Pages with tag Space Flight
Protesting Trump from the edge of space, with a touch of Opera
In what may be the first political protest from Space, the Autonomous Space Agency Network (ASAN) launched a balloon to near-earth orbit to send a message to the Trump Administration. Taking a cue from Astronaut Edgar Mitchel, who said 'From out there on the Moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter millions miles out and say: Look at that, you son of a bitch,' the message carried aloft by the balloon said exactly that. As in - Hey Trump, come up here and see what this planet really looks like, and what your actual responsibility is as a fellow human being.
SpaceX in historic first reuse of previously launched rocket, unless it's a hoax
SpaceX today made history with the first ever space-ship launch using a rocket that had previously flown. Today's SES-10 launch was flown by a Falcon 9 space-ship which had previously flown in April 2016. They had successfully landed that ship on their autonomous drone landing pad, then refurbished it, ensuring it was flight-ready, then flew it again today, and successfully landing the rocket on their landing pad ship. SpaceX's long-term goal is to reuse rocket ships multiple times, because the first stage rocket costs $60 million to build but only $200,000 to fuel. By reusing rockets, the cost of launching stuff into space will be drastically slashed, and humanity will be able to afford to launch more stuff into space. But - I said 'hoax' because there's at least one person on YouTube complaining the video is obviously a hoax. He latched onto the fact that for every landing, the video cuts out and they do not show the landing live, instead they magically show the rocket on the landing pad -- but -- cue sound effects -- obviously it's a fake, and they simply showed a different rocket on the ... sigh. Oh c'mon.
