Quote from: Rocket Science on 05/31/2012 05:18 pmQuote from: DaveJ576 on 05/31/2012 04:22 pmQuote from: K-P on 05/31/2012 04:11 pmcome to think of it...this was actually the first spacecraft splashdown i have seen live ever (or first in my lifetime for that matter)Sheesh... Rookies! I remember watching all of the Apollos from 11 on hit the drink. Young David!I saw them all from Mercury-Redstone… ~RobertI remember them as far back as Gemini. I'm a little too young to remember watching Mercury, although my father always said that I was sitting in his lap for MR-3. I was also 3 at the time.Of course I saw those Gemini splashdowns in black & white. In fact, my family got our first color TV on the day of Apollo 10's splashdown. My dad plugged it in, turned it on, and...nothing. He hooked up the B&W again and we watched it on that.It was easier to hook up TVs in those days. You just plugged in the cord to the electrical outlet and extended the rabbit ear antennas. Edit: Now that I think of it, those B&W splashdowns were clearer than the color one we saw this morning.
Quote from: DaveJ576 on 05/31/2012 04:22 pmQuote from: K-P on 05/31/2012 04:11 pmcome to think of it...this was actually the first spacecraft splashdown i have seen live ever (or first in my lifetime for that matter)Sheesh... Rookies! I remember watching all of the Apollos from 11 on hit the drink. Young David!I saw them all from Mercury-Redstone… ~Robert
Quote from: K-P on 05/31/2012 04:11 pmcome to think of it...this was actually the first spacecraft splashdown i have seen live ever (or first in my lifetime for that matter)Sheesh... Rookies! I remember watching all of the Apollos from 11 on hit the drink.
come to think of it...this was actually the first spacecraft splashdown i have seen live ever (or first in my lifetime for that matter)
What's the next big thing to look forward to from SpaceX? The Grasshopper tests?
I didn't think the attack ad was appropriate, though, and I bet PWR management doesn't look back on it as the smartest ad campaign they've ever done.
Wooo hoo! I need to unwind in the party thread here... I'm very excited!And the "blind squirrels" of SpaceX are two for two, I guess.
What is the "blind squirrels" reference??
Quote from: rickl on 05/31/2012 11:23 pmQuote from: Rocket Science on 05/31/2012 05:18 pmQuote from: DaveJ576 on 05/31/2012 04:22 pmQuote from: K-P on 05/31/2012 04:11 pmcome to think of it...this was actually the first spacecraft splashdown i have seen live ever (or first in my lifetime for that matter)Sheesh... Rookies! I remember watching all of the Apollos from 11 on hit the drink. Young David!I saw them all from Mercury-Redstone… ~RobertI remember them as far back as Gemini. I'm a little too young to remember watching Mercury, although my father always said that I was sitting in his lap for MR-3. I was also 3 at the time.Of course I saw those Gemini splashdowns in black & white. In fact, my family got our first color TV on the day of Apollo 10's splashdown. My dad plugged it in, turned it on, and...nothing. He hooked up the B&W again and we watched it on that.It was easier to hook up TVs in those days. You just plugged in the cord to the electrical outlet and extended the rabbit ear antennas. Edit: Now that I think of it, those B&W splashdowns were clearer than the color one we saw this morning. I was 4 or 5 at the time, so maybe I'm not remembering this right... but I seem to recall sitting transfixed in front of the TV, watching the Gemini gantry slowly lower itself to the ground after launch. Did it really do that?
Quote from: punder on 06/01/2012 02:25 amWhat is the "blind squirrels" reference??When SpaceX managed to launch F9, Jim dismissed it as "even blind squirrel can sometimes get nut". It was after second successful launch, mind you.Certain folks never let live it down...
Quote from: sanman on 05/31/2012 07:42 pmWhat's the next big thing to look forward to from SpaceX? The Grasshopper tests?Some non-government customers getting their payloads to orbit would be absolutely AWESOME
LOL
That having been said, he does usually seem to ignore the question about what will get him excited - that is to ask Jim, what's the smallest thing on their to-do list that you would consider historic? Private crew -> ISS? Retrothruster landing? 1st stage flyback? ...Mars?*microphone in face*
Historic and what gets me excited is two different things. I would be excited if Spacex launched a spacecraft that I was working on. As for Spacex is plans (I am going to add to your list)Falcon 1, Falcon 9, C1, C2/3, CRS1, Private crew, Retrothruster landing, 1st stage flyback, etc are too incremental to be giddy about for one lanch. STS-1 was everything at once, not to mention the gap since ASTP.
Falcon 1, Falcon 9, C1, C2/3, CRS1, Private crew, Retrothruster landing, 1st stage flyback, etc are too incremental to be giddy about for one lanch.
Quote from: jnc on 05/31/2012 04:40 pmQuote from: simonbp on 05/31/2012 04:29 pmWell remember, COTS was really Mike Griffin's baby in the first place...Something I think too many Constellation-haterz don't remember often enough.Maybe some fellow CxP-haters forget that Mike Griffin actually did one or two smart things during his time at NASA HQ, but I'm not one of those. My only beef was that discussions pre-Griffin had made it sound like they were going to pursue commercial cargo and crew in parallel, not as a "let's do cargo first, and only think about solving the crew situation down the road" deal like we ended up getting.~Jon
Quote from: simonbp on 05/31/2012 04:29 pmWell remember, COTS was really Mike Griffin's baby in the first place...Something I think too many Constellation-haterz don't remember often enough.
Well remember, COTS was really Mike Griffin's baby in the first place...
Historic and what gets me excited is two different things. I would be excited if Spacex launched a spacecraft that I was working on.
Quote from: punder on 06/01/2012 02:25 amWhat is the "blind squirrels" reference??Based on the cliche: "even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then"An oft-repeated Jim-ism:http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=22041.msg667671#msg667671[EDIT: that reference took some serious searching!]