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posted by CoolHand on Friday September 15 2017, @02:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the things-that-go-boom! dept.

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?)


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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 15 2017, @02:06PM (2 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 15 2017, @02:06PM (#568440) Journal

    Don't tell the helicopter parents about this!

    Seriously, you accept the risk, you honor those who are bitten by the risk, and you move on. FFS, people are killed every day in automobiles, and we haven't decided to discard them.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday September 15 2017, @05:49PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Friday September 15 2017, @05:49PM (#568575)

      Everyone seems to be missing the most important point: Landing the booster back in one piece isn't the primary mission.

      SpaceX was doing their experiments, which initially ended in pretty awesome failures, after delivering the payload to orbit (not all payload made it, but that's also new rocket design for you).

      Task number 1 of parenting is raising a functional human being to adulthood (don't nitpick), which is what you should parallel to "raising sat to transfer orbit". Task 2 of landing boosters despite the fireworks risk is choosing after-school programs which could result in a sprain (not a concussion).
      The taxpayer subsidies were used for the primary mission, hoping that the secondary one would bring costs down. Not to directly subsidize giant fireballs.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @06:00PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @06:00PM (#568586)

      SpaceX released this not to prove it's unafraid of failure. Anyone paying attention knows as much.

      SpaceX released this from a PR perspective, to remind people that success follows failures. Most of these events are year(s) old now, while in the meantime the general populace has come to expect routine spectacular success from SpaceX. Now they're a month and change from launching (or attempting to) a totally new platform, and this is actually a great way to visually set expectations.

  • (Score: 1, Troll) by pkrasimirov on Friday September 15 2017, @02:07PM (13 children)

    by pkrasimirov (3358) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 15 2017, @02:07PM (#568443)

    > 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)

      by Sulla (5173) on Friday September 15 2017, @02:46PM (#568462) Journal

      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

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @04:39PM (#568526)

        How droll!

      • (Score: 4, Funny) by DECbot on Friday September 15 2017, @05:15PM (2 children)

        by DECbot (832) on Friday September 15 2017, @05:15PM (#568555) Journal

        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

          by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday September 15 2017, @07:12PM (#568633) Journal

          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

          by DECbot (832) on Saturday September 16 2017, @01:53AM (#568801) Journal

          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)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @08:21PM (#568681)

        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)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @09:26PM (#568711)

          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

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 16 2017, @12:40AM (#568766) Journal

            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.

            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)

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 15 2017, @04:15PM (#568516)

      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

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 15 2017, @04:18PM (#568517)

        Aside from the expense related to the other traditional movie quote

        "Many go-pro-cams died to bring us this information."

        And where were the Bothans in Rogue One anyway?

    • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by edIII on Friday September 15 2017, @11:32PM (1 child)

      by edIII (791) on Friday September 15 2017, @11:32PM (#568745)

      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

        by pkrasimirov (3358) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 16 2017, @02:05PM (#568960)

        > 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

      by moondrake (2658) on Saturday September 16 2017, @08:44AM (#568893)

      And that is a good thing.

      every time it burns they learn.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @02:49PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @02:49PM (#568465)

    "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."

    While I like this quote, I don't agree with the first part regarding NASA.

    NASA is run by (limited amounts) tax payers money. Launching rockets should be routine work, they have enough spots for failure when the actual mission starts and learn things from the mission. They are not in to it to learn on how many ways a rocket launch can fail. NASA's core business is research and discovery, not innovation.

    It is great that for him (and his workers) failure is an option, as I think it can generate a enjoyable working environment, but not every institution can pay for that.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @03:38PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @03:38PM (#568495)

      NASA is run by (limited amounts) tax payers money. Launching rockets should be routine work, they have enough spots for failure when the actual mission starts and learn things from the mission. They are not in to it to learn on how many ways a rocket launch can fail.

      I think you missed the point. NASA is run by tax dollars. These in turn depend on law makers. These in turn depend on voters. Voters don't like things to fail especially when it comes to "heroes" and we have been elevating astronauts as heroes for some time. This is why failure is not an option - heroes can't die. Billions are spent so individuals are not dead and risk has been reduced (both to jobs and astronauts) so much that innovation is getting killed.

