Indeed! We even have a thread for it… Not the next launch but the one after that or the one after that will seemingly land on a solid surface!
That video was interesting, sad that the camera iced over. Here’s to hoping that the next landing will be close enough to land that external cameras can be used.
I guess that could be cool. Depending on terminal velocity (and when terminal velocity is reached) there might not be a lot to see other than the final touchdown, but I guess that’s the best bit.
Going forward, we are taking steps to minimize the build up of ice and
spots on the camera housing in order to gather improved video on future
launches.
Space is cold so given how it iced over I think it has more to do with atmospheric humidity than proximity to land.
Actually space doesn’t have a temperature (unless you go quantum). Only matter has temperature. If you appear naked in deep space you die from lack of pressure and radiation, not cold temperature. Your body will remain warm and lose temperature solely through infrared radiation we naturally radiate.
My apologies. I did see it but I thought since it had actually launched and had video of the first stage landing it warranted a seperate post.
I did read about their plans to attempt a landing over land by launch 14(or was it 15) and I am so very excited! They mentioned they might use a floating landing pad to attempt to land on(for launch 13) which I think would be very interesting. How big would this barge have to be to not only provide a solid landing surface but also a flat one. I would think that waves would provide a huge hurtle to landing on floating barges.
Background temp, they keep calling it temperature: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980301b.html
How cold is it in space? That question is sure to prompt the geeks among us to pipe up with “2.7K”. For 2.7 Kelvin, or 2.7 degrees above absolute zero, is the temperature produced by the uniform background radiation or “afterglow” from the Big Bang.
But hang on. Evidently you don’t hit temperatures that low the moment you step outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Heat is streaming from the Sun to warm the Earth, and it will also warm other objects exposed to its rays. Take the Moon, which has virtually no atmosphere to complicate things. On the sunlit side the Moon is hotter than the Sahara – it can top 120C (248F). But on the dark side it can drop to around minus 170C (–338F).
From: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130920-how-cold-is-space-really
Wrong. Something cold has temperature that is relatively lower than your point of reference. Space itself doesn’t have temperature at all because temperature is how much energy a particular molecule has, which (in humans), is mostly expressed in infrared radiation.