Spacex complete's historic launch by putting first stage back on land

[Agent181]

They did it, I won the bet haha I mean wut ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Sammael]

source:

 

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/12/by-making-a-historic-landing-spacex-launches-new-age-of-spaceflight/

 

 

 

 

SpaceX did it. On Monday night the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket soared into space, separated from the second stage, and then made a guided flight back to a landing site in Florida. The historic flight marked the beginning of the orbital economy by promising a future of dramatically lower launch costs.

The company had twice tried to land on an autonomous drone ship. The first time the rocket hit too hard and exploded on impact. The second attempt again landed slightly too hard, breaking two of its legs and tipping over. The third attempt, at a newly designated landing site less than a mile from SpaceX's processing facilities in Florida, looked almost too easy on terra firma.

"I wasn't at all confident that we would succeed, but I'm really glad of it," Musk said in a teleconference Monday night, in response to a question from Ars. "It's been 13 years since SpaceX was started. We've had a lot of close calls. I think people here are overjoyed."

...

 

 

 

 

http://www.spacex.com/webcast/

 

Skip to 32m10s to see the moment in the cast.

 

 

Congratulations guys, I am excited for them.

 

 

From Helicopter:

 

 

Edited: to appease posting inquisitors

[Serin]

The future looks pretty damn cool right now!
Massive congrats to SpaceX.

[FireJack]

Is there any way I can change the title so its more up to date? Something like "Spacex completes historic launch by putting first stage back on land" or something.

[StackUnderflow]

It's good news for them and their NASA contract, but it's kind of sad that state of the art space tech is privatized and not in the public sector.

[givingtnt]

http://www.spacex.com/webcast/

 

Skip to 32m10s to see the moment in the cast.

 

 

Congratulations guys, I am excited for them.

retoast.  and I guess you put as much work in the thread as the other guy

so much for such an important event in the space industry.. how sad

[Nowak]

Is there any way I can change the title so its more up to date? Something like "Spacex completes historic launch by putting first stage back on land" or something.

Edit the original post, then choose the "Use Full Editor" option.

[Khajiit Dealer]

It's good news for them and their NASA contract, but it's kind of sad that state of the art space tech is privatized and not in the public sector.

 

I actually think it's better for companies to run space exploration instead of our government. Less of my tax money being spent. 

[StackUnderflow]

I actually think it's better for companies to run space exploration instead of our government. Less of my tax money being spent. 

 

Problem with that is space exploration (any exploration, look at spain's sponsorship of exploration into the New World, Chris Columbus raised a Spanish flag, not an Italian flag) would yield new technologies and innovations. With the broken patenting system we have, do you really want the next GPS, air conditioner, LED, heart valve, or any of these inventions (https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2008/tech_benefits.html) to be owned by a single company?

 

Space exploration has a MASSIVE return on investment, as NdT said, entire industries are born because of it, even though we did it for the wrong reasons (cold war with Russians). That return will either be for the people, or for the private companies.

[givingtnt]

I actually think it's better for companies to run space exploration instead of our government. Less of my tax money being spent. 

pppft. ok then the us should have a private millitary.

because we all know where that money goes

[Khajiit Dealer]

Problem with that is space exploration (any exploration, look at spain's sponsorship of exploration into the New World, Chris Columbus raised a Spanish flag, not an Italian flag) would yield new technologies and innovations. With the broken patenting system we have, do you really want the next GPS, air conditioner, LED, heart valve, or any of these inventions (https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2008/tech_benefits.html) to be owned by a single company?

 

Space exploration has a MASSIVE return on investment, as NdT said, entire industries are born because of it, even though we did it for the wrong reasons (cold war with Russians). That return will either be for the people, or for the private companies.

Due to capitalism, they won't be owned by a single company. I hope that there will be tons of companies in the future competing for space resources. It's better for me as a consumer.

 

pppft. ok then the us should have a private millitary.

because we all know where that money goes

 

The military is a necessity, space exploration is not. Nice straw man :3

[Oberon.Smite]

pppft. ok then the us should have a private millitary.

because we all know where that money goes

Two completely different situations. A public funded military is better for organization and standardization. 

[givingtnt]

Due to capitalism, they won't be owned by a single company. I hope that there will be tons of companies in the future competing for space resources. It's better for me as a consumer.

