Astronomy and space exploration
- Thread starter eloic
- Start date
A few days ago, Elon explained what happened, but I don't remember the details. Oh, well, they'll have to focus on Mk 2, now.
cheapchips
Veteran
According to Peter Beck they made it 'through the wall' all the way to sea level. They've not confirmed if they deployed the parachute on this flight. Recovery chutes seem to be causing issues for other companies at the moment, so hopefully they have it sussed.
I still doubt that there is anything valuable about this design at all.
For one, why are they quoting lift in terms of distance? Max force, average force, and impulse would be far more relevant. Distance tells us nothing.
But there's still the problem that this design is physically impossible based upon our current knowledge of physics, which would indicate that the lift is caused by something else in their experiment besides what they are claiming. I don't think anybody else has replicated their claims, either.
I'm just so curious about this. They don't seem to get much exposure for a benefit, yet many people and scientists are criticising them. So, why are they doing this? Should we think they're just delusional? We can't say "for the money", because as I said, they're pretty unknown and most opinions regarding what they're doing are negative.
Not commenting specifically on this case, but from my experience there are still many people who believe anything written on a "mainstream" media (or anything close to that), even if it's just a reporting. That's why some people actively seek photo opportunities (hey! I have a picture with Donald Trump, you can trust me and invest in my company!). Their target audience don't really care about what the scientists say, because they don't really trust those scientists anyway.
There are so many examples (such as the so-called "car running on water" thing), almost all of them are just trying to scam investors. Most are not very big, probably only a few million dollars, and they rarely get prosecuted.
cheapchips
Veteran
It doesn't even have to be an investor scam. People's evidence threshold for things they really want to believe is low.
Anyone want to go dowsing for some healing crystals with me?
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there are a ton of them on kickstarter especially water from the air devices
They clearly seem to believe what they're doing, and the results would be revolutionary if true.
I'm still skeptical because it's easy to make mistakes about this kind of thing. It's not that they're necessarily delusional or incompetent, but rather that the subject itself is difficult.
But yeah, it's also possible they're scam artists.
Thasuppeas
Newcomer
i dont know much about space but thats because we cant explore it anyway, maybe in 1000 years....
One of thing that especially interested me that i had to check was what are the closest habitable planets, and seems the closest one is Proxima Centauri B. However thats still 50,000 years away from here. Maybe in 100 years there will be tech fast enough to transport humans there (well without humans it takes about 20-50 years right now but specific method is used that cant carry humans)
One of thing that especially interested me that i had to check was what are the closest habitable planets, and seems the closest one is Proxima Centauri B. However thats still 50,000 years away from here. Maybe in 100 years there will be tech fast enough to transport humans there (well without humans it takes about 20-50 years right now but specific method is used that cant carry humans)
I think they've launched NRO payloads before, such as the first recognized one with a presumed intelligence payload of some sort:
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/04/spacex-falcon-9-first-nro-mission-nrol-76/
Any other test launches would have been with the intention of proving SpaceX as a launch provider for such payloads, since there's not much upside to testing methods for spy satellites launches if it wasn't planned to launch spy satellites. Their work towards producing a vertical integration facility has USAF funding and is useful for the sorts of satellites that cannot be placed in a horizontal orientation--which has the most utility for the largest US government-produced satellites and/or those with certain physical components (say, large mirrors) that are more sensitive to forces along some axes. I think implications of that are clear, and they've been stated goals for some time.
hoom
Veteran
Thats SpaceX.
Electron is Rocketlabs & they had previously said they wouldn't do spy sats since NZ is supposed to be mostly neutral/independent. (in practice not really but we like to keep up the pretence)
They're supposed to be a commercial launcher, if most of the 'market' is just US spy sats then there's really no point in having commercial launchers.