Falcon Heavy

[luisc99 (OP)]

SpaceX just did their test launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket, which they aim to use to send manned missions to the ISS by the end of the year. It was comprised of a main core stage, with 2 Falcon 9 boosters strapped to the sides. Both the boosters have already launched satellites in the past on their own, and landed again, so they could be reused. Both of those landed successfully after the launch (in a really cool synchronised way), so they could be used for a third time. It's not yet been confirmed if the central core stage landed successfully, but it's not looking likely.

What do you think to this? It's a pretty big achievement, and if they can land the stages like this all the time it's going to bring the cost of rocket launches down loads. As well as wanting to send people to the ISS on behalf of NASA, they've announced that two unnamed people have paid for a trip around the moon using one of these, which they aim to do by the end of this year.

Discuss.

[CRH244]

Neato.

[Airbongo]

Ako showed me the link this morning. It's cool as fuck and really impressive. We're pretty much witnessing epic history being made, the possibility of deep space travel, and that's crazy. Imagine if countries focused on achieving awesome feats like space travel instead of designing ways to kill each other with.

In the US NASA's budget is not even 20 billion, yet military funding is over 600 billion. Sad.

Billions of galaxies out there, there could be completely different worlds with bizarre and intelligent alien lifeforms. It's mind-boggling. Yet we will probably nuke each other into extinction before we even get a chance to develop the technology that could help us get there.

[PengBunny]

Ako showed me the link this morning. It's cool as fuck and really impressive. We're pretty much witnessing epic history being made, the possibility of deep space travel, and that's crazy. Imagine if countries focused on achieving awesome feats like space travel instead of designing ways to kill each other with.

In the US NASA's budget is not even 20 billion, yet military funding is over 600 billion. Sad.

Billions of galaxies out there, there could be completely different worlds with bizarre and intelligent alien lifeforms. It's mind-boggling. Yet we will probably nuke each other into extinction before we even get a chance to develop the technology that could help us get there.

sounds like humans

[Akomine]

This was soooo enjoyable to watch. This is a part of humankind's history in the making. I encourage everyone to watch it.

This is the ship that will take humans back to the moon, and take humans to Mars. This is the first live flight of a ship that will shift humanity into a multiplanetary species. It's really damn cool. I wanna go to Mars.

[Akomine]

Really cool alternate angle of the dual landing from further away to see the approach from the sky