For example, sometimes I would take a medicament mechanically while doing something else and just a few minutes later, forget if I took it or not. Solution: say loud to myself "I'm taking a pill".
Another: sometimes I'd lend some amount money to a colleague, and a few weeks later I'd have a hard time figuring whether they gave it back, and they too. Solution: I tell them to hit me (or do some other stupid thing) when they give the money back, so we both remember.
Going even further, sometimes I have to set a reminder to myself like "take an umbrella when leaving tomorrow morning because it's gonna be raining". Putting umbrella close to the exit, or doing a phone reminder do not always work, particularly when I'm in a hurry. One thing that works is doing some notable physical disruption in the environment, like putting a can of tomato sauce, upside-down, close to the exit.
STUCK THE LANDING :) :) :)
Apologies to my neighbors who I surely woke up.
Hah :) Incredible! Now, will they fly this one again?
The moon landings were pretty awesome in their own way, but at the end of the day, with the way they were done, it was basically a stunt. None of it put any infrastructure for the long-term access of space into place, or anything to make future moon landings easier.
This paves the way for the costs of space flight to be cut in half, or even a little further. This has the potential to set off an exponential chain of growth of space travel. The further they cut prices, the more customers and launches there are. The more customers there are, the more profit they make, to be plowed back into better, more reliable, and more reusable rockets. And the more incentive their competitors have to come up with their own reusable rockets. The more reusable they are, the further they can bring prices down. Every step reinforces the next, and in 30-50 years, the price of a launch may well be a tenth of what it is today. Maybe closer to a hundredth.
What will we build when access to space costs 1% of what it does today? Maybe a huge space station, or a moon colony, or asteroid mining, or all of the above. The more traffic we have to space, the more infrastructure we build, and the cheaper and more reliable it all gets. Off-world colonies might become about as practical as a trip to and colony in Antarctica is today - still tough and hazardous, but well within the budget and vision of any developed nation. This is freakin' awesome for the future!
Kid: Daddy, ou mean when you were growing up, they threw away rockets each time?
Me: Yes
Kid: Doesn't that make them expensive?
Me: Yes.
And then not long after will be the other talk:
Kid: Daddy, you mean people used to be in charge of driving themselves in cars?
Me: Yes
Kid: Did people ever die?
Me: Millions
Good job Elon and SpaceX, get some rest, and then focus on the Model 3!
Elon: We have proven what can be done, that many said was impossible. drops mic after SpaceX lands flawlessly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FQhtMrUQlE&t=32m30s
(speech begins at 32:30, in case link doesn't work)
I still cannot get over the reverse landing on the drone that first time[1] it was almost unreal and took them a while to get there [2]. That image is seared in my brain like the moon landing probably is for people who lived through that.
It was about a year ago and SpaceX is already, in less than a year, performed the reverse landing on the drone and successful relaunched. Amazing moment in human history and SpaceX continues to lead the way.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPGUQySBikQ[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa_mtakPlfw
Looks like SpaceX had (yet another) very good landing!!
Edit: Okay everyone can breathe now!
But frankly, is the cost of going to mars really that important for its colonisation? I mean, I wouldn't move to mars even if going there was free. For one, there's no breathable air, for Pete's sake. They are talking about building a city on a place where there isn't even breathable air. That's insane.
This whole thing is very conflicting to me. On one hand I can appreciate the technological achievement and I acknowledge that re-usability will be extremely useful for space exploration, but on the other hand I can't help thinking that those people who get excited about building a city on mars are completely delusional.
Will future SpaceX clients now want to put their payloads in orbit on a "flight proven" booster, instead of one that hasn't flown before?
edit: and they did it! I was pessimistic for a minute there!
Forget the 24 hour turnaround. If SpaceX gets to the point where they have weekly launches it will be utterly delightful and amazing. Essentially to do that they have to not only make re-use work well, but also have to pass cost savings to customers to increase demand.
-- Sent from my 2nd hand ThinkPad
Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He..., SpaceX has launched and landed about 10 of these rockets, and has so far reused one. That rocket was first used about a year ago.
Factors that might prevent this from making this economically superior to 'just' ramping up production are:
- the fraction of launches that can be reused.
- the amount of effort needed to prepare a rocket for reuse relative to that needed to produce a new rocket.
They will have been extra cautious this time, but from the above, the answers _could_ be "about 10%" and "almost one year, taking way more effort than building a new one does".
I would think the real answers are a bit better and will get even better over time, but I also don't think they already are at "close to 100%" and "a couple of weeks", because, if they were, I think they would have launched a used rocket earlier. I also am not convinced they can get there.
That's mostly guessing, though, as I'm not a rocket scientist and can't find hard information on this. Does anybody have that?