Falcon 9 Photos

[mike robel]

Hi all.

Went out to the Cruise Terminal to see if anything could be seen, and "Lo!"  there sat Falcon 9 on the pad.  That's the first picture.

Since I am a booster fan-boy, live on Merritt Island, and have a year-long KSC pass, I went out and hopped the Tour Bus to the Shuttle Viewing area and got the 2nd Picture.

Enjoy.

[Orbiter]

Awesome! I guess she's really on the pad!

Orbiter

[Lars_J]

Niiice! (although you shoul proabbly post it in one of the Spacex/Dragon threads)

[ugordan]

Nice! Here's a crop and slight enhancement of your second image:

[mike robel]

Thanks.  I should have thought of that, but didn't. 

[robertross]

Wow, thanks for the photos!

[Comga]

Yes! Thanks!  Great to see it.

[neilh]

Fantastic, thanks for snapping these.

[SpacexULA]

That's it, no Christmas card from Elon this year!

Thank you, I have been watching twitter for that picture for the last 24 hours.

I feel an Avatar change coming on.

[mr. mark]

great new pics at www.spaceflightnow.com

[Orbiter]

That's it, no Christmas card from Elon this year!

Thank you, I have been watching twitter for that picture for the last 24 hours.

I feel an Avatar change coming on.

Yea, me too. Go SpaceX!

[ChuckC]

That's it, no Christmas card from Elon this year!

Thank you, I have been watching twitter for that picture for the last 24 hours.

I feel an Avatar change coming on.

Yea, me too. Go SpaceX!

Please note that this is not a glorified model rocket like Ares 1-X. This is a real test of an LV that will likely orbit a manned space craft some day.

All I can is Go Space X.

[Cog_in_the_machine]

The sooner they launch that thing successfully, the better. I'm looking forward to it.

[gospacex]

Yea, me too. Go SpaceX!

Yep

[woods170]

Whoa, the horizontal assembly hangar looks to be awfully close to the launchpad, approx 200 meters. What if Falcon 9 blows up on the pad? (yeah, I know, that's a worst case scenario) Would that cause any significant damage to the horizontal assembly facility?

[docmordrid]

Then they call up the local prefab metal building contractor & have 'em put up another modified chicken barn - those come in widths up to at least 120 feet and go up in no time. If necessary also buy a new crane for it.

[Ben the Space Brit]

Then they call up the local prefab metal building contractor & have 'em put up another modified chicken barn - those come in widths up to at least 120 feet and go up in no time. If necessary also buy a new crane for it.

I believe that I read on one of these threads that the crane is tough enough to handle something like that and that, as docmordrid says, the actual 'barn' is considered expendable in such a scenario.

[William Barton]

Then they call up the local prefab metal building contractor & have 'em put up another modified chicken barn - those come in widths up to at least 120 feet and go up in no time. If necessary also buy a new crane for it.

I believe that I read on one of these threads that the crane is tough enough to handle something like that and that, as docmordrid says, the actual 'barn' is considered expendable in such a scenario.

In one of the nuclear weapons tests from the 1950s, one of the test buildings was a machine shop with heavy lathes and the like. After the smoke cleared, the building was gone, but the machine tools were still sitting in their places on the concrete pad, glass dials blown out, but otherwise still functional. I think a diesel locomotive is another piece of heavy machinery made out okay in a similar test. So I'm not surprised an industrial crane would be okay with a little thing like a 180ft rocket full of kerosene and lox falling on it.