SpaceX rocket with unmanned U.S. capsule blasts off for space station
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft onboard at Launch Complex 39A is seen in this DigitalGlobe Satellite image at Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. on February 28, 2019. ©2019 DigitalGlobe, a Maxar company/Handout via REUTERS
By Joey Roulette
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – A SpaceX rocket with an unmanned crew capsule blasted off on Saturday for the International Space Station, in a key milestone for Elon Musk’s space company and NASA’s long-delayed goal to resume human spaceflight from U.S. soil later this year.SpaceX’s 16-foot-tall (4.9 meter) Crew Dragon capsule, atop a Falcon 9 rocket, lifted off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center at 2:49 a.m. (0749 GMT), carrying a test dummy nicknamed Ripley.
The capsule successfully separated from the rocket about 11 minutes later, sparking cheers in the control room, and began its journey to the space station.
“I almost thought we would fail. I thought maybe we’d have a 10 percent chance of reaching orbit starting out,” Silicon Valley billionaire Musk said of his feelings when he founded the space company in 2002.
“I’m a little emotionally exhausted because that was super stressful, but it worked,” he told reporters after Saturday’s launch.
The space station’s three-member crew was expected to greet the capsule, carrying 400 pounds (181 kg) of supplies and test equipment, early Sunday morning, NASA said.
Back in the space game in a big way after a self-imposed hiatus under the previous Administration. It’s very good to have adults in charge.
Excellent article on Barry’s effort to kill America’s space program may be found here:
How Barack Obama ruined NASA space exploration
Category: Blue Skies, It's science!, Trump!
F**king “orbit”…
That pot smoking South African douche bag must think we’re stupid.
The Earth is a disk and everyone knows it!
Regardless, congrats or something.
The Falcons are nice and all, for a kids’ toy.
If you really want to put something in space, like a man, go Delta series.
https://youtu.be/wCy401hkXuk
Free market capitalism always win.
The forces of natural selection at work in a free market environment does not care whether the dude is from South Africa or if he smokes pot.
The only thing that matters is that he delivers.
The dude is pretty smart.
He has taken advantage of every single distortion in the market our corrupt politicians have come up with, like using taxpayer money for electric cars, and getting in bed with the Democrats.
Anecdotally, another free marketeer dude asked him once why he supported Democrats since Democrats are so anti free market capitalism and everything that has made Elon Musk a success, and supposedly he answered because there are serious consequences for crossing the Demoncrats, but no consequences whatsoever for crossing the Republitards.
It is so very good to see Falcon X succeeding. Not only does it get us back into the “game”, it may open up some door gunner positions for us. We know how angry Marvin will be when Elon Musk brings the new and improved bat-tree operated ‘lectric plasma gun online. How many of us retired door gunners would volunteer to go back “into the sh*t.” Done called that wascally wabbit. He’s ready too.
At 3B a year, how many years could we have kept the Space Program going with the $ oblowme sent to Iran? Or the mega bucks spent on his “green energy?” Coulda got a year or so out of what was wasted on the ACA Website.
To hell with Mars, I thought the women were from Venus.
Let’s also remember that President Trump’s predecessor wanted NASA to :…reach out to muslims.”. What would be next suicide bombing Shuttle missions?
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule successfully docks to the ISS for the first time
Read the entire article here: The Verge.com
Hey Ed – I posted about the launch in the WOT yesterday
Missed it, Senior. Apologies.
Wow, the comments on that link are “interesting ” to say the least… some real leftist drones, and true believers…
This may not be the place but is early evening here and am concerned as to any one in group here who might be in the path of that tornado that is going through Ala, Geo, Fla and also sounds like part of SC. Be safe and let us know you are safe.
We got gusts up to, oh, 50 MPH here in NW Florida. The rain was in sheets coming down sideways. I understand there are over a dozen confirmed dead a little North of us. Sadness
Am I the only one who feels like naming the dummy Ripley sounds like bad luck?
Uh, no. They require a mammal host to gestate before they burst through the rib cage.
Still, something about it seems like it’s just asking for trouble.
Like watching “Tremors” in the desert or “The Thing” when you’re snowed in. You just don’t do it.
Or watching Jaws while you are on the water (can be in a river, a lake, the ocean (any of the Great Lakes can also count for this as they do look like the ocean when you are in the middle of them), or even in your pool or a pool of some kind) or while you are on a cruise ship.
You mean like this, Ex-PH2?
Why would Obama want to kill space exploration when it is our only chance to escape climate change?
I’m confused. And scared for my planet.
Thanks to him we’ve been at least number two in the space race, but I’m sure many a snowflake still felt good about itself anyway!
As you all recall, Zero put a stop to space ops so that NASA could change its focus to teaching all us ignorant rubes and Islamophobes that science and math were invented by Muslimes. And that but for the Religion of Pieces and all its super smart acolytes we never would have made it to the Moon. Also, let’s not forget how Clock-boi invented the digital clock in a pencil box.
I never could figure out how NASA was supposed to “improve relations with the islamic world” or however the hell they phrased that. They’re NASA for Christ’s sake! They’ve been lighting tubes of volatile shit on fire and seeing how high they’ll go since 1958! And they’ve been giving space shuttle rides to people from countries that don’t even have an air force since the 80s! How do you get more “outreaching” than that?
Head of NASA Charles F. Bolden made the statement you are thinking of during a Congressional hearing.
Bolden said he was acting on the orders of then President Obama to “find ways to reach out to dominantly Muslim countries” as part of diplomacy and to make the International Space Station more international.