      On the other hand, regular people are dead all the time and no one cares. As long as their circumstances are "acceptable" (like 1,000,000 a year in car crashes across the world), then that's OK.

      With SpaceX, they are not answerable to clueless voters. So maybe failure again becomes a learning experience rather than something to avoid at all costs.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 16 2017, @01:11AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 16 2017, @01:11AM (#568776) Journal

      NASA is run by (limited amounts) tax payers money.

      Limited is nonsense here. All the money in the world is limited. NASA has at its disposal an enormous sum of money, other resources, valuable infrastructure, and considerable political power. You should be wondering why it isn't getting more done.

      For example, to develop the Falcon 9 (and three different rocket engines and the Falcon 1) cost in total about $300 million dollars. That's less than 10% of the current NASA equivalent the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion development budget ($3.7 billion for 2017). The Falcon Heavy development costs are unknown, but appear to me to be well shy of a billion dollars presently despite the mistakes and delays of past years (particularly the cross feed approach which they gave up on a couple years ago). It may require more work to become viable, but I don't see it going anywhere near the ridiculous development costs of the SLS, somewhere north of 60 billion dollars in present money funding. The SLS is using modified Shuttle infrastructure for most of its design. That money should be going a lot further than it is.

      It is great that for him (and his workers) failure is an option, as I think it can generate a enjoyable working environment, but not every institution can pay for that.

      NASA though is one of the institutions that can easily afford to do that. But you need a far more efficient organization and a leadership willing to take risks.

  • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @03:46PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @03:46PM (#568498)

    Nice to say if your ass isn't sitting on top of that candle.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 15 2017, @04:08PM (2 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 15 2017, @04:08PM (#568506) Journal

      LMAO - ask all of those volunteers for a one way trip to Mars. Each and every one of them, if informed that there is a 5% chance of failure, will probably tell you, "Light the damned fire, and let's SEE what happens!!"

      You know that it would be untrue
      You know that I would be a liar
      If I was to say to you
      Girl, we couldn't get much higher

      https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=come+on+baby+light+my+fire [youtube.com]

      • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday September 15 2017, @04:23PM (1 child)

        by Nerdfest (80) on Friday September 15 2017, @04:23PM (#568520)

        I'd be right there with them. People don't seem to have a good grasp of cost/benefit or risk/reward these days.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @09:29PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @09:29PM (#568712)

          Well when all risk is passed on to the taxpayers I can see why they'd develop a bit of a mania about it!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @11:42PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @11:42PM (#568751)

      > Nice to say if your ass isn't sitting on top of that candle.

      SpaceX rockets are unmanned.

      • (Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Saturday September 16 2017, @01:13AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 16 2017, @01:13AM (#568777) Journal

        SpaceX rockets are unmanned.

        The Falcon 9 will eventually launch people. They're already working on a crewed vehicle. But those people aren't landing with the first stage.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday September 15 2017, @04:09PM (2 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday September 15 2017, @04:09PM (#568507)

    Failure was common at NASA too: does anyone really think they didn't test out rockets and delivery vehicles before sticking humans in them? That's just what SpaceX is doing. There's not much risk in trying to land a spent first-stage rocket: it's already done its primary job of boosting the vehicle so the 2nd stage can take over, so now you try to land it. If it fails, oh well; it's not like there's people in the thing. Just try not to hit anything on the way down, and keep humans well away from the site. By the time SpaceX is actually carrying people with their rockets, all this stuff will be very well tested out and debugged.

    And as TFS says, that line was about the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, and was a line from a movie, though the general concept was something they lived by when things went horribly wrong. That kind of attitude is exactly what you want when a manned mission *does* go bad (as opposed to just giving up), like Apollo 13 did: people are already up there, and you need to figure out how to get them back to Earth safely. That's exactly what they did with the Apollo 13 mission. That circumstance has little to do with how you do engineering and testing with unmanned and R&D systems.

    This whole article is just ridiculous; it's exploiting the inexactness of the English language, by focusing on the vague word "failure" as used in two entirely different contexts.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday September 15 2017, @08:21PM (1 child)

      by Thexalon (636) on Friday September 15 2017, @08:21PM (#568682)

      Failure was common at NASA too: does anyone really think they didn't test out rockets and delivery vehicles before sticking humans in them?

