
SpaceX launch webcast: Orbcomm-2 Mission [video] - clessg
http://spacex.com/webcast/
======
TeMPOraL
I join in congratulating SpaceX for this awesome achievement. It's like, holy
fuck, they landed the rocket AND deployed 11 satellites, all in a single
Pomodoro!

I also want to commend them for a few minor things:

\- a real-time stream from landing (as opposed to holding it and releasing
footage few days later, as before)

\- a real-time stream from satellite deployment, with a camera placed so that
we could see everything (as opposed to the typical low-quality stream of the
engine nozzle)

\- a launch timeline visible on the stream

This mission looked an order of magnitude better than anything they did
before. It's like, before they were just playing around, and now they're doing
serious business. Keep it up, SpaceX!

~~~
jerf
AIUI from /r/spacex last time, the reason we didn't have live video from the
barges is that they simply did not have live video from the barges. They
didn't have the bandwidth for it that far out to sea. If they could have
provided it, they presumably would have. After all, they released the video of
the Falcon Punch afterwards, and had this one blown up it would have done so
live.

But they really upped the PR game this time, that's for sure. I assume
somebody must have had a look at the viewer count numbers from the last few
and put 2 and 2 together on the opportunity they were missing out on. A nice
job of it overall.

~~~
aerovistae
LMAO "falcon punch"

~~~
jerf
Not mine, but irresistible.

Presumably the sting of the term is now _entirely_ gone. Nothing succeeds like
success.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Personally, the biggest laugh I had on /r/spacex was when the CRS-7 failure
study came up and they had to remove the word "strut" from the list of terms
that caused comments to be automatically put to moderation - it was banned
because of all the KSP jokes, but suddenly the rocket _really_ found itself in
need of moar struts.

~~~
creshal
Not more, just better.

~~~
stcredzero
Actually, not better. Just "Not worse." The struts that were manufactured to
spec were fine. The problem was with struts that weren't up to spec.

------
FiatLuxDave
So, I've lived within earshot of the Cape since 1985, and I'm pretty used to
hearing launches. Tonight, I had a new experience.

I was working on a signal distortion problem with a colleague when I heard the
rumble of the launch. "Rocket just launched", I said. He was on Google chat
with me and said, "It did?". He lives a few miles south of me and so he gets
the sound waves a few seconds later ;).

A couple of minutes later I did a double-take. "THAT's a new sound!". I've
heard rockets blow before, but I've never heard one come back to land.

Then I checked the internet to confirm what my ears had already told me.

Congrats to SpaceX and thank you for not landing it on my house!

------
ChuckMcM
This is so epically awesome that I feel like we orbited a human for the first
time or something. Bezos whining aside, its a huge deal to return 9 engines
from a workhorse booster back to the pad to be refurbed and re-used. If the
$5M each costs are correct, that is $45M in cost savings right there.

But perhaps more importantly its the first "first" for SpaceX which has not
been done by NASA or anyone else. Launch a payload _in to orbit_ and recover
the booster back to the launch site. The SRBs from the shuttle were
essentially shell refurbs, SpaceShip 1 and Blue Origin sub-orbital hops. This
was, in my estimation, the real deal. It has to be an amazing feeling being on
the team that made this possible. Congratulations, that is one way to write
yourself into the history books.

Edit: I was so excited I couldn't even multiply 9 by 5!

~~~
rebootthesystem
The whole Bezos/BlueOrigin thing is kind of sad. They are nowhere near a
"club" with SpaceX.

One of the huge differences (and there are many) is that Falcon 9 was doing
6,000 Km/hr (~4,000 mi/hr) when the first stage separated and turned around to
come back.

The path was not straight up, but rather one to launch the second stage into
orbital flight (which reached 26,000 Km/hr and 600 miles of altitude).

Then Falcon9's first stage FLEW a curved return path; fired three engines to
slow down from holy-crap miles-per-hour, shut them down and then, at exactly
the right moment in time, fired one engine to land.

The Bezos rocket went straight up to zero velocity and came straight back
down.

It's like throwing a bottle straight up in the air compared to throwing one in
a parabolic path to the top of the Empire State building and having that
bottle then turn around, fly that same parabolic path to return and land at
your feet.

Not sure why Bezos feels the need to try to imply his effort (which IS
significant) is on the same league as SpaceX other than to potentially try to
leverage the fabricated parity for publicity and external funding.

~~~
codeonfire
Bezos and Musk should NOT be on twitter for their sake. Imagine for a few
decades no one tells you "no" or "you're wrong" and you have thousands of
peons to kick around. Megalomania is 100% going to happen. Best just contain
that behind closed doors.

