SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 - SES-8 - Let's Get Restarted In Here Party Thread

[Halidon]

Just like the last F9, three big events in a day. Chinese Launch. Progress launch. SpaceX launch.

Too bad Falcon is from CA and not NY. Some great "Hey, I'm launchin' here!" material there.

[kevin-rf]

Eight, eight, the burning hate. Between Sunday and Monday there lies a day so dark it will devastate.

[mlindner]

Eight, eight, the burning hate. Between Sunday and Monday there lies a day so dark it will devastate.

NSF forums in general today are loving to talk in allegory, none of which I've been getting. I'm assuming its because of the generation gap (I'm 24).

[WHAP]

Just like the last F9, three big events in a day. Chinese Launch. Progress launch. SpaceX launch.

Too bad Falcon is from CA and not NY. Some great "Hey, I'm launchin' here!" material there.

Isn't Falcon launching from FL?  There are enough transplants to make the NY cracks if you want to.

[russianhalo117]

Just like the last F9, three big events in a day. Chinese Launch. Progress launch. SpaceX launch.

Too bad Falcon is from CA and not NY. Some great "Hey, I'm launchin' here!" material there.

Isn't Falcon launching from FL?  There are enough transplants to make the NY cracks if you want to.

Yes next three are confirmed launching from CCAFS.

[oiorionsbelt]

Eight, eight, the burning hate. Between Sunday and Monday there lies a day so dark it will devastate.

NSF forums in general today are loving to talk in allegory, none of which I've been getting. I'm assuming its because of the generation gap (I'm 24).

It's from the movie Tank Girl.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114614/quotes

Kevin-rf can explain the relevance.

[TrevorMonty]

Tank Girl was mid 90s. Was great on big screen, not so good 2nd time I watched on video.

[rickl]

Eight, eight, the burning hate. Between Sunday and Monday there lies a day so dark it will devastate.

NSF forums in general today are loving to talk in allegory, none of which I've been getting. I'm assuming its because of the generation gap (I'm 24).

I'm 55 and I didn't get that either.


I guess it kinda zoomed right between us.

[rickl]

The SpaceX store has coffee mugs now!  Also long sleeved F9 and Dragon T-shirts. 


And thankfully, they brought back the "X" baseball caps.  I think they are much cooler than the ones with the "SpaceX" logo.  They look more like proper sports team caps.

[Elvis in Space]

I generally wear football attire all weekend to support my team during the season. I've had my Spacex Falcon t-shirt on under everything this time. I don't view it as superstition but more like a cheerleader. It's all I've got to contribute. At least until they put up a stadium and sell seats at LC-40. 

[daver]

Go SpaceX!  Go Elon! 

[Akhenaten]

There has been much debate over the issue of Profit vs Vision in Elon Musk's motivations. THere can be little doubt that he sees profit as a necessary means to a greater End, rather than merely an exercise in book-keeping.
 A man who works for profit alone is merely ashop- keeper
A person who gains profit to pursue a major vision is either a world-shaker or a dreamer.
We are lucky, probably, to be witnessing the emergence of a phenomenom comparable with |the great world-enlarging merchant- world elarger of old.
 MOts aware people can now see and relate to this, and it is also blindlingly obvious that our Civilsation is in sore need of a new paradigm, if the balfeul prognostications of Malthus and Orwell are not to lead to a deacy and collapse of Humane Civilisation.
 It is recognition, whether conscious or subconscious , which is creating the Elon Musk "fan club" y,
 Put another way

1/ Normal people accept awkward facts and live with them
2 Madmen deny them
3/Genius- that rare bird- creates new facts

Elon is clearly not in class 1- with a fortune of >$2.5 billions, most normal people would have drunk, gambled or squandered it in profitless pleasure- or even endowed a charity or two?!
The next 2-3 years will show whether he is in class 2 or 3.

I truly believe that if Hubris does not appear, he will change the world- and greatly to its benefit!

[Galactic Penguin SST]

I wonder when was the last time there was such high interests in a "run-of-the-mill" commercial GSO bound communication satellite launch? Maybe one of the Shuttle launches in the 1980s? (STS-5? STS-61C?) Or the first Ariane with commercial payloads? (I don't know which one - should be somewhere in 1981-83) Or the first Proton launch on a commercial payload? (Astra 1K, 1996) Or the first Sea Launch commercial mission? (DIRECTV-1R, 1999) Or the first EELV launches? (Hot Bird 6/Eutelsat W5, 2002)

Or.......the interests on this launch is unprecedented?

(I did not include the communication satellites of the 1960s/70s since they most certainly weren't "run-of-the-mill" back then!)

[darkenfast]

I doubt if there's much interest in the satellite, as valuable as such things are. The interest is in SpaceX and their attempt to shake up the industry and extend our exploration off the planet. There are entrenched interests in the government and in industry who would love to see them fail. SpaceX has got to demonstrate a reliable launch schedule and booster fly-back over the next year. They have to be able to point to a string of successes and say: "Now do you see what we are talking about? Let's DO something!" The interest that SpaceX gets on this board is a reflection of the importance of what they are doing.