      And of course they tested vehicles with humans in them too. For example, this crash with Neil Armstrong inside [youtube.com]. To give an idea of how absolutely amazing Armstrong was, after landing he calmly walked into his office and filled out the after-mission paperwork.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday September 15 2017, @09:49PM

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday September 15 2017, @09:49PM (#568718)

        1) Yes, but I'm sure they did that after testing components without humans around (i.e., they tested what they could before sticking a human in there), and
        2) This was in the 60s, when safety protocols weren't quite as good, and technologies (for things like remote-control and autonomous piloting) just weren't where they are now.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by ants_in_pants on Friday September 15 2017, @04:43PM (2 children)

    by ants_in_pants (6665) on Friday September 15 2017, @04:43PM (#568532)

    It's funny how everyone says the USSR's attempts at space exploration were fraught with failure and didn't care as much about astronaut safety as the good ole NASA did(which, to be fair, is totally true), but when SpaceX, a good ole American Capitalistic organization, does the same thing, they're lauded for it!

    Like, geez, you need to be consistent about these things or it just sounds silly. Either the Soviets were better at space than the US of A or Musk isn't hot shit.

    --
    -Love, ants_in_pants
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday September 15 2017, @05:57PM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday September 15 2017, @05:57PM (#568584)

      What the hell are you talking about? Can you point to any examples where SpaceX has risked any astronaut's lives in a launch? I'm quite sure you won't find any, because SpaceX has not ever launched any humans into space.

      It's intellectually dishonest to claim that a company "doesn't care about astronaut safety" when they don't even have any astronauts, and only launch cargo.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 16 2017, @12:50PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 16 2017, @12:50PM (#568933) Journal

      but when SpaceX, a good ole American Capitalistic organization, does the same thing, they're lauded for it!

      Name an astronaut whose safety was threatened by SpaceX. Name one.

  • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday September 15 2017, @06:20PM (3 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Friday September 15 2017, @06:20PM (#568603) Journal

    Using fire and explosives for propulsion and energy just seems so primitive. We need a better horse.

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @08:09PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @08:09PM (#568671)

      Using fire and explosives for propulsion and energy just seems so primitive

      What - exactly - is your beef with "fire and explosives" for "propulsion and energy"?

      Are you unaware that the only sustainable power generation technology with the growth capacity to provide for another technological leap is nuclear (preferably in the form of fail-safe molten salt reactors [wikipedia.org], ala thorium-fueled LFTRs [energyfromthorium.com]. Are you additionally unaware that explosives are currently humanity's best choice for powerful spacecraft [armaghplanet.com] in terms of rapid lift of huge quantities of mass (including passengers) in, say, the event of a need to evacuate Earth?

      Are you unaware that you have not yet added anything of value to the comments?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @08:18PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @08:18PM (#568679)

        a need to evacuate Earth?

        HO HO HO! Thanks for that!!

        Tell you what, you go first. That should significantly reduce the need for the rest of us to go anywhere.

      • (Score: 2) by edIII on Friday September 15 2017, @11:43PM

        by edIII (791) on Friday September 15 2017, @11:43PM (#568752)

        in terms of rapid lift of huge quantities of mass (including passengers) in, say, the event of a need to evacuate Earth?

        The Martians are already way ahead of us in explosive research. The Illudium Q-36 explosive space modulator, ironically, will give Earth a reason to evacuate with our inferior explosives technology.

        I for one am happy to use our taxes to create bigger, better, and more fiery, explosions. We need to keep up with the Marvins.

        --
        Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
  • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by ledow on Friday September 15 2017, @06:36PM (4 children)

    by ledow (5567) on Friday September 15 2017, @06:36PM (#568612) Homepage

    I'm much more worried about the number of "ran out of propellant", "not enough hydraulic fluid", etc.

    Surely shouldn't even be attempted if that's the case? It should know how much it's got left, yes (surely just thrust amounts tell you how much propellant you have left, from a simple weight calculation?).