~~~
golergka
Have you beenin twitter? There's plenty of people there, ready not only to
tell you that you're wrong, but explain why and how in great excruciating
detail

~~~
coldpie
The only thing that can be explained on Twitter in excruciating detail is its
obnoxiously short character limit resulting in no possibili

------
lvs
Stuck the landing! Congratulations! 10/10\. Would land again.

~~~
kibwen
Completely amazing! I'm sure I heard a "holy shit" or two there in the
audience. :)

EDIT: One question for the rocket scientists here: exactly _how_ reusable do
they expect these returned first stage rockets to be? What is the process of
certifying that a returned rocket is fit to fly, and what components are most
likely to need repairing/replacing with each launch?

~~~
dmoy
A follow-up question to that would be - how much $$ do you save per launch by
reusing the first stage?

~~~
InclinedPlane
Lots.

There's really not a lot of costs that can add up for reuse of these stages.
It'll require a bit of cleaning up, a few new bits and pieces replaced and
added, and a lot of inspection work. But most of the cost of the stage is in
manufacturing the engines and tanks, so it should add up to enormous savings,
even if it's relatively costly to reuse each stage compared to the theoretical
limits.

Edit: the flip-side is that the reliability and robustness improvements from
reusability may be as big a win as cost. Currently it costs tens of millions
of dollars to launch a rocket to orbit, which means it's almost never done
except as part of a paid launch. Moreover, despite the seemingly high number
of launches very few of those launches represent expanding the test-envelope
much, every single launch is typically straight down the middle of the
performance envelope, to maximize the chance of success. That results in
learning very little about these vehicles despite how much they've been flown.
By introducing reuse and dropping the cost of flight it may become possible to
do real test programs, which would make it possible to determine the flight
envelope characteristics of vehicles and help lead to improving designs over
time.

~~~
jacquesm
And with the amount of redundancy built in they might even go with 'acceptable
loss' in terms of engines that cut out early in flight. Which makes you wonder
how many engines they could lose and still complete a mission.

~~~
mikeash
Falcon 9 is designed to withstand losing one engine and still make it to
orbit.

Reusability makes it more interesting. There's a lot of extra fuel on board
now which could be used to make up for lost engines if you're willing to throw
away the first stage.

------
jacquesm
AMAZING THEY DID IT :)

hah! Tears in my eyes here this is absolutely incredible to watch.

I stayed up for this, I hope I didn't wake up the neighbours and it will take
days to wipe the grin of my face.

~~~
enraged_camel
We just witnessed a major moment in history. Unbelievable.

edit: haha, nice downvote, whoever it was. :)

~~~
jacquesm
Biggest step since man on the moon for me. Really, the cost of access to space
just went down the biggest step since we started making rockets.

~~~
MaulingMonkey
We've reached some amazing heights since then - the flyby of Pluto,
intercepting 67P/C-G - but I have to agree. It might not be the biggest step
up - but it sure seems like the biggest step _forwards_.

Government space missions are limited by taxpayer interest/funding, and the
high cost of access to space has mostly limited commercial interest to things
like communication and surveying satellites. I'm really looking forward to
what new opportunities open up in both spaces when we can do so much more for
the same cost.

~~~
mikeash
I called this arguably the biggest thing in space travel since 1969. I was
thinking about those remarkable missions to Pluto and such, and I really think
this is a whole different level. It's a multiplier.

Those missions are remarkable partly because they're amazing firsts, and
partly because of what they've been able to accomplish with huge limitations
and cost restrictions. They're amazing because of finesse, and if this whole
reusability thing works out, you'll be able to brute force them instead.
Visiting a comet is amazing. Making launches so cheap that it becomes
practical to visit fifty comets would be astounding.

It's a bit like the invention of the steamship. It doesn't take you anywhere
new. Sailing ships got the job done. But it transformed the world just the
same.

------
planckscnst

         "Congrats @SpaceX on landing Falcon's suborbital booster stage. Welcome to the club!"
    

Oy... someone needs to tell Bezos it's a whole different scale than what he
did.

[https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/679116636310360067](https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/679116636310360067)

~~~
TeMPOraL
I have a vague feeling he's being snide to pay Elon back for those mildly
snarky tweets back when Blue Origin landed their rocket.

EDIT:

Musk: "Congrats to Jeff Bezos and the BO team for achieving VTOL on their
booster"

Musk: "It is, however, important to clear up the difference between "space"
and "orbit", as described well by [https://what-
if.xkcd.com/58/"](https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/")

[http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/24/news/companies/elon-musk-
jef...](http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/24/news/companies/elon-musk-jeff-bezos-
twitter-fight-blue-origin/)

EDIT2:

NASAWatch: "Gee Jeff @SpaceX just put a bunch of stuff into orbit - again.
Something you have yet to figure out how to do."

[https://twitter.com/NASAWatch/status/679126712295120896](https://twitter.com/NASAWatch/status/679126712295120896)

I'm not sure if they're all joking around, or are there serious ego issues at
play here.

