http://www.americaspace.com/2018/02/08/air-force-strike-takes-out-spacexs-floating-govsat-booster/
Which is exactly why the blew up the other one that landed in the water and didn’t blow up. Apparently it was too dangerous to safe so they bombed it which makes for a hilarious headline.
nooo, it’s headlines like this that will rile up the conspiracy theorists!
They fixed the dual video during landing. Before they had the same camera from the view on the left as the right. They must have reuploaded with the correct second booster video pasted on the right view.
That was the first video i posted, they’d already fixed it in that version. This version also has the exact same length as the previous version.
My explanation: aliens.
Actually a much more likely explanation is that they contacted youtube and got them to merge the fixed version with the original version, fixes and new views and all. Youtube doesn’t normally ever do that, but considering the scale of the event im not surprised they’d do something like this for spacex.
That sound…
It really puts movie spaceships to shame in terms of capturing the sound.
At this point, wouldn’t be surprised if they blew up the boosters so that no other actors could steal them and take a peak. If SpaceX’s rockets aren’t officially classified, it’s probably for the best that their information is kept here.
I think that SpaceX rockets are worth being something that requires a security clearance because of the capabilities.
Must watch.
Launch vehicles fall under ITAR which is the international trade and arms regulation. They’re technically weapons tech and the US tries to eliminate that export of technology as much as it can. It was definitely a risk leaving perfectlyish fine engines and avionics floating around.
@JB47394 I came here to post this if someone already hadn’t. Such an awesome view.
I don’t think there was ever any chance of it being left floating around. Even if it was just a dumb fuel tank they would have scuttled it.
Blow up the boosters that they’ve landed? I must be misunderstanding you. That would be kinda detrimental to the whole reusability idea.
SpaceX is not part of the government. Their tech is not the property of the government and therefore cannot be ‘classified’ within the classification system you allude to. However, as Skyentist points out, the dissemination of rocket tech to other countries is prohibited under ITAR.
I guess you were thinking more about maintaining a competitive advantage than about military concerns?
No, they blew up the booster that landed “successfully” at sea but didn’t land on a barge that they didn’t intend to reuse.
Ah sorry, I misunderstood. Because of the plural ‘boosters’ and future tense I thought you were speculating about a future course of action rather than an explanation for what was already done.
Did they? The one they bombed that I was aware of was the one carrying the failed US spook satellite mission
The F Heavy is insane, honestly. It apparently costs 90 million per launch for the heavy. That’s honestly obscene, and when all boosters are recoverable (very soon), its going to be game changing for launching things to space.
The F heavy’s payload is almost that of SLS. But it costs a fifth of the SLS per launch without considering reuae.
And the SLS outlcasses the STS by a good margin… Honestly, the Falcon Heavy’s capabilities are just mind boggling now that I am putting it into perspective. There are only a couple of other launchers in history that actually had a larger payload - or even a payload in that class.
But this one is so cheap without reuse that it’s revolutionary on its own. It represents the lowest cost per pound ever. At $90 million a launch and 140,700 pounds, it’s got a launch cost of $639 per pound.
That’s already a revolution, but reuse is going to cut that 600 range by a solid margin. That’s getting to a price point where only modestly wealthy individuals could actually launch themselves into space. Or, even someone who’s upper middle class and saves a lot of money, spending about 100k to get themselves up there plus probably another 50k for food. Reuse cuts this down a lot. Say they’re charging a 40% profit margin for the Falcon 9, meaning the cost of the rocket is 44 million. 70% of 44 million (the amount that the booster costs) is 31 million. So, there may be an incongruency in the cost reporting of 90 million for the Falcon Heavy that already takes reuse into account. Anyways… The Heavy is basically a 9 plus two boosters. 31x3+44x.3=93+13.2=106 million for all the raw pieces. Add in ~3 million in refurbishment costs for a booster you get for n reuse times 31x3/(n)+3x3+13.2=23.1 million per launch plus the initial cost of the boosters. So, maybe 10 reuses on block 5 with all upgrades considered. So, about 37 million per launch for SpaceX. Mark it up for a profit margin at 40% and you’re talking a charge of 51.8 million per launch at a cost per pound of 368 bucks and dropping as they get everything running smoothly. So, your tourist trip would cost more like 80k a ticket. Lots of upper middle class people save up for cars that are that expensive. This technology is REALITY… Reality RIGHT NOW.
This is just nuts, honestly. We don’t need the BFR for a manned Mars mission now, or a moon base. The Falcon Heavy is more than capable of achieving these feats. You could construct a craft in space with the Falcon Heavy.
So, whatever happens with the BFR, this technology exists now. The cat’s out of the bag. The BFR will make it so that it’s not just wealthy or upper middle class hitching rides. It’ll make it so that most people in the developed world who save up money can hitch a ride and various insane projects can be built.
The space revolution has arrived. I never thought it would happen like this a mere 9 years ago. I was frustrated with the state of space travel in 2009. I distinctly remember this, looking at the Constellation program with hope, dreaming of space elevators, maybe when I’m an old man…
I had no idea, no idea that we’d be here in a mere 9 years, watching a rocket launch that could build us a moon base with the pitiful annual budget of NASA.
Imagining 100 billion over 5 years, you spend 80 billion on the moon base itself including development costs (reduced by the launch costs not being so prohibitive), then launch stuff over at 51 million per launch, getting 30,000 pounds per launch at a time to the surface (rough guess considering reuse and comparing GTO to Mars payloads). That would get you a 1.1 million pound moon base, just a chunk more than the ISS’s mass. With Bigelow style modules, you can do about a quarter of a cubic foot per pound, which would get you about ten times the volume as the ISS. But, you’d launch half of that as supplies.
Honestly though, you could do a small moon base for much cheaper. I dunno, shit’s about to get real.
Such people either lease or buy on a loan. They tend to view life as a balancing act between their monthly income and expenditures. Mostly because they don’t have to save up for anything. They just pay over time, and they have the monthly income to cover it.
The comparison that should be made is with an adventure vacation, and some very expensive ones exist, but it’s not clear to me how even that will translate to the adventure of going into orbit. People aren’t flocking to visit either the North or South Poles, despite adventure vacations being available (a North Pole trip will set you back about $30,000 per person).
That said, I have no idea what the market will end up being. We’re not even close to knowing the hook with the greatest appeal to those who would be able to afford such a thing. At first, it will be the notoriety of being among the few to have been in orbit. As that fades, I wonder how much the experience of floating in space will draw customers.
Oh, there will be a market. And no, not all of them lease their cars. A lot of people do this and actually keep the vehicle for some time.
If you make 150k a year, you can buy an 80,000 dollar BMW or loaded Ford F250, even if it’s fiscally irresponsible.
Though people are somewhat flocking to climb the Everest for a comparable price, apparently. Hard to say how similar it would be as an adventurous/challenging vacation.
Oh NASA…
They really ought to just contract with the private industry and direct the missions to Mars using SpaceX hardware. If someone was even remotely close to SpaceX in terms of launch costs, I’d mention them too, but, honestly, this is getting ridiculous.
How long can you ignore the elephant in the room of a price per kilo that is a fraction of this system that they’re developing?
Falcon Heavy is the most effective launch system now, and the BFR will probably work out since it’s basically “everything SpaceX has already done scaled up with a higher reentry speed.”
Agreed. I tuned out when he started promoting “value to american tax payers” 
. It would make more sense to piggyback off another tried and tested system.