    Sure, aeroplanes went through the same failures, not the end of the world. But rather than "could not land", "miscalculated", "strong wind", "faulty sensor", it's mostly "this fell off" or "no fuel left" and it doesn't seem to just safely abort rather than just explode.

    I'm still not sure what the point is, either. Standing-up landing is just a show-off item. It serves no real purpose, you still have to ship it back somewhere to have it tested, which inevitably means laying it down again unless your want it to fall over with a bunch of fuel still in it.

    Parachute + pickup is - as recent press releases saying SpaceX were giving up on these kinds of landings - pretty expensive, difficult and pointless compared to a cheap parachute and a boat you already have.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by bob_super on Friday September 15 2017, @06:55PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Friday September 15 2017, @06:55PM (#568623)

      > Standing-up landing is just a show-off item. It serves no real purpose, you still have to ship it back somewhere to have it tested,
      > which inevitably means laying it down again unless your want it to fall over with a bunch of fuel still in it.

      You do realize the engines are at the not-pointy end, right? That's the end you need to point down if you want the thrust to win against gravity. Conveniently, it's the right orientation for the stresses it was designed to sustain at takeoff.
      Any other landing angle requires additional engines and structural reinforcements to handle the impact (need more struts).

      > parachute + boat

      Landing in salt water isn't friendly if you want to go up ever again. A parachute requires a deployment system and structural reinforcements too, and you get an impact that can damage a lot of stufff.

      Despite its technical complexity, landing straight up is the simplest solution from a reusable design standpoint. Then you empty the thing and lay it down for transport.

      The part where it falls down engines-first at supersonic speed without breaking nor failing to restart is the most amazing piece...

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @07:40PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @07:40PM (#568657)

      Where's the "Windows had a BSOD during landing"?

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by tangomargarine on Friday September 15 2017, @08:15PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Friday September 15 2017, @08:15PM (#568677)

      and it doesn't seem to just safely abort rather than just explode.

      Gee, it's almost like rocket science is difficult.

      Have you ever looked up the abort modes for the Apollo or shuttle programs? There's quite a few of them, depending on how far they are into the flight. "Abort" is not just a thing where you can shut off the engine, close your eyes, and glide it down safely :P

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 16 2017, @12:54PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 16 2017, @12:54PM (#568935) Journal

      I'm still not sure what the point is, either. Standing-up landing is just a show-off item. It serves no real purpose, you still have to ship it back somewhere to have it tested, which inevitably means laying it down again unless your want it to fall over with a bunch of fuel still in it.

      What is the better landing configuration? Keep in mind that the rocket engines won't decelerate the falling stage, if they aren't pointed down.

  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @07:54PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @07:54PM (#568663)

    SN ediots drunk as fuck, not queueing shit to Pending Stories.

    It's true. SN is dying.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @08:13PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @08:13PM (#568676)

      Hi, Netcraft! How ya been doing?

      • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @08:48PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @08:48PM (#568694)

        Over five hours without a new story, submission list filling up.

        • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @08:58PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @08:58PM (#568698)

          Well, the door's thataway - don't let it hit you in the ass on your way out!

          • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @09:06PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @09:06PM (#568701)

            Don't like Uncle Nigger's Club House? Get The Fuck Out.

            SN still dying, now circling drain.

        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by cmn32480 on Friday September 15 2017, @10:58PM

          by cmn32480 (443) <reversethis-{moc.liamg} {ta} {08423nmc}> on Friday September 15 2017, @10:58PM (#568731) Journal

          Sorry. The editors have lives and jobs that occasionally get in the way.

          Our (kinda) sincere apologies.

          --
          "It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday September 15 2017, @08:12PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Friday September 15 2017, @08:12PM (#568673)

    "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."

    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.

    Even if the quote had happened IRL, keep in mind Apollo 13 involved 3 live human beings in space. Somewhat different than unmanned rockets having troubles exploding.

    Or would it be more accurate to say, "Don't be afraid to *admit* you failed"? During the Space Race the U.S.S.R. liked to cover up most of their space disasters, and the U.S. did somewhat, too.

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @10:03PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @10:03PM (#568720)

    8 hours! This is your WAKE UP call.

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