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Over at Ars Technica is a story, SpaceX proves it's not afraid to fail by releasing a landing blooper reel:
SpaceX is famously not afraid to fail. "There's a silly notion that failure's not an option at NASA," company founder Elon Musk has said in the past. "Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough."
In recent years, others in the aerospace industry have come to see the sense of this ethos, as SpaceX has tinkered with its Falcon 9 rocket to make it a mostly reusable booster, finally achieving reuse of the rocket's first stage earlier this year. To go further in space, at a lower cost, new things must be tried.
Even Gene Kranz, who famously said that failure was not an option as a NASA flight director during the Apollo lunar missions, has recently enthused about SpaceX, saying, "Space involves risk, and I think that's the one thing about Elon Musk and all the various space entrepreneurs: they're willing to risk their future in order to accomplish the objective that they have decided on. I think we as a nation have to learn that, as an important part of this, to step forward and accept risk."
To that end, SpaceX has put its failure on display in a new video showing the company's (often explosive) attempts to first return the Falcon 9 first stage to the ocean, then to an ocean-based drone ship, and more. Along they way the engineers have clearly learned a lot about rockets, propellants, and the pitfalls of trying to return a very large rocket from space.
Note: the apocryphal saying was not from the actual Apollo 13 mission. It was a line from the movie based on the mission. See this section on the Wikipedia entry for Gene Kranz.
With that out of the way, I find it absolutely amazing that just a few short years ago, the concept of a rocket that could land upright was science fiction. Now, it happens so routinely for SpaceX that they feel comfortable releasing a "blooper reel"!
(I'm curious, though, how many millions of dollars does that video show going up in flames?)
(Score: 1, Troll) by pkrasimirov on Friday September 15 2017, @02:07PM (13 children)
> I'm curious, though, how many millions of dollars does that video show going up in flames?
... with YOUR money.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Sulla on Friday September 15 2017, @02:46PM (7 children)
I would rather my money wasted on cool shit and high science than killing arabs in asia. For the record and to piss off both sides I also prefer it to medicare spending.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @04:39PM
How droll!
(Score: 4, Funny) by DECbot on Friday September 15 2017, @05:15PM (2 children)
What about those that support all three? I propose combining them in to one program: using rockets and high science to launch medicare patients upon the arabs.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 3, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Friday September 15 2017, @07:12PM
Grandpa's story about how he used to wear an onion on his belt (as was the style at the time) bores them to death?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by DECbot on Saturday September 16 2017, @01:53AM
Of course out current bureaucracy nearly gets this right, but in their incompetency they've implemented a multitude of programs that use rockets and high science to bomb the arabs to encourage them to launch attacks on medicare beneficiaries. Fortunately, none of the programs are particularly efficient. Unfortunately, none are cost effective and none of them are such an utter disaster that would provoke Congress into cancelling them.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @08:21PM (2 children)
I would prefer MY money to stay in MY pocket.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @09:26PM (1 child)
Sorry but then you'll have to recreate pretty much all modern technology. Rugged individualism requires extreme personal ability. You will also need to stockpile valuable goods since you are no longer allowed to use government issued currency.
Good luck!
Oh wait, you're a total hypocrite I forgot. You will enjoy all the benefits of society without contributing, the ol' "fuck you I got mine" attitude. Please compete in next year's Darwin Awards.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday September 16 2017, @12:40AM
Or we could collaborate and trade and not have to do all that work. Rugged individualism is not about doing everything yourself. It's about doing everything voluntarily. Want a space program? Get a few thousand or few million of your favorite rugged individuals and hammer one out. Just don't have an expectation that someone who doesn't buy in is going to contribute in any way.
A typical national program just collects the funding from the state with the occasional rubber stamp by the electorate and does whatever benefits the bureaucrats, politicians, or inevitable rent seekers.
I think the real problem is that a lot of humans just aren't psychologically capable of the necessary levels of initiative and competence required for this sort of individualistic society. Add in a high level of gullibility and you have the makings of a typical democracy failure mode.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday September 15 2017, @04:15PM (1 child)
Essentially its a recycling program so in the old days every penny was merely buried at sea, mostly undocumented.
Given the insane (well deserved?) PR that spacex gets, they're probably running a net positive. At the gym they show legacy media on TV, old fashioned TV channels of sportsball and financial reports, and companies like IBM pay huge amounts of money to spout the most ridiculous technobabble about clouds and hackers during commercials... if IBM merely tried to land a AS/400 from orbit onto a barge, they'd get more and better PR for free. I would imagine based on previous experience that if the ISS has a AS/400 it wouldn't take long before the astronauts are ready to airlock it. Maybe more realistically they could pull off a field circus stunt and purchase a Russian flight up to the ISS to replace a failed hard drive. Except thats probably Dell. Well whatever.
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Friday September 15 2017, @04:18PM
Aside from the expense related to the other traditional movie quote
And where were the Bothans in Rogue One anyway?
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by edIII on Friday September 15 2017, @11:32PM (1 child)
Yes, because we can demand success without any failures and still be reasonable citizens. You're money, along with my money, was used to send Chuck Yeager up to break the sound barrier. How many millions went up in flames before he succeeded? We went to the moon.... but that also took millions of dollars going up in flames, along with several very brave and courageous men willing to take that risk. We paid their salaries and they were failures!
Get the fuck over it. Considering the secondary successes of the space program, NASA, and the JPL, our money has had tremendous ROI, and that's giving zero value to the exploratory nature of space and discovering the nature of the cosmos and all that. Next time you use something with velcro, just be thankful and shut the fuck up.
People like you are so fucking unreasonable when it comes to discovery and science. If we all thought like you, nobody would've ever made it the moon in the first place. We would've needed cheese studies and concrete proof of ROI before doing anything... cuz it's your money and failures will not be tolerated.
Fool. If I had my druthers, even more of your money would've gone to NASA, NIST, etc. In fact, all of the money used for the F35 boon dongle should've gone to "expensive fireballs".
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Saturday September 16 2017, @02:05PM
> Get the fuck over it.
> just be thankful and shut the fuck up.
> People like you are so fucking unreasonable
> Fool.
I wrote a fact and you wrote me this. Guess where is the problem.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Saturday September 16 2017, @08:44AM
And that is a good thing.
every time it burns they learn.