One of the coolest things about the east coast of Florida is standing in the yard watching those rockets take off (I'm not close, but they are visible a long way off).
Seeing the two boosters land reinforced my faith that we can be pretty smart when we want to be. Of course I have to balance that with sending a Tesla into space.
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Beware of my temper, and the dog that I've found...
100% agree. That might explain why Elon said “I would consider it a win if it just clears the pad.”. I dunno but I'm thinking that if NASA had that impression about a launch NASA didn't launch, but what do I know?Originally Posted by Irelander
Recently, yes. The early days of the Mercury program were much less positive of the results, especially for the unmanned launches. Gene Krantz talked about the "building the airplane in flight" aspect of figuring out how to get a rocket off the pad and it was very eye-opening and pretty scary if you consider the perspective of the Mercury 7 training to fly these things as they witnessed mixed success and failure of their new ride.
Just as a quick reference: the unmanned Mercury launches. Lots of "failure" and "partial successes" in that list. While SpaceX isn't a direct analogy (we've been doing this for a minute now), Musk's attitude it probably the right one given the circumstances.
Musk is the biggest snake oil salesmen of the 21st century period FULL STOP.
SpaceX is one of those companies that if I were in my early 20s and unattached and still full of piss and vinegar, I'd definitely be pounding on their door for a job.
I'm too old for that shit now though.
I'm still in awe about what was accomplished yesterday. I almost get the feeling this is the closest my generation has gotten to an "Apollo" moment. I watched a shuttle launch and that was awe inspiring, the ramifications of what SpaceX is looking to accomplish is above and beyond even that (IMO).
Ditto on all counts. I looked at their careers section and all the engineering posts I could qualify for basically said "50 hours per week, more hours and weekends depending on the needs of the program." Not unlike Toyota when I applied there.
I get the feeling that I'd end up single and unattached with that work schedule, but at least they're up front with it. I've had friends who works for places that hired people in with the impression it was a typical 40/week position but then thought you weren't pulling your weight if you were working less than 50/week. The managers tended to be real winners with the turnover to show for it.
That said, if I could go back 10-12 years, I might just tell my younger self to hit up SpaceX hard on the days of the career fair.
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Disclaimer: I have previously worked in the firearms industry as an engineer. Thoughts and opinions expressed here are mine alone and not those of my prior employers.
That snake oil salesman just launched a car into the Van Allen Belt. You may want to reconsider your opinion.
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." - Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Constitution, Draft 1, 1776
Same here. Working somewhere like SpaceX would have a lot more big-picture meaning compared to my present job, and I'd be doing much cooler stuff, and maybe when I was job-hunting 12 years ago I should have taken it for a few years... but my job right now is at least somewhat fun on a good day, it pays well, and I hardly ever have to work overtime. I want to see my son grow up.
Until last year my grandmother lived in Rockledge; if we were visiting when a launch came we'd watch from the end of her street.
What's wrong with launching the car? You need a ballast/dummy payload anyway, and launching the car is a brilliant PR move. It's certainly more interesting than a stack of steel plates. And the spacesuit the "driver" is wearing is apparently a full functioning prototype of SpaceX's new design. What better way to do a functional test in real conditions?
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