US government started to cut from NASA's annual budget so he wrote the book and created the series just to increase the interest of the people about space and help NASA with private fundings.
Not to mention about the rapidly decreasing sales of the space featured games on the PC game industry after 2000.
Bottom line, Elon Musk foresaw an increased market interest on electric automotive, space cargo and AI development sectors. I DO HOPE that he has foreseen them well because it's gonna take too much time for any goverment to reach any of the mile stones that SpaceX did with the Falcon program.
Sadly people are more interested about the new I Phone or Samsung equivalent than on what we witnessed a couple of days before.
 
Hey guys,
Just listen this is getting waaaaay too political and is loosing it's magic.

Sadly people are more interested about the new I Phone or Samsung equivalent than on what we witnessed a couple of days before.

You guys, you all need to stop crapping on one random unrelated thing at the end of your posts. :rolleyes: Cell phones don't detract from space travel. Rather, the popularity of smartphones drives the cutting edge of miniaturization of mobile CPUs, memory, wireless internet, etc. I mean, we're all in this for our shared love of technology and space travel. As long as you're not one of those stupid millennials! (or even worse, Gen Z!)
 
...I mean, we're all in this for our shared love of technology and space travel. As long as you're not one of those stupid millennials! (or even worse, Gen Z!)
Those are whom I was referring about. Thanks for the input!
 
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The funny thing is that everyone blinked and millennials turned from the butt of everyone's 'stupid kids' jokes into the hard working fiscally responsible young 30-somethings making up the rank and file of professional life. And now it repeats with the next younger generation...
 
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