 

 

The military is a necessity, space exploration is not. Nice straw man :3

oh yeah. science developement is completly unnessesary. attacking countries for oil and ruining the  planet totally is !

and do you know how much money is spent in the us millitary compared to the money spent in science. (as a whole. nasa is too small otherwise to compare)

[PumaXCS]

retoast.  and I guess you put as much work in the thread as the other guy

so much for such an important event in the space industry.. how sad

 

Yep, that is a massive step forward but its all belittled now because this guy made a bad forum post about it. Really?

[StackUnderflow]

Due to capitalism, they won't be owned by a single company. I hope that there will be tons of companies in the future competing for space resources. It's better for me as a consumer.

 

 

The military is a necessity, space exploration is not. Nice straw man :3

 

I'll admit, Elon Musk is a really smart individual going into this so early. Not many private companies are doing space based tech due to the massive expenses with no clear return on investment. I have no problems with private companies making a profit off technologies handed to them by the government or publically funded research, as more than one company will have access to that tech (so I agree with you there). However, if the main source of innovation (and I'm not talking about a 5% incremental improvement to existing tech) is from private entities and they have the rights to that tech, it's far more likely that tech will die before it sees the light of day. Look at what happened to the EV1 - GM was the only company that had electric vehicle tech and they killed that sucker off to appease the oil gods and it took Tesla decades to revive that concept. 

 

Another example: Intel still has an iron grip on x86 instruction set. The public sector should always be at the bleeding edge, and it should facilitate a good tech transfer chain down the privatization line.

[Khajiit Dealer]

oh yeah. science developement is completly unnessesary. attacking countries for oil and ruining the  planet totally is !

and do you know how much money is spent in the us millitary compared to the money spent in science. (as a whole. nasa is too small otherwise to compare)

Again, you're straw manning. I never said that we shouldn't fund scientific research. NASA has been a failure for the past couple of decades, it's good that we've largely defunded it. 

 

I see that I'm talking to a commie who thinks that the military is evil and that the government should own everything. Good day. 

[givingtnt]

Yep, that is a massive step forward but its all belittled now because this guy made a bad forum post about it. Really?

1- this is not tech news as much as its a video link

2- this doesn't even meet the requirements for a tech news post

3- I love space. and if you can't make a post about something you love interesting enough so that you like it like you like the subject. then its not worth posting

[givingtnt]

Again, you're straw manning. I never said that we shouldn't fund scientific research. NASA has been a failure for the past couple of decades, it's good that we've largely defunded it. 

 

I see that I'm talking to a commie who thinks that the military is evil and that the government should own everything. Good day. 

since when has nasa been a failure ? what ?

do you even know what your talking about ? its begging for more money because thats whats stopping it. 

I never said the millitary is evil. im no fool iv worked with millitary and on a base for 2 summers and I sure do know its not evil.  maybe a bit overkill on the US side tho. 

 

[Khajiit Dealer]

since when has nasa been a failure ? what ?

do you even know what your talking about ? its begging for more money because thats whats stopping it. 

I never said the millitary is evil. im no fool iv worked with millitary and on a base for 2 summers and I sure do know its not evil.  maybe a bit overkill on the US side tho. 

 

I said for the past couple decades, not all-time.

 

Ah, thanks for clarifying. Your previous post came off as saying that the military is evil. 

[Sammael]

Problem with that is space exploration (any exploration, look at spain's sponsorship of exploration into the New World, Chris Columbus raised a Spanish flag, not an Italian flag) would yield new technologies and innovations. With the broken patenting system we have, do you really want the next GPS, air conditioner, LED, heart valve, or any of these inventions (https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2008/tech_benefits.html) to be owned by a single company?

 

Space exploration has a MASSIVE return on investment, as NdT said, entire industries are born because of it, even though we did it for the wrong reasons (cold war with Russians). That return will either be for the people, or for the private companies.

 

 

I remember hearing Elon Musk talk about NOT going the patent route with spacex, instead he went the trade secrets route.  Patents are fine so long as they can actually be enforced, like smartphones that sell in actual countries.  Rocket technology being revealed in patents just lets rogue actors and competitors, like say Russia, steal the tech and repurpose it for themselves.  Want to fine them?  They are a sovereign country, and will tell spacex to eat dirt.  For these types of reasons, trade secrets are what I think spacex went with.  Also, I'd imagine certain types of rocket technology that is used with the US government comes with stipulations that it not get into the hands of competitors.