~~~
m_mueller
Randall must feel pretty snide when even Elon is referencing his comics..

~~~
nitrogen
Gates, too. XKCD has arrived, even if the world doesn't know it yet.

~~~
nitrogen
So it's very strange to me that this comment made it all the way to -2. What
makes this comment about an old billionaire liking XKCD different from the
parent comment about a new billionaire also liking XKCD?

This is not a complaint; inquiring minds want to know.

------
zaroth
In a single moment, SpaceX earns itself more than $50 million dollars, right?
That's a big bonus for everyone who made this possible and some well earned
time off, and then back to work changing the world!

So from what I've read, the returns are immense; the amount of learning they
can do from examining their own rocket is the real initial treasure. Their
rocket design should advance considerably based on this trove, and I suppose
the source of many papers, publications, and public-sourced patents. Reusable
rockets seems not quite a glorious enough term? There's a massive dividend any
time this actually works, and imagining the future of this tech is joyous.

We can guess how much this will bring down the cost. How much will it bring
down the price? Say it's just following the supply/demand curve to get more
customers. If landing was reliable and the rockets were durable, what would it
really take to _scale_? If you actually got 10 of these going full-duty. How
close can you back-to-back launches? The _scale_ of that operation in terms of
engineers to manage the workload... The return-on-automation (in other words,
software) is immense the first few billion dollars you spend on it. That means
they need to hire a fuck-ton of very good developers. Cool!

But what if it's more of a binary market and the only new customers are only
at a _much_ lower price point? In that case it's just serving the existing
market at much higher margin. I believe this will make space more accessible
-- cost savings ultimately flow through.

BTW, one of the advantages of pledging your patents for free use is you can
really show off _the right way to write a patent_. The whole point is forcing
disclosure in return for a benefit, so now make that disclosure top-notch. In
theory, what if patent applications were examined by the top-of-the-field
peers and only real advancements in the field which were fully and properly
documented by the patent would be granted? I hope not all software patents are
evil. The "provisional patent" is an interesting form of self-publication at
least, but it does create a pesky 1-year ticking clock.

As a talent/recruiting event this is pretty much about as good as it gets.

~~~
lutorm
I guess this would be a good place to point out that we _are_ hiring! :-)

[http://www.spacex.com/careers](http://www.spacex.com/careers)

~~~
sakian
Wish I could. As a Canadian though seems ITAR would block me.

~~~
hughes
Don't let it stop you from applying. It might stop them from hiring you, but
let them decide that.

Seriously, if a position interests you, apply. There have been plenty of ITAR
exceptions.

------
tempestn
This is so exciting. Not quite a moon landing, but still feels like watching a
significant moment in history.

Does anyone know what specifically changed to allow a landing attempt on land
as opposed to barge? Was it just that they gained enough confidence with the
barges that they would at least be able to hit the target (and not crash into
a building or something), or was some regulatory clearance received or
something? Or something about this launch (ie lighter payload?) made a return
to land feasible?

~~~
gozur88
It was three things. They had to get multiple government agencies to approve
the landing pad and plan. They had to have a relatively light payload. And
they had to "deep freeze" the fuel to squeeze in enough for a return.

I suspect even as this becomes routine most landings will still be on the
barge. Every ounce of fuel you use to reverse your direction is an ounce you
could have put toward a larger payload.

~~~
baq
OTOH sometimes the payload just isn't that big.

------
WJW
They really poured on the PR, lots of people going "Hi, I'm lead mechanical
engineer for this or that" and then delivering a perfect speech that would
have taken a lot of prectice to deliver to a camera as smoothly like that.

It's nice to see a lot of the lessons from media training. :D

~~~
MicroBerto
If you're referring to Trip's speech (guy with sunglasses and beard), that's
one of my buddies and that's exactly what he's like. He's extremely personable
and likely did that with very few takes.

I used to sell test equipment and software to SpaceX's launch ops, avionics,
and calibration crews, starting between launches 2 and 3. It was touch and go
back in those days. These guys have worked their tails off for over a decade
and deserve every bit of congratulations they receive.

Walking into the SpaceX facility in Hawthorne was always a humbling
experience. Instant _" I am the dumbest person in this room"_ syndrome.

Congrats guys!!

------
manaskarekar
Youtube link for people for whom livestream videos won't work. (I believe the
embedded player is livestream).

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5bTbVbe4e4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5bTbVbe4e4)

~~~
ctdonath
Thanks! Got a link to the replay for those of us tuning in late?