[smoliarm]

I wonder when was the last time there was such high interests in a "run-of-the-mill" commercial GSO bound communication satellite launch? Maybe one of the Shuttle launches in the 1980s? (STS-5? STS-61C?) Or the first Ariane with commercial payloads? (I don't know which one - should be somewhere in 1981-83) Or the first Proton launch on a commercial payload? (Astra 1K, 1996) Or the first Sea Launch commercial mission? (DIRECTV-1R, 1999) Or the first EELV launches? (Hot Bird 6/Eutelsat W5, 2002)

Or.......the interests on this launch is unprecedented?

(I did not include the communication satellites of the 1960s/70s since they most certainly weren't "run-of-the-mill" back then!)

Well, I can't answer your question... I'm not an expert in space history and I'm not sure what "run-of-the-mill" means (Is it equivalent to Russian "right from the frying pan"? -- meaning just the same as previous hundred).

But, I can tell you THE NEXT comm sat launch -- which will attract the same amount of attention -- Thaicom 6.
BTW, can it be the first in history -- launch on Christmas Eve?

[Galactic Penguin SST]

I wonder when was the last time there was such high interests in a "run-of-the-mill" commercial GSO bound communication satellite launch? Maybe one of the Shuttle launches in the 1980s? (STS-5? STS-61C?) Or the first Ariane with commercial payloads? (I don't know which one - should be somewhere in 1981-83) Or the first Proton launch on a commercial payload? (Astra 1K, 1996) Or the first Sea Launch commercial mission? (DIRECTV-1R, 1999) Or the first EELV launches? (Hot Bird 6/Eutelsat W5, 2002)

Or.......the interests on this launch is unprecedented?

(I did not include the communication satellites of the 1960s/70s since they most certainly weren't "run-of-the-mill" back then!)

Well, I can't answer your question... I'm not an expert in space history and I'm not sure what "run-of-the-mill" means (Is it equivalent to Russian "right from the frying pan"? -- meaning just the same as previous hundred).

But, I can tell you THE NEXT comm sat launch -- which will attract the same amount of attention -- Thaicom 6.
BTW, can it be the first in history -- launch on Christmas Eve?

Your interpretation of "run-of-the-mill" is correct. 

And here's a complete list of launches (and selected spaceflight related events) in history day by day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Spaceflight/On_This_Day/Index

[hrissan]

There are entrenched interests in the government and in industry who would love to see them fail.

SpaceX better check the orientation of angular velocity sensors...

Acording to russian Energia wiki page, before second Energia launch it was accidentally discovered by engineer that all 3 blocks of sensors were installed in wrong orientation, it was impossible to fit, so someone machined and installed special adapter. Human error?

I tried to track the source of this info, but it is very hard now, as it was widely circulated during Proton discussion, and thousands of blogs and news outlets copied it. May be this is simply false.

As the probability of conspiracy is non-zero (doesn't matter if Elon believes this or not), it makes sense to organize quality assurance in a way that requires not a single rat, but a number of rats to accomplish similar feat.

[Jcc]

Shotwell says "SpaceX is a company that loves testing". Hopefully that covers both human error and possible malicious intent. I agree the probability of that is nonzero, but I would like to think it is very close to zero at this point.

Besides, this is a party thread, cheer up!

[411rocket]

I doubt if there's much interest in the satellite, as valuable as such things are. The interest is in SpaceX and their attempt to shake up the industry and extend our exploration off the planet.

I totally agree with your entire post, but only Quoted part of it. Impatently waiting, for launch.........

[smoliarm]

I wonder when was the last time there was such high interests in a "run-of-the-mill" commercial GSO bound communication satellite launch? Maybe one of the Shuttle launches in the 1980s? (STS-5? STS-61C?) Or the first Ariane with commercial payloads? (I don't know which one - should be somewhere in 1981-83) Or the first Proton launch on a commercial payload? (Astra 1K, 1996) Or the first Sea Launch commercial mission? (DIRECTV-1R, 1999) Or the first EELV launches? (Hot Bird 6/Eutelsat W5, 2002)

Or.......the interests on this launch is unprecedented?

(I did not include the communication satellites of the 1960s/70s since they most certainly weren't "run-of-the-mill" back then!)

Well, I can't answer your question... I'm not an expert in space history and I'm not sure what "run-of-the-mill" means (Is it equivalent to Russian "right from the frying pan"? -- meaning just the same as previous hundred).

But, I can tell you THE NEXT comm sat launch -- which will attract the same amount of attention -- Thaicom 6.
BTW, can it be the first in history -- launch on Christmas Eve?

Your interpretation of "run-of-the-mill" is correct. 

And here's a complete list of launches (and selected spaceflight related events) in history day by day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Spaceflight/On_This_Day/Index

Thanks for the link!
So, my guess was right - if they manage to launch Thaicom-6 on Dec-25th -- this will be the first in American history!
And if SpaceX slips a few days (we know they can ) and launch on Dec-31st it's gonna be the world's first!!
But, it's a topic for Thaicom's party thread ...

Back to this party:
Somewhere in the SES updates thread, somebody quoted that this flight 'will shake the industry to its roots'.
(somewhat inline with your questions )
It seems to me I hear similar things pretty much about each Falcon flight.
Thanks goodness, the shaken industry is still there...