Sorry for sounding like such a fanboy, but during my 40 years on this earth, I have never been more impressed with a human being.<p>The guy is pushing the envelope on perhaps the most difficult engineering/technological endeavor ever attempted by a private company - and he's making it look cool and futuristic.<p>As if that wasn't enough, he's doing this in two different industries simultaneously.<p>I'm not saying he can do no wrong, but I'm just flabbergasted that there are still so many armchair critics and naysayers when it comes to Elon Musk.
Interesting. It had quite the lean, And close to zero vertical velocity. Then it looks like it accelerated at the last second in an attempt to move sideways back the center of the barge.<p>I wonder if the top of the rocket was at or very near the center?<p>Also you can clearly see the landing legs deployed, jeez they look tiny.<p>Must just tweeted <i>"Next rocket landing on drone ship in 2 to 3 weeks w way more hydraulic fluid. At least it shd explode for a diff reason."</i><p><a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/556105370054053889" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/556105370054053889</a>
Looks like it did not come down vertically but at a slant, but they got the positioning better than I thought they would on this try. One thing to note is that it is from now on officially a very bad idea to piss off Elon Musk if he knows where you live, being able to hit stuff with this kind of accuracy using rockets from space is normally enough to get you placed on the 'axis of evil' list. Incredible precision.
That is awesome! I appears the stage has maybe 10 m/s horizontal velocity and less than that vertical, but at that angle I can see how difficult it would be for just engine gimballing to get get it vertical again. I wonder if the barge is equipped to record a downlink of telemetry from stage. Once it gets close enough you should be able to shoot over at least some data which the barge could presumably keep 'safe' in a blast protected storage system.
Could an aeronautics person kindly explain why it's so hard to get this thing to land as it's supposed to? I'm not being judgmental at all here; I am saying that as a software engineer with no aeronautics experience, I simply don't understand the problem. Assuming all of the sensors indicating tilt, altitude, etc. are accurate, the software portion coordinating where and how much thrust needs to deployed to keep it level and descending at an appropriate speed should be relatively straightforward to write. And yet, with at least dozens of undoubtedly brilliant people working on this very problem, the result is the world's most expensive fireworks show.
Cool video! Just what we've been waiting to see.<p>I wonder what actually exploded there? Part of the argument for why the landing was supposed to be relatively safe was that the stage would be mostly empty of fuel by the time that it landed, so there wouldn't be much to explode if something went wrong. So is that an explosion of the remaining fuel in the rocket, or something on deck?
I'm amazed it's taken this long for innovation to happen in rocketry. Here's an entire industry that -expects- your production model to explode and crash after one use. Literally anything that doesn't explode and crash is a step forward. And it's been this way for 50 years!
Wow, what an amazing feat to come this close. To think just ~100 years ago humans took flight for the first time. Now we are able to launch a rocket in orbit, then fly the first stage to land on a small platform floating in the middle of the ocean.
I'm annoyed by this trend of having posts with 0 context or analysis on the top of the frontpage. Yesterday we had a link to some bitcoin chart showing a sudden drop in price (why? I still don't know). A few days ago it was a gif of a flowchart for some brainfuck interpreter (I had to dig into the comments to find the link to the source code). And now... Vine?!<p>The problem with that kind of submissions (images, short videos...) is that they're quick to overtake more in depth articles because people upload it in seconds without 2nd thought. I don't want the front page of HN be overtaken by imgur posts, if you see what I mean.
I wonder what the cost savings to space there are for buying a trip for a satellite on a "used" booster. Also if SpaceX is recycling the 1st stage, I wonder if they have plans to "Recycle" the 2nd stage in orbit.
I feel if the 1st stage booster had an attitude control system toward the top like the BRAHMOS missile [1], the lean could've been corrected to at least have the rocket be upright when it impacted the platform. Although the choice to add an attitude control system would probably take up more space and add mass which is critical for a stage rocket.<p>[1] <a href="http://i.imgur.com/5RWkvem.gif" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/5RWkvem.gif</a>
On this video the trajectory seems a bit weird. It looks like the rocket does its approach slightly to the right and afar, and then when it gets closer it changes direction and goes towards the camera, more or less in the direction of its tilt. As if the rocket began to tilt only around the end to a point the engine could not compensate anymore except by adding a large horizontal acceleration.
What is the weight on the rocket? It seems like towers with something like cable lasso's would help with the final descent stabilizing by securing the top of the rocket, or weighted arms/blocks that box in the rocket during final. So it never has to 'land', just hover.
Can someone explain what the rocket was trying to do? Was it trying to correct itself to land vertically thrusters-first? I also don't understand how it got in that particular trajectory either from this vine.
love that they're trying something new and exciting.. you're gonna fail when you're going for it.. but at least someones going for it. looking forward to hyper loop.
Great video. Exploding rockets and failed attempts give plenty to talk about and get excited about.<p>But Spacex have already launched a rocket and landed it in a similar way as they are doing here.<p>Ok, so they are flying it somewhere else, GPS'ing, and landing it somewhere else.<p>I enjoyed the video but ... just seems like a small progression in the grand scheme of things.<p>Cool, but no cigar. This time.
So the rocket just explodes and the trash goes in the ocean? Thanks for polluting our oceans. Can I take all my household trash and just dump it in your living room?
HN when SpaceX screws up: "Wow, what an amazing job they've done learning from this mistake and moving forward!"<p>HN when NASA screws up: "Wow, this shows how government can't do anything right. They should privatize everything and outsource it to SpaceX."
SpaceX is certainly doing great things, but where was this vid a couple days ago?<p>When I first heard of the hard landing I jumped online to see the vid. But no vid appeared. Then I realized what was happening. A vid of a crashing rocket is never a good thing for a spacelaunch company. It's just bad PR. Thinking back, we don't see many vids from SpaceX that aren't unqualified successes.<p>They surely had this vid withing minutes, of not seconds of the landing attempt. But they delayed its release until the media and the public were educated sufficiently to understand that, despite the flames, this landing was not a failure.