~~~
TeMPOraL
If you look carefully at the YouTube live streams, you'll notice you can
scroll them back all the way to the beginning - the "live" part is always at
the very end :).

EDIT: and here's just the landing itself:
[http://www.gfycat.com/WeepyCelebratedAfricanaugurbuzzard](http://www.gfycat.com/WeepyCelebratedAfricanaugurbuzzard).

------
pajop
Falcon 9 First Stage Landing - view from helicopter
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCBE8ocOkAQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCBE8ocOkAQ)

~~~
lutorm
This long-exposure image is pretty awesome too:
[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/12/spacex...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/12/spacex-
orbital-rocket-lands-florida-elon-musk/421584/)

------
iamcreasy
Elon Musk posted an article "BACKGROUND ON TONIGHT'S LAUNCH" on SpaceX's
website 15 minutes before the launch.

Link : [http://www.spacex.com/news/2015/12/21/background-tonights-
la...](http://www.spacex.com/news/2015/12/21/background-tonights-launch)

------
cmsmith
I must have missed it, but can anyone explain why Orbcomm wants 11 satellites
in the same orbit? The stage 2 engine isn't firing in between letting the
satellites go.

~~~
jacquesm
Leo, they are so low they don't cover a whole lot of territory. The oribits
may be at slightly different altitudes simply because of the inertia of the
second stage, I really should have monitored that altitude indicator during
the releases, were they identical?

~~~
cmsmith
Maybe there was a secondary thruster somewhere to provide some separation.

I went back and recorded the release speed (km/hr), altitude (km) for each
drop:

25960 626

25954 627

25950 628

25944 630

25937 632

25935 632

A circular orbit at that height is about 29000 km around; 25 km/hour of
difference between release 1 and 6 would give them a separation of 6 degrees
longitude/day, or ~50 days until the faster satellites 'lap' the slowest one.

Not any sort of rocket scientist, but I gather the strategy with these kind of
LEO satellites is to just throw a pile of them up there semi-randomly, and
count on at least one being in the neighborhood when you want to talk to it.

edit: Last paragraph is wrong. See my comment two levels down for the answer.

~~~
jacquesm
The satellites themselves usually have small thrusters but I'm not sure what
kind of orbital change the can effect, usually they are there for detailed
maneuvering and to boost the satellite to a slightly higher orbit as it
decays. When it runs out of fuel it dies so you'd try to use as little of that
as possible during launch.

~~~
cmsmith
>A hydrazine propulsion system is installed on the spacecraft for orbit
adjustment maneuvers and orbit maintenance providing a delta-v budget of more
than 100 meters per second for each satellite.

>Because OG2 satellites are launched in groups of several spacecraft, they
require propulsion systems to place the satellite into different nodal planes
to begin operations.

There's the answer, courtesy Orbcomm.

~~~
jacquesm
Neat :) So they do their own placement. Nasty stuff, hydrazine. F16's use it
as emergency fuel.

~~~
TeMPOraL
But you can use it to grow space potatoes! :).

~~~
JabavuAdams
After it chemically burns and then ignites you, yes.

------
hackuser
What changed that made this cost-effective?

1) The companies pursuing this, SpaceX, Blue Orgin, etc., can't be the first
to think of it. If the first stage accounts for 75% of the cost of a launch,
as one article I read says, I'm sure many have considered, going back to the
first launches decades ago, how to reuse it.

2) The technology to land rockets vertically has existed for a long time,
going back to the lunar lander at least.

~~~
dbh937
"New-space" aerospace companies are operating on a different funding framework
from the old aerospace juggernauts. Instead of cost-plus funding that came
almost solely from the government and which allowed rockets like ULA's Delta
IV and Atlas V to stay competitive in the $300-400 million range without
having to find ways to cut costs. SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Orbital Sciences,
as well as other new companies, have to innovate in order to make their
businesses feasible.

Additionally, Blue Origin and SpaceX have different goals from traditional
aerospace firms that requires them to drive costs down below what a government
would require. Blue Origin want to offer rides to space to tourists; for that,
their costs need to be low enough for a person to buy a ticket. SpaceX wants
to land their rockets on Mars, and then take off again. Being able to land the
first stage of the Falcon 9 allows them to perfect the landing and reuse of
rockets on Earth, before taking that knowledge to Mars.

~~~
hackuser
Thanks. I've heard the story but I haven't seen evidence of it, it smells too
much like a marketing story (we're young and exciting, those old people are
boring and stuck in the past), and it seems very unlikely: I don't buy that
the 'old' companies wouldn't want to reduce their costs by 75%, greatly
increasing demand for their very expensive service, greatly increasing their
bottom line - even in a cost-plus arrangement.

Usually changes like this result from a technical or economic development.

~~~
robotresearcher
So why didn't the old companies do it? They have the same access to technical
and financial expertise as anyone, and deep pockets.

