SpaceX Big Day T Minus 1Hr

Sinistar

Sinistar

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Brad
Gosh i hope it's a flawless trip for these 2 astronauts and SpaceX!!!

Anyone have recommendations for best channel or feed to watch?
 
eman1200 said:
I'm watching the NASA youtube live stream.

I wonder if that thing has a G1000
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Maybe they are from a Tesla :)

Both NASA youtube live and SpaceX streams are good, gonna watch those vs the cable companies. So much different about this launch.

Didnt realize both their wives are/were astronauts. I went to college with Karen...seriously motivated person!
 
They still use knee boards and printed checklists.
 
Damn little cell and lightening to the SW - fingers crossed.
 
I have a stupid question to ask. When you build a multi-billion dollar space launch facility, and thunderstorms/lightning are concerns, why in the hell do you build it in the middle of the biggest thunderstorm/lightning part of the world?

Jim
 
weirdjim said:
I have a stupid question to ask. When you build a multi-billion dollar space launch facility, and thunderstorms/lightning are concerns, why in the hell do you build it in the middle of the biggest thunderstorm/lightning part of the world?

Jim
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And why not in the equator where more angular momentum would be available?
 
weirdjim said:
I have a stupid question to ask. When you build a multi-billion dollar space launch facility, and thunderstorms/lightning are concerns, why in the hell do you build it in the middle of the biggest thunderstorm/lightning part of the world?

Jim
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for funsies.
 
Looks like we're back to being monkeys in the capsule. There ain't much in the way of controls in there. AC and screen brightness is prolly about it. :D
 
weirdjim said:
I have a stupid question to ask. When you build a multi-billion dollar space launch facility, and thunderstorms/lightning are concerns, why in the hell do you build it in the middle of the biggest thunderstorm/lightning part of the world?

Jim
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It is kind of a stupid question if you think about it a little.
 
weirdjim said:
I have a stupid question to ask. When you build a multi-billion dollar space launch facility, and thunderstorms/lightning are concerns, why in the hell do you build it in the middle of the biggest thunderstorm/lightning part of the world?

Jim
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Close to the equator and launch over water and not land
 
weirdjim said:
Other than rotational velocity what is stupid about it? We could rent space in Panama and save a LOT of kerosene. Florida is still 37d north of the equator.

Jim
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Probably security as well, it being US soil
 
weirdjim said:
Other than rotational velocity what is stupid about it? We could rent space in Panama and save a LOT of kerosene. Florida is still 37d north of the equator.

Jim
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At the time they started all this it was a Cold War big deal so they wanted it on US soil, close to the equator and headed east over water. And cheap real estate. So Cape Canaveral it was. Are there better places? Sure. But not when you factor all that in.
 
AggieMike88 said:
And why not in the equator where more angular momentum would be available?
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That's part of the rationale for launching from Florida instead of, say, Maine. I believe it goes by the cosine of the latitude.

Other considerations, some of which were more important in the 1950s when Canaveral was selected:
- Cheap land. That part of Florida was largely barren and cheap in the day.
- Launch over the ocean for safety.
- Launch to the east to get the benefit of earth rotation.
- Mainland location to allow easier shipment of hardware and supplies.
- Military facilities in close proximity (Florida has multiple USAF and USN bases).
 
jsstevens said:
At the time they started all this it was a Cold War big deal so they wanted it on US soil, close to the equator and headed east over water. And cheap real estate. So Cape Canaveral it was. Are there better places? Sure. But not when you factor all that in.
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Cheap real estate? Since when has the Federal Government been concerned about that. They could have condemned Miami Beach and not have thought a thing about it. Close to the equator? We dug this big ditch through Panama and nobody voiced a concern. We could have build "Kennedy" down there without too much trouble. Logistics? Getting stuff by train to Florida couldn't have been much worse than ship to Panama. Or Costa RIca. Or some other friendly equator country.
 
weirdjim said:
Cheap real estate? Since when has the Federal Government been concerned about that. They could have condemned Miami Beach and not have thought a thing about it. Close to the equator? We dug this big ditch through Panama and nobody voiced a concern. We could have build "Kennedy" down there without too much trouble. Logistics? Getting stuff by train to Florida couldn't have been much worse than ship to Panama. Or Costa RIca. Or some other friendly equator country.
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400,000 people worked on the Apollo program, a lot of them in Florida, and a lot of them had to be local to Kennedy. Staffing the space center would have been a nightmare had it been built in Panama.
 