 

Elon explains it better here:

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-patents-2012-11

[StackUnderflow]

I remember hearing Elon Musk talk about NOT going the patent route with spacex, instead he went the trade secrets route.  Patents are fine so long as they can actually be enforced, like smartphones that sell in actual countries.  Rocket technology being revealed in patents just lets rogue actors and competitors, like say Russia, steal the tech and repurpose it for themselves.  Want to fine them?  They are a sovereign country, and will tell spacex to eat dirt.  For these types of reasons, trade secrets are what I think spacex went with.  Also, I'd imagine certain types of rocket technology that is used with the US government comes with stipulations that it not get into the hands of competitors.

 

Elon explains it better here:

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-patents-2012-11

 

That's all fine and dandy, but it could still end up being "ground breaking" tech being controlled by a single (or very few, definately not commodity) company. But I think if they commercialize any of the tech for consumer use, they will patent at least the consumer version (they are very far from this, and I could be talking out of my ass there). I think my post here still applies with trade secrets.

 

I'll admit, Elon Musk is a really smart individual going into this so early. Not many private companies are doing space based tech due to the massive expenses with no clear return on investment. I have no problems with private companies making a profit off technologies handed to them by the government or publically funded research, as more than one company will have access to that tech (so I agree with you there). However, if the main source of innovation (and I'm not talking about a 5% incremental improvement to existing tech) is from private entities and they have the rights to that tech, it's far more likely that tech will die before it sees the light of day. Look at what happened to the EV1 - GM was the only company that had electric vehicle tech and they killed that sucker off to appease the oil gods and it took Tesla decades to revive that concept. 

 

Another example: Intel still has an iron grip on x86 instruction set. The public sector should always be at the bleeding edge, and it should facilitate a good tech transfer chain down the privatization line.

[bob345]

It's good news for them and their NASA contract, but it's kind of sad that state of the art space tech is privatized and not in the public sector.

the reason companies like space x even exist right now is because the us government stopped giving a shit about space exploration years ago.

[StackUnderflow]

the reason companies like space x even exist right now is because the us government stopped giving a shit about space exploration years ago.

 

Neil deGrass Tyson makes a good emotional plea here:

 

A bit of correction from the video though: JPL (and it's rovers) gets funding from Caltech not NASA.

[Sammael]

I'll admit, Elon Musk is a really smart individual going into this so early. Not many private companies are doing space based tech due to the massive expenses with no clear return on investment. I have no problems with private companies making a profit off technologies handed to them by the government or publically funded research, as more than one company will have access to that tech (so I agree with you there). However, if the main source of innovation (and I'm not talking about a 5% incremental improvement to existing tech) is from private entities and they have the rights to that tech, it's far more likely that tech will die before it sees the light of day. Look at what happened to the EV1 - GM was the only company that had electric vehicle tech and they killed that sucker off to appease the oil gods and it took Tesla decades to revive that concept. 

 

Another example: Intel still has an iron grip on x86 instruction set. The public sector should always be at the bleeding edge, and it should facilitate a good tech transfer chain down the privatization line.

 

 

Why not have both possibilities?  Bell labs was on the bleeding edge in the past, later maybe it was some of the national labs with nuclear energy... and weapons.  Both can be allowed to happen and that is fine.  The knowledge gained is not likely to disappear into the ether just because it is held by a private company, And even if spacex went rogue and tried to take all it's trade secret knowledge and hide it away, knowing something CAN be done is kind of more than half the battle in many cases.  We've now seen that landing the first stage of a rocket is totally possible, this will open the flood gates of competitors both private and governmental who want to create their own fire or be left in the dust.

[CommandMan7]

Again, you're straw manning. I never said that we shouldn't fund scientific research. NASA has been a failure for the past couple of decades, it's good that we've largely defunded it. 

 

I see that I'm talking to a commie who thinks that the military is evil and that the government should own everything. Good day. 

NASA inspired the nation and brought a period of growth unlike any other.

 

 

Without adequate funding for NASA, we stopped dreaming. 

 

Educate yourself.