~~~
lmm
"Cost-plus" funding means they didn't have any incentive to reduce costs. The
thing that got them money was keeping politicians onside, so it was more
important to e.g. provide jobs in relevant states.

~~~
robotresearcher
I agree totally. I was responding to the parent who was challenging cost-plus
as an explanation for Big-Co failing to bring down costs.

------
crystalmeph
Are they planning on using this recovered first stage for a reusability test,
or are they going to destructively examine it to see how all the components
held up?

~~~
ChuckMcM
First they get to recover all the video that they didn't get in the other
stages :-) This one lands with its cameras and flash chips intact. If I were
them I would tear it apart, learn from it, reassemble it, and then display it.

Interest question about safeing it once it is landed. You can't just dump
excess liquid oxygen are you'll end up starting fires. Fortunately it isn't
like the shuttle which had Hydrazine in the OMS tanks that had to be managed
post landing.

I can't wait until they land one in the daylight, and on the west coast so I
can watch in person.

~~~
zardo
I think they just let the O2 boil off. But they do have some hypergolic
ignition fluids to deal with.

------
kevinqi
Awesome alternate angle:
[https://vine.co/v/iKPTghqF0LA](https://vine.co/v/iKPTghqF0LA)

------
XorNot
Next big milestone will be when they launch with a reused first stage.

------
Rezo
I think it's really impressive how SpaceX continues to iterate on the engine
and rocket designs. This is the third major revision of the Falcon 9 engine
since 2010, each time increasing the thrust and payload to orbit significantly
even while operating a commercial launch service. I feel that this kind of
willingness to continuously improve and push the envelope is what really sets
SpaceX apart from the incumbents. Speed of iteration beats quality of
iteration and all that.

It's quite interesting that their biggest competitor ULA is having to rely on
tiny Blue Origin to develop a replacement for the Russian RD-180 that ULA uses
on their big money maker Atlas V.

------
foxylad
Anyone know how accurate the first-stage landing was? Obviously delta v is
most important, but hitting the bullseye would just top off the
accomplishment.

~~~
Narishma
This accurate: [https://vine.co/v/iKPTghqF0LA](https://vine.co/v/iKPTghqF0LA)

------
iamwil
What was all the stuff shooting by when they were deploying the satellites?
Was that space debris? If it is, I'm surprised how common it is, and how more
satellites don't get shot down so often.

------
greglindahl
On the agenda:

First flight since the failure on June 28

Attempt to land 1st stage on land near the launch site

First flight of an upgraded rocket

~~~
c-slice
An image of the landing pad.
[https://imgur.com/4tjcdRM](https://imgur.com/4tjcdRM)

What's interesting too is that the descent path of the rocket has an engine
failure trajectory that will ensure the rocket will fall into the ocean if a
failure occurs during the powered descent.

~~~
fixermark
That's a function as much of physics and geography as planning, and one of the
reasons Cape Canaveral exists---there's a lot of Atlantic Ocean in which to
ditch a failing spacecraft on either the launch or landing vectors.

There's a reason the United States' launch facilities are primarily along the
east coast of the country.

------
Animats
So now how do they secure the booster they landed? Do they have some kind of
truck mounted gantry they move into position? There didn't seem to be anything
like that near the landing pad. They may want to let the engines cool and any
excess propellant boil off before they move in, but they have to have
something to hold it, tilt it down to horizontal, and carry it off.

~~~
JshWright
There is a crane nearby.

The first stage is pretty stable though. The engines are by far the heaviest
part, and they're at the very bottom. The legs are also a fairly wide base.

EDIT: On rewatching the broadcast, "Procedure 11.100, section 3" is what they
do (I have no idea what that is, but it's what the LD told the landing pad
crew to "proceed with")

~~~
Animats
Oh, of course; it's empty now. Most of the mass was fuel, and that's gone. Now
most of the mass is at the bottom.

------
frabcus
Short video of just the landing:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B6oiLNyKKI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B6oiLNyKKI)

(Becomes clear 25~ seconds in)

------
gansai56
In case you missed, this is the background on tonight's launch:

[http://www.spacex.com/news/2015/12/21/background-tonights-
la...](http://www.spacex.com/news/2015/12/21/background-tonights-launch)

------
vankap
Congratulations to everyone at SpaceX. This is a proud moment for all of you.
And thank you for giving us the chance to watch this LIVE.

------
JabavuAdams
In the video of the fairing adapter deploying the satellites, there's some
kind of white highlight or light-source in the upper-left part of the frame.
What was that?