weirdjim said:
Cheap real estate? Since when has the Federal Government been concerned about that. They could have condemned Miami Beach and not have thought a thing about it. Close to the equator? We dug this big ditch through Panama and nobody voiced a concern. We could have build "Kennedy" down there without too much trouble. Logistics? Getting stuff by train to Florida couldn't have been much worse than ship to Panama. Or Costa RIca. Or some other friendly equator country.
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Do you think storms/rain are less likely in Costa Rica than Florida?
 
GaryM said:
400,000 people worked on the Apollo program, a lot of them in Florida, and a lot of them had to be local to Kennedy. Staffing the space center would have been a nightmare had it been built in Panama.
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I was one of them. I'd have relocated to Panama in a New York Second for that kind of money. AND electronics is a wonderful communications device between JSFC and a remote location is that is what it took. I call bu11 $#it on not doing the PHYSICS and ENGINEERING right thing from the getgo.

Jim
 
weirdjim said:
Dunno. Do you have data? Did ANYBODY do a site analysis before we picked Canaveral/Kennedy for our investment of billions of dollars?
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Without putting too much effort in, it looks like Jacksonville FL (closet city on my limit research) has ~25% more sunshine hours per year than Ecuador (Wiki link -- Good enough for government work). Panama is even worse, as is much of Central America.

I can't way whether the government spent the money to invest, but that doesn't make Florida a horrible location.
 
Simple— Cape Canaveral Air Station was an existing facility for rocket development since the late 1940s so it was easier and made operational and logistical sense to expand there by developing what became the Kennedy Space Center adjacent to Cape Canaveral as opposed to starting from scratch some place else. IOW the pros of expanding operations in Florida vastly outweighed the cons.

IMO it was orbital mechanics and performance envelope of the Falcon 9 that drove the launch time. The weather is what it is. The launch window was immediate so they didn’t have the flexibility to hold and wait out the weather. Personally I can’t recall a shuttle or Soyuz launch that had such a limited launch window.
 
FYI: Cape Canaveral has been under military/government ownership since the 40s. They've been shooting missles over the water there since before NASA was even thought of.
 
weirdjim said:
Dunno. Do you have data? Did ANYBODY do a site analysis before we picked Canaveral/Kennedy for our investment of billions of dollars?
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I suspect that yes, plenty of people thought very hard about it at the time, and "weirdjim from the internet" is not in fact the first person to have thought of these ground breaking issues :p
 
Could it have gone from Vandenberg? Was there a requirement for it to be launched from Florida other than Apollo and space shuttle nostalgia?

If I recall correctly I believe SpaceX does plenty of flights out of Vandenberg

In addition, the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan is nowhere near the equator.. yet they don't seem to have any issues getting stuff in space from there

I have to think this Cape Canaveral thing was mostly a nostalgia play, not that there's anything wrong with that.. and given the scale of this I imagine taking every possible precaution necessary is the wise thing to do
 
weirdjim said:
I have a stupid question to ask. When you build a multi-billion dollar space launch facility, and thunderstorms/lightning are concerns, why in the hell do you build it in the middle of the biggest thunderstorm/lightning part of the world?

Jim
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It's a launch safety issue. If something goes wrong, it's over the ocean for the first 20 min or so. Plus you want launch as close to the equator as possible for an extra "kick" for speed.
http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/projects/vss/docs/navigation/2-why-launch-from-equator.html

But what about Vandenberg you ask? Well, Vandy launches different types of satellites into polar orbits.
http://www.braeunig.us/space/orbmech.htm

Think that's fun? Just wait until you get into the equations for density altitude.
 
Did anyone notice the suits they were wearing? while they look sharp, and properly sci-fi, they didn't seem that rugged or durable overall, especially the helmets..

Are those meant for potential exposure to vacuum of space? Or are they mostly just flight suits (fire, G's, etc)

Or have a really advanced that much since the suits worn by the shuttle and Soyuz crews?
 
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