Later Bolden, speaking to a lecture hall of young engineering student said “in addition to the nations that most of you usually hear about when you think about the International Space Station, we now have expanded our efforts to reach out to non-traditional partners.”
After the backlash, Obama’s Whitehouse threw Bolden under the bus saying “that’s not the mission of NASA.”
Bolden had a distinguished career serving as a Major General in the Marine Corps, flying in Viet Nam, and serving as the Commandant of the Naval Academy.
As the head of NASA, he was a complete and utter failure. No decisions were made for a heavy lift vehicle even though he promised Congress NASA would have a new vehicle. He seemed paralyzed by the politics of his position – caught between Congress who wanted to play for the cameras and get answers, and his boss, one Barrack Obama.
We are sure there are people who liked Bolden as head of NASA, but here in Brevard County, we have never met one of them. Under his leadership, NASA couldn’t get out of their own way with huge cost overruns, safety violations, rampant accounting problems, etc.
No matter whether it was Bolden or Obama or the White House or all three, the statement on reaching out to “predominately Muslim countries” was a huge failure and showed that none of the three understood that Americans had not forgotten 9/11 and the other terrorist attacks.
I would hope no one would recall that because it isn’t true.
In January 2004, Bush announced that in 2010 the space shuttle program would end. A 30 year old vehicle was getting old and needed replacing. Congress, lack of funding, design issues (including engines that failed) meant the new shuttle or orbiter never made it. Obama actually extended the end of the program for a year and a half past the end of program date.
By that point, NASA operations was saying the shuttle was dangerous and they could no longer guarantee safe flights. Costs were skyrocketing as well as vehicle maintenance was growing with each launch and return. (The SRB’s were showing signs that they were becoming dangerous as well.)
The failure of a replacement program for the shuttle is a failure of NASA. It wasn’t the failure of Obama and it wasn’t the failure of Bush. Both presidents were assured by NASA that a replacement vehicle was coming and it never did.
In the interim, NASA was having huge issues with the James Webb Telescope which originally was scheduled to be in orbit by 2010 and cost a little over $4.4 billion. Right now, the telescope is still on earth, and not scheduled for launch until 2021, at a cost of at least $10 billion due to overruns.
The failure of a replacement space vehicle is laid squarely at the feet of NASA.
Did all of the Steely-Eyed Missile Men retire, or did they just get moved to the basement by the political climbers?
Here’s hoping Musk brings SpaceX from a privately held company to a publicly traded stock soon. In 2015, he told investors “it will go public once we have regular flights to Mars.” To the Red Planet…and beyond!
Musk is a lousy businessman who can’t meet the demands for his Tesla vehicles. He keeps firing vehicle assembly people and puts his cash flow into “other”. He seems to be a disorganized dabbler, someone who made a great idea sound good to investors, who have been pulling out because he doesn’t deliver on his promises.
Yes, he’s great at concepts and does produce good products but he seems to get bored quite easily. If he’s going to focus on space and returning the USA to the space race, fine by me, but he’d better stick to it instead of going off on another tangent, and he should step away from managing his Tesla line – let real managers handle that.
So Musk should be the lead R&D guy, not the overall shotcaller.
He’s got a great, active imagination and knows how things generally work. But there’s been a lot of public media about his “not seeing the whole picture”, which means logistics and manufacturing as well as funding, and that is his weak spot.
Let’s gut NASA and hope for the best…well done by previous adminsitrations..
Government has value for some things, research like space and deep water are two of them. Medicine is another. Not everything should have a profit motive, the engineering learned from the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo launches was well worth the investment. Being the best in science and math and medicine requires some investment. When you’re busy with wars all around the world and feeding all the people who can’t feed themselves it leaves the research to guys like Musk. The benefit to the nation is less clear when one asshole can control the patent process and licensing.
We’ve become far to beholden to corporate and individual interests. It’s almost as if everyone thought Eisenhower was lying with his warning.
I never could understand the obsession with Mars. Takes too long to get there and what are we gonna get back for the investment in hardware etc?
Let’s go back to the Moon. It’s the ultimate high ground. “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress “ anybody? Buehler? Buehler?
I think it’s because Mars would be more feasible for colonization or at least the colony will have a better chance at becoming self sustaining. Would that be possible on the Moon? Now the Moon would make a good stop over on the way to Mars.
Mars is a destination. The Moon is a gas station on the way, so to speak.
From Mars, the next step is the Asteroid Belt, especially Ceres, then the Jovian moons, then the Saturnine moons. Interstellar travel is a whole other ballgame with zero guarantees, but it will definitely never happen if we don’t take the first steps. That’s the nature of exploration. Columbus knew the world isn’t flat because there was solid contemporary science proving it isn’t, but that didn’t guarantee there would be anything navigable to the west. Nobody knew what they would find until ships started heading out that way and, more importantly, coming back from there.
Good point TOW. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
“…the world isn’t flat…”
Prove it.
Seasons.
Variations in the swingings of the Sun disk.
Watch a ship sail away from you or come toward you on the open ocean..
Then the ship should disappear from the hull up. If you watch an object disappear or appear on the ‘horizon’ the mast size fluctuates almost as soon as the hull does. This is because of the refraction of light through the atmosphere. The Earth isn’t a sphere!
Thanks for playing!
That might account for how the USS Nimitz under command of Captain Matthew Yelland (Kirk Douglas) slipped into a vortex and went back in time to December 6, 1941 in the movie The Final Countdown!
Classic!
Magellan.
USS Triton
Thousands of others.
Plus dudes who have been to space and looked down at the world and saw that it was round.
Climate Change. 😉
Good point TOW. Couldn’t have said it better myself.