NASA/SpaceX mission takes giant step forward ahead of historic launch

Sunrise at Boca Chica.

 

I wonder why they trying to have a vertical landing

Rocket River

 

When I watched this yesterday, for some reason, I was more scared to death for these people than I was for "regular astronauts". Nice job, Space-X. Let's get to the moon in a couple of years and then Mars!

 

This is exciting and I'm glad to see progress being made in space flight.


Some interesting numbers for perspective:

Standard airline flight: 6 miles above earth

NASA's designated Earth-space boundary: 50 miles
Virgin Galactic: 53 miles

the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space: 62 miles
Blue Origin: 66 miles

ISS: 254 miles

This Space-X flight: 363 miles

The Moon is 225,000-252,000 miles away

 

there is also a Netflix Documentary series that is tracking the mission

 

Im really surprised there has been no talk on the twighlight effect. Among all the space nerds here on the coast, they ranked this as a top 3 flight of all time.
For me, its hard to beat the comical Falcon Heavy. The idea of shooting a car into space to orbit the galaxy is certainly doable but silly. Never mind watching the boosters land 3 miles from you. Its something straight out of hollywood a decade ago.

Inspiration was something of its own, even watching from my back porch. Never mind the civilian launch. Seeing this and realizing in a decade or so, this will be seen more often than a full moon all over the world.

To put the picture in perspective, a typical night launch is only a few times brighter than the stars in the night sky in this photo from this view.

 

We get to watch the climb into orbit from our backyard in St. Petersburg. Launch site is about due East from us on the other side of the state. Cloud cover impacted a better view, but it was still watchable. This is a picture of one of the flights from last year:

 

That looks like Greg Oden...

 

After they land on the moon, I bet they build a shuttle.... And we'll be right back were we left off.... in 1981. The flying space dick is bigger though.

 

That dong rocket looks like an eggplant

 

Still no black people at mission control...

 

Why is that?

 

The operation was a success but the patient died.