Also, what happens to the mass-adapter (i.e. the balancing 12th non-
satellite)?

~~~
lutorm
The entire second stage, including the payload adapter, did a deorbit burn
after deployment, to avoid creating space debris.

------
DavidSJ
Photo just prior to landing:
[https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/679150903371304960](https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/679150903371304960)

------
aidos
Congratulations to team at SpaceX! There are going to be a lot of happy people
in that building tonight.

------
InclinedPlane
Direct youtube link:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5bTbVbe4e4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5bTbVbe4e4)

------
deadowl
I guess now the question is whether they can do it the majority of the time.

~~~
jchoong
yeah.. the beauty of the rocket cost asymmetry means they only need to do it
'sometimes' and not all the time to drastically reduce launch costs. (75% of
cost is in the first stage, fuel costs are 0.3%)

------
sqldba
I just wanted to ask, what kind of technology or science understanding do they
have now which was required to make this happen now rather than X years ago?

(Also, is it fair to say that while this is an achievement, it is only more-so
when they can reliably repeat it; I mean it's not exactly safe yet for people,
who knows what a gust of wind could do?)

~~~
chiph
Not a rocket scientist, but I expect it was the increase in cheap computing
power, and 3-D printing of space-flight rated metal parts.

------
xvf33
What's with all the fluff videos? Can we have a channel with just a comms
feed?

T-4 minutes and still zero actual mission audio...

~~~
AdamTReineke
I really appreciate it. If I had kids, this would be a great feed to watch
with them, because it covers a lot of the how and why of what happens.

~~~
xvf33
Give people a choice maybe? Nothing wrong having the mainstream feed but I
would appreciate an alternative.

------
Meerax
youtube link for the recap
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5bTbVbe4e4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5bTbVbe4e4)

------
jacquesm
Lots of eggs in this basket.

~~~
Intermernet
Yay! Successful egg deployment, as well as perfect basket landing :-)

I can't stop smiling!

~~~
jacquesm
Hehe, me neither. This will be with me for days if not longer. I feel really
terribly lucky. When I was 4 my dad got me out of bed to watch the moonshot
and the landing, now many years later I get to watch the next real step in the
humans-in-space saga.

------
ggonweb
Trying to land a Rocket — the SpaceX Reusable Rocket Story
[https://medium.com/lazy-collections/trying-to-land-a-
rocket-...](https://medium.com/lazy-collections/trying-to-land-a-rocket-the-
story-b73fadb430ef)

~~~
hackuser
This also shows several other attempts (and successs): Armadillo in 2010,
United Launch Alliance, and Blue Orgin, plus rocket planes much earlier.

------
gvb
Interesting - something flaming separated from the first stage as it landed.
You can see it separate, hit the ground, and burn as the landing completes.

[https://youtu.be/O5bTbVbe4e4?t=2518](https://youtu.be/O5bTbVbe4e4?t=2518)

~~~
lvs
I don't see what you're seeing. There are lights surrounding the landing pad.
Are you talking about those?

~~~
gvb
Could be a figment of my imagination - a normal flaring of the rocket flame +
a light.

------
sneak
Prediction: this is the most important milestone in the development of the
Earth's IP network since I was born in the early 80s.

I can't wait for this to fuck over Comcast and every other last-mile monopoly
acting like jerks to their customers.

~~~
tempestn
I would love to see that happen. Low earth orbit solves the latency problem
with satellites, and reusable first stages (as well as potentially piggy-
backing on other launches) may solve the cost problem. What about space on the
wireless spectrum though? My understanding is that it's pretty full. It seems
like SpaceX will either need to use something completely different (like laser
transmission) or make a deal for use of some of the spectrum.

------
revelation
This is the first launch since the SpaceX rocket went kaboom [1] and they will
be attempting a landing.

1:
[https://youtu.be/PuNymhcTtSQ?t=3m15s](https://youtu.be/PuNymhcTtSQ?t=3m15s)

~~~
Animats
This time, with a much bigger landing area. The maneuvering to land on their
landing barge was kind of extreme the last time they tried it.

~~~
revelation
Thank you, I didn't know they had upgraded. I still remember the tiny RCS
thruster trying to get the rocket upright from the last landing...

~~~
TeMPOraL
It was really Scott Manley landing it.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRsufOoNOIQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRsufOoNOIQ)

;).

------
detritus
An amazing achievement, and one I'm sorry to have missed watching live as I
was AFK.

However, having watched this just now, I could have really done without all
the bro-nerd whooping and faux prime time personality-presentation. The
latter's awkward and naff and just got in the way for me - the former was
simply irritating in the extreme.

Maybe I'm getting old, but I'd rather have a bit of restraint and less of the
infantile gesticulation and cursing in the background where this sort of
thing's concerned.

