New Mars Forums

I was up at 05:30 MDT and watched the entire flight.
But for those here who were still snug in their beds, I've subsequently watched several rehashes and selected one by Scott Manley to post here. NO annoying AI voices!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysx4t7ICO58

Enjoy! I finally am feeling confident that we may reach Mars in my lifetime!

There was a "nominally successful" launch of the Vulcan rocket--in spite of an anomaly with one of the SRBs--which lost a nozzle before burnout.

Here's a link to a debrief of the 4 Polaris Dawn astronauts with an actual live commentator. Some good questions and even better and very detailed answers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqF94oYqqiU

I've seen several comments online (YouTube), that NASA is now regretting their decision to NOT allow Jared Isaacman and a crew to repair the Hubble Space Telescope AT HIS EXPENSE!!

I'm certain that "Rook" Isaacman and Scott "Kidd" Poteet would be capable of doing the increase in orbit to extend the life of Hubble by another 10 years, and do repairs with a couple of NASA engineers riding along to service/replace the ailing gyros. This sounds like an opportunity to save some taxpayer money and extend the service life of a National Treasure.

Kudos to Isaacman, Poteet, Gillis, and Menon for their stellar efforts in service to the spacefaring community and the USA.

Although Elon Musk calls himself "Chief Engineer," the power behind the throne, so to speak, is Gwynne Shotwell who IS an engineer. Don't overlook Kathy Lueders, either. Elon is more the captain of the ship who has a sailing master and navigator directly at hand. He is kinda like an old time shipping magnate who could call himself the Commodore" of the fleet, but who left sailing the ships to others. He makes the big decisions based on his level of expertise, and encourages others to excel.
This is strictly my personal "take" on SpaceX. Sure, critics can all point out his failings, but that only makes the accomplishments more admirable. A late uncle of mine worked for McDonnell Aircraft as a senior engineer back in the 1950's through their acquisition of Douglas Aircraft, and commented that JS McDonnell would come prowling through the departments in the evenings checking up on progress of projects all the time. (His project was the reentry heat shield for the Gemini orbital vehicle). But again, old McDonnell WAS an engineer!

Either way, Boeing is "toast." Loss of a crew or loss of reputation? Take your pick!

With both Boeing and NASA engaged in mutual hand-wringing over this increasingly embarrassing situation, it is now time to do what the high salaried boys are paid to do: MAKE A DECISION AND ACT ON IT! It's costing Boeing millions a day supporting the standby infrastructure, and making them look like incompetent fools.

GW-
My first flight in my Dakota was memorable after I took delivery in Murieta, CA in 2011. I was a certificated Private Pilot, but didn't have my high performance endorsement yet, so the seller arranged for an Airline pilot to pick up some cash and a free ride back from Casper (KCPR) at my expense. We had an very early departure planned and the visibility was strictly IFR departure, so I got some real instrument time as a result. I already was partway through an instrument rating and had about 20 hours of hood time, so the ALP called and got a departure clearance for our departure. I took off and managed a really nice takeoff under zero visibility conditions and simply followed his directions regards altitude rate of climb, and heading. What a cool experience to break through to VFR "on top," and fly towards the Sierras at 11,500 feet. The cloud cover cleared and we flew directly over Big Bear Lake, and using a combination of VOR Nav and my partner's Garmin tablet GPS system, skirted Las Vegas. We did my first landing at Bryce Canyon, after flying over Zion NP at 9500 feet.
The the real fun began as we flew over Dinosaur National Monument and picked up a powerful tailwind we had a ground speed of 209 kts with an airspeed of 142 kts, according to the ASI! What a thrilling ride for my first time in my very own bird!

This delay gives them more time to come up with a rationale to sell if the return of Starliner manages to kill Butch and Sunni. I just watched an interesting and highly detailed plan for having a standby rescue vehicle available to rescue the entire crew of the ISS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPs19M2 … WL&index=5

Here's the available video of the landing of super heavy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMz8GxU … WL&index=2

I'm wondering whether or not they had any video recording from Starbase of the booster reentry and splashdown--or drone recordings? That would have been something that they should have done.
My 2 cents about the next test flight: continue working on the engines and ensure that they are 100% reliable; achieve orbit and do a reentry burn; improve the thermal protection in the hinges.
Overall, this was a fantastic performance and a magnificent feat of engineering.
Kudos to the entire SpaceX team!

The FAA license has been approved and the launch of IFT-4 is "go." Tomorrow, and is available for viewing on lots of YouTube channels--too many to list here. The SpaceX livestream is only on X.