SpaceX makes the nearly impossible look ordinary. Still waiting to see the status of the central core.

Wow that was amazing!
And the amount of payload it can carry!

Great private firm design, development and engineering result.  Congrats to them.
And since other than LEO and escape velocity, space doesn't get a whole lotta play here (nor should it) I will take this fleeting opportunity to post one of my pet issues:
Okay- I find the whole drive to send a human to Mars quite an undertaking that needs to be terminated. The expense of engineering the human into the loop versus the robotics and rovers we can get there now is several orders of magnitude more expensive.  For what "value add?"  
Other than the bragging rights how much is it worth?  We can send all the sophisticated hardware we need to achieve all the science we want-other than the buzz factor.  And suppose as they are on "final approach" the metric versus English fail to conversion factor comes into play again...auger in.  
Off the road-box.
Have a great evening.  

@lousubcap Whether or not they SHOULD be doing this and what value it adds to humanity is a valid debate to have - elsewhere as you point out. That aside, their accomplishments in terms of launch, recovery, and cost reduction are still quite impressive in my opinion.

SciAggie said:

@lousubcap Whether or not they SHOULD be doing this and what value it adds to humanity is a valid debate to have - elsewhere as you point out. That aside, their accomplishments in terms of launch, recovery, and cost reduction are still quite impressive in my opinion.

If our intent is to just do some science and gain some knowledge then having humans in the mix likely isn't worth the added cost.

If we want our species to ever become an off world species then the expenditures will be necessary.

Guess it just depends on the goal.

In any case "Elon" was over Australia  a few minutes ago:

as an engineer I say why not try and go for it all?  It may seem expensive to get there just looking at it as getting to mars but with the research development countless things will come out that benefits people every day between medical treatments, water filtration for developing countries and much more.  if we send people to mars and they start doing research, and they find cures for diseases with chemicals that we don't have on earth? 

lousubcap said:

Great private firm design, development and engineering result.  Congrats to them.
And since other than LEO and escape velocity, space doesn't get a whole lotta play here (nor should it) I will take this fleeting opportunity to post one of my pet issues:
Okay- I find the whole drive to send a human to Mars quite an undertaking that needs to be terminated. The expense of engineering the human into the loop versus the robotics and rovers we can get there now is several orders of magnitude more expensive.  For what "value add?"  
Other than the bragging rights how much is it worth?  We can send all the sophisticated hardware we need to achieve all the science we want-other than the buzz factor.  And suppose as they are on "final approach" the metric versus English fail to conversion factor comes into play again...auger in.  
Off the road-box.
Have a great evening.  

I’m sure that people were having similar conversations about submarines and undersea exploration in the 1700s 

As a side note , search for “the impossible drive” on YouTube.

GregW said:

Impressive. They are a step closer to equaling the power of the Saturn 5

The SLS is the big boy that’ll dwarf them all.  Can’t wait to see that launch next year. Musk’s reusable rockets are pretty freaking awesome though. 

Eoin said:

HeavyG said:

Hotch said:

Wow that was amazing!
And the amount of payload it can carry!

Still just a fraction of what we used to be able to do 40 years ago with the Saturn V.

Saturn funded by a world superpower. What's impressive is how Elon spends his own money to do the stuff that Governments don't have the vision to do any more.

It's great that Musk and some others are spending a bunch of their own money in developing some new generation rockets and other "space stuff". To be fair tho, SpaceX, at this point, is somewhat reliant on government contracts and will be for years to come to help fund his efforts. Some of his other projects (Tesla, Solar City) have also received generous taxpayer support.

It's not that government lacks the vision, rather, it's the polarized electorate and budgetary pressures/realities and the always problematic political crap of who gets what contracts and what pieces get built where that limit the vision.

The new government funded SLS launch vehicle will be more powerful than the Saturn V if and when it finally launches. I guess the question now is will the SLS fly before the Spacex BFR.

HeavyG said:

Eoin said:

HeavyG said:

Hotch said:

Wow that was amazing!
And the amount of payload it can carry!

Still just a fraction of what we used to be able to do 40 years ago with the Saturn V.

Saturn funded by a world superpower. What's impressive is how Elon spends his own money to do the stuff that Governments don't have the vision to do any more.

It's great that Musk and some others are spending a bunch of their own money in developing some new generation rockets and other "space stuff". To be fair tho, SpaceX, at this point, is somewhat reliant on government contracts and will be for years to come to help fund his efforts. Some of his other projects (Tesla, Solar City) have also received generous taxpayer support.

It's not that government lacks the vision, rather, it's the polarized electorate and budgetary pressures/realities and the always problematic political crap of who gets what contracts and what pieces get built where that limit the vision.

The new government funded SLS launch vehicle will be more powerful than the Saturn V if and when it finally launches. I guess the question now is will the SLS fly before the Spacex BFR.

I would guess that if he succeeds and gets to Mars, he will be remembered long after our 'leaders' are forgotten.

CarolinaCrazy said:

DWFII said:

Agree with most of the generous comments about Musk and SpaceX. what was so thrilling...to me...about the launch was the upright landing of the boosters. I grew up in an era 50's and 60's when that was the standard fare of science fiction. All rockets came back to earth and landed upright...at which point a beautiful, scantily clad, young woman would emerge hanging off the arm (or tentacle) of green alien.

But for the longest time we never thought that a re-landing (and re-use) could occur. The science was too difficult. Musk and his team have achieved the "impossible." Hats off to them.

It's a big deal. at least to my generation--just to see the rocket descending and the struts deploying...it wows me everytime.

It signals the real  beginning.

Yeah, to me the rocket boosters landing was just as cool as the liftoff!

It was pretty cool seeing the two outer boosters landing together. Too bad the middle rocket crashed and burned. No doubt tho that they'll figure it out.