 _grumble_

Anyway, onwards and upwards (and back again), SpaceX!

~~~
harshreality
It's not just you. This is my take on it: However nerve-racking the launch and
first stage recovery were, this wasn't a sports event, and cannot support that
kind of hyper-enthusiastic presentation style without looking staged and
histrionic. Sports presentations like that work because there are lots of fans
cheering wildly in the background, and sports might be unique in their license
to evoke extreme enthusiasm without being seen as bizarre.

I'm sure some people are less bothered by it than we are, though.

~~~
simonh
'presentation style'. Are you suggesting the employee audience reaction was
staged and orchestrated, and not just spontaneous?

~~~
detritus
No, I mean the three mugs up front yakking away distractingly.

If I were to make a suggestion, it would be to house the loud employees in a
large sound-proof booth, but I suspect that would only lead to yet more
downvotes here...

------
codecamper
How far are we now from forming Voltron?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZZv5Z2Iz_s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZZv5Z2Iz_s)

I'm serious!

------
PhilWright
If SpaceX is so much cheaper than everyone else, how come they launch so
infrequently. Seems like they should be launching every month but they are
nowhere near that.

~~~
FeepingCreature
They actually used to be near that, but the accident grounded them for half a
year.

Ultimately they're limited by available manpower and production capacity.

------
notjustanymike
Planetary landing is so hot this year! We've got Space Engineers, Elite:
Dangerous, Star Citizen, and now SpaceX!

~~~
TeMPOraL
Don't forget about the Kerbal Space Program!

(And if you're interested, search YouTube for many, _many_ attempts to
simulate what SpaceX did in KSP, including barge landing attempts.)

------
Perceptes
Amazing! Also an incredible joy to watch is the recent rocket landing from
Blue Origin, and the reaction of the engineers who built it as they watch it
happen:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igEWYbnoHc4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igEWYbnoHc4)

------
lovelettr
I live on the south end of Merritt Island, FL (~25 miles from the launch
complex) and the sudden noise reminded me I wanted to watch this! For a
second, based on the sound, I thought it may have catastrophically failed
until I caught the live stream and people cheering.

Are there any replay videos?

~~~
yincrash
Replay of just the landing, the HN link has the full video.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B6oiLNyKKI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B6oiLNyKKI)

------
47
What happens to 2nd stage after payload separation? Does it become space junk?

~~~
ansible
It will be de-orbited and dropped into the Pacific ocean. Reusing it is a
bigger challenge for later.

------
ranman
[http://blog.ranman.org/what-my-first-spacex-launch-felt-
like...](http://blog.ranman.org/what-my-first-spacex-launch-felt-like/)

------
adomanico
Really impressive

More interesting stuff on the Falcon 9 rocket:
[http://www.spacex.com/falcon9](http://www.spacex.com/falcon9)

------
jcadam
Just saw it -- beautiful, I love night launches. I live about 20 miles south
of the Cape, so I just have to step outside onto my front lawn and face north
:)

------
port6667
wow holyshit that booster thing just landed perfectly!

------
jpt4
A FIRST Robotics Competition event writ large.

------
jrobn
Collective nerdgasm at 31:00 minutes into the video. The energy in the room is
crazy. A lot of proud people at that moment.

------
k__
I feel a bit like in this StarTrek movie, where they meet the guy who made the
first warp rocket.

------
ColinWright
They landed the first stage!

------
chrismartin
Saw it in the sky from Northern FL! Glad the first stage came back down.

------
hyperpallium
_I bet I could even take this baby up again!_

------
mstade
Awesome, now do it again. And again. And again...

------
msandford
Thanks very, very much to whoever posted this!

------
Allamaprabhu
SpaceX employee are allowed to comment on HN?

------
manaskarekar
Who would have thought landing on Earth could be as exciting, if not more,
than landing elsewhere in the Universe?

------
hackuser
I came here to learn something about the mission, but sadly there is almost no
content in this discussion.

------
elmar
SpaceX, If NASA can do it, so can we! It ain't rocket science.

~~~
elmar
I just love how SpaceX is disrupting probably one of the most difficult
markets in the world.

------
nate_martin
Not sure if the "USA" chant after the first stage landed was warranted.

~~~
lolwutf
It's a private company based in the USA, contributing to the advancement of
USA's technology (largely, NASA). I think it was warranted.

~~~
tensor
Many of us in other countries wouldn't think of chanting our countries name. I
know I generally think of my work as "part of humanity" not for my country
necessarily. The US is particularly nationalistic compared to others, which
can be off putting for non-americans.

~~~
noir-york
> Many of us in other countries wouldn't think of chanting our countries name

Unless you're German, than that statement is almost certainly false. And even
Germany is changing.

Your statement most likely reveals more about your political leanings then the
levels of nationalistic fervour in different countries.

~~~
alkonaut
> Unless you're German, than that statement is almost certainly false.

