Go boys go...

Antney

Member
Joined
Feb 15, 2017
Messages
510
Reaction score
176
052E26B1-0AE5-48DC-B845-9A5B616EAAFF.jpeg
 

Nuuska

Enlightened Member
Joined
Jan 18, 2016
Messages
7,669
Reaction score
6,030
Location
Finland
Guild Total
9
I spent two hours on thursday to the point they cancelled - almost forgot about it today. But I had general newsfeed on big screen and NASA on my iPad. It is amazing what force there is. To reach 200km altitude and near 20 000km/h speed in less than 5 minutes. Plus they seemed to manage the carrier rocket safely back. Elon Musk must be thrilled. All his fanboys are going nuts.
 

DThomasC

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2014
Messages
1,283
Reaction score
187
Location
Finger Lakes, New York, USA
Right? Imagine the first engineers/scientists that tried to figure out what it would take. Then they had to figure out how to get it done. Humans can pretty amazing sometimes.
 

dreadnut

Gone But Not Forgotten
Gone But Not Forgotten
Joined
Jun 15, 2005
Messages
16,082
Reaction score
6,442
Location
Grand Rapids, MI
Guild Total
2
This is cool. I remember when John Glenn became the first American in orbit on Friendship 7. We had a school assembly around the flagpole. This was a big deal militarily for the US; we were still conducting "duck and cover" drills in school.

 
Last edited:

GGJaguar

Reverential Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2011
Messages
21,324
Reaction score
31,416
Location
Skylands
Guild Total
49
This is ground control to Major Tom, you've really made the grade...
 

Cougar

Enlightened Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2015
Messages
5,323
Reaction score
3,016
Location
North Idaho
Guild Total
5
I spent two hours on thursday to the point they cancelled - almost forgot about it today....

I was watching... CNN I think it was, and they almost missed the launch! Apparently Mission Control announced 30 seconds to launch and started counting down, and at about second 25, the rocket was already in the air! They totally missed it, just then showing it rocketing up, up, up. Did somebody hit the button too soon or what?!
 

Quantum Strummer

Senior Member
Joined
May 26, 2015
Messages
2,382
Reaction score
118
Location
Michigan
I also watched the launch on my iPad via NASA's livestream. Didn't see the main rocket land but they showed it afterward. Amazing how those things can descend and (usually) just nail the landing point.

-Dave-
 

steve488

Member
Joined
Aug 26, 2014
Messages
400
Reaction score
168
Location
Arizona desert
Guild Total
2
I was watching... CNN I think it was, and they almost missed the launch! Apparently Mission Control announced 30 seconds to launch and started counting down, and at about second 25, the rocket was already in the air! They totally missed it, just then showing it rocketing up, up, up. Did somebody hit the button too soon or what?!
As Grot noted - some channels were OK. I had it running on two PC's with different feeds and one was almost exactly 30 seconds behind the other. Being a part of the businesses that participated in the program I can state this is a serious accomplishment (again!). Just getting the rocket to lift straight with that amount of thrust in the tail is a major accomplishment. Further manuevering in space to miss all the other crap on low earth orbit is another major feat. At least they now carry some reasonable computing power on board. Mercury, Gemini and Apollo has less general computing power than most cellphones but what they had was dedicated and refined for specific calculations. I am extremely happy the launch and docking went well.
 

dreadnut

Gone But Not Forgotten
Gone But Not Forgotten
Joined
Jun 15, 2005
Messages
16,082
Reaction score
6,442
Location
Grand Rapids, MI
Guild Total
2
I was an Aviation Electronics Technician in the Navy. In my "A" school, we studied vacuum tube theory and transistor theory. The logic of the day was "TTL." This was '72-73. By the time I was on the USS Ranger in '74, everything was moving to integrated circuits. I worked in the avionics repair shop, we repaired the black boxes from the Grumman A-6E's, KA6-D's (tankers), EA-6B's (4-man electronics jamming birds) and the carrier-based Flying Frisbies; the E2B Hawkeyes. We also serviced the control sticks.

After I got out of the Navy, I went to see "Star Wars" with my wife, I told her "We had technology just like that; I worked on it!"

I can scarcely imagine the advances in technology since then, and I kept up with it until about 20 years ago.
 

DThomasC

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2014
Messages
1,283
Reaction score
187
Location
Finger Lakes, New York, USA
The electronics in new cars has blown past those early rockets.

The trend has been towards more powerful computers every where, obviously, but it has also been away from a single central computer doing all the work. Microcontrollers have become so inexpensive and reliable that they end up scattered all around the car. When you flip the turn signal switch on the steering column it sends a message over the car-wide computer network to the microcontroller in the tail light telling it to start blinking. It's actually cheaper because it requires less copper wire!

I know nothing about avionics or space craft, but I imagine it must have gone in the same direction. Interesting that many of the commercial airplanes you might fly in are 40 or even 50 years old. I know they've been updated along the way, more modern engines etc. I wonder if the entire flight system, electronics, even the cockpits get updated too.
 

steve488

Member
Joined
Aug 26, 2014
Messages
400
Reaction score
168
Location
Arizona desert
Guild Total
2
The electronics in new cars has blown past those early rockets.

The trend has been towards more powerful computers every where, obviously, but it has also been away from a single central computer doing all the work. Microcontrollers have become so inexpensive and reliable that they end up scattered all around the car. When you flip the turn signal switch on the steering column it sends a message over the car-wide computer network to the microcontroller in the tail light telling it to start blinking. It's actually cheaper because it requires less copper wire!

I know nothing about avionics or space craft, but I imagine it must have gone in the same direction. Interesting that many of the commercial airplanes you might fly in are 40 or even 50 years old. I know they've been updated along the way, more modern engines etc. I wonder if the entire flight system, electronics, even the cockpits get updated too.
Many of the avionics systems get upgrades over the years and many external parts are often replaced but there is miles of wire & cables buried in every airliner and replacing it all does not happen often. Many of the newer flight controls are configured to use the existing wiring harnesses when they can to keep costs down.
 

Nuuska

Enlightened Member
Joined
Jan 18, 2016
Messages
7,669
Reaction score
6,030
Location
Finland
Guild Total
9
Top