What? Imagine a Scandinavian or a Briton chanting their countries names in any
other place than a sporting event (with an opposing country). It just doesn't
happen.

~~~
yitchelle
The only other country I can think of is the Australians. They would chant the
"Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi! oi! oi!" even at a pub having a beer in the
afternoon.

------
slem
Awesome!

------
drudru11
Great engineering!!!!

------
obilgic
so 0-60 is 10 seconds? I blame space/astronaut movies.

------
dantheman
AMAZING! CONGRATS SPACEX!

------
jostmey
Amazing.

So how high does the first stage fly?

------
lance26
They did it!

------
lance26
They did it!!

------
ORioN63
It's landing!!!

~~~
ORioN63
It landed!!

------
fbbbbb
They landed it!!

------
ulam2
This is awesome! Congratulations for landing the booster stage safely.

------
agumonkey
It was a pretty "hectic" second from the burn in the sky to standing still.

Epic.

------
guelo
This makes no sense to me. If you want to recover the rockets why not use
parachutes? Guiding a parachute down, maybe with the help of some propellers,
has got to be easier and more reliable than this.

~~~
taroth
Precision landings

[http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/7949/why-does-
the-s...](http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/7949/why-does-the-spacex-
reusable-launcher-use-vertical-rather-than-horizontal-landin)

------
mempko
Elon should thank the American people. This achievement was financed by us and
wouldn't be possible without the forward looking NASA program.

So before we all thank Elon for taking our money, let's pat our selves on the
back.

Really we should thank the amazing spacex engineers, who worked tirelessly.
Not just Elon. Sure he worked hard too, but not much more than anyone else at
spacex

I'm just tired of the Elon worship. Nobody acknowledges the amazing people who
actually made this happen. As an engineer it pisses me off. Sorry if this is
an unpopular opinion.

~~~
bcook
Elon Musk has already been quoted as saying that the United States is "the
greatest country that has ever existed on Earth".

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Nationalism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Nationalism)

~~~
mempko
I am not complaining about Elon Musk. I'm complaining about the people worship
I am reading all over the internet whenever he makes the news. I am
complaining about you and me.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I don't think it is worship so much as it is respect. While its true engineers
did the work there is ample evidence that the exact same team can have very
different outcomes with different leadership. This is shown again and again in
sports where one year the team does poorly, but a new coach or manager can get
that same group of men into the playoffs. Same guys, different leader.

That is true of engineers as well, I've met engineers who, under a great
manager, have achieved results that they themselves didn't think they could
achieve. And I've known engineers who were superstars and unable to perform
well at all under poor management.

The point is you need both, the talent to do the work and the leadership to
inspire the talent to do their _best_ work. Without both you don't make the
playoffs and you don't advance the state of the art in rockets.

~~~
mempko
Imagine this scenario. Musk is fired from his leadership role and is moved to
the mail department, where he sorts mail. He is the best mail sorter in the
group. Does he deserve the same respect? His influence is given by the
position as leader, not any individual quality he may have. It doesn't take a
great imagination to think of other possible organizational forms that don't
disproportionately give one person influence and unjust praise.

~~~
simonh
Lets say we had taken 1000 random people off the street in 2002 and put them
in charge of a new space launch company with equal funding to SpaceX. How many
of them do you think are likely to have achieved the same success SpaceX has?

To put it another way, if Elon Musk hadn't founded SpaceX in 2002, how many of
the engineers currently working there would right now be celebrating working
at a company having successfully recovered a first stage from an orbital
rocket?

Let's try looking at it from a third angle. Lets suppose a random employee
other then Elon Musk had been unable to join the company during it's history
and had to be replaced with another job candidate. What are the chances such a
substitution would have prevented SpaceX from achieving a stage recovery?

Finally, I'll address your proposed scenario directly. How likely is it that
having the wrong mail man in that position would lead to the failure of the
company? In contrast, what are the chances that having the wrong CEO might
lead to the failure of the company? I can imagine Elon Musk might make a
pretty decent mailman. But if we took the best mailman in the country and put
him or her in charge of SpaceX, do you think that would be likely to have a
positive or negative effect on the prospects of the company?

~~~
mempko
You are precisely correct. Replacing Musk with someone else would lead to
bigger changes than replacing the mailman.

But Why? It has nothing to do with Musk but everything to do with
organizational form. He has an invention at his disposal called "Role of CEO".
It is a magical invention that gives you the power to control what thousands
of people do everyday. A mailman doesn't have this invention and obviously
won't be able to decide what thousands of people do everyday.

There is nothing magical about Musk here. Since so few people get a chance at
being CEO, it is hard to say if most people would be good or bad at it. And it
is also hard to say how hard the work really is.

