SpaceX

Space X launch in 40 minutes… quite a historic launch and mission too.

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about 7 mins to launch.

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Another flawless launch and booster recovery. It completely overshadows the Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic flights.

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Amazing to watch. Now compare this in your mind to Gagarin"s flight. Wow.

Me and the boys watched in live. OK…the boys and I. Great stuff…!

One thing that I did notice, and to be fair, this is a very civilian crew, but I bet Neil, Buzz and Mike weren’t fist bumping, making heart signs etc etc before their launch :rofl:

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Did none of them hold up a sheet of paper with a “smash that LIKE button!” on it?

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The launch was a bit too late for me to still be awake, which is a bummer, but even though this is basically a joyride for some rich dude it is kinda inspiring. So yeah, going to watch some content from this mission.

I missed it at first but heard the rumble and looked out the window. They failed to get a good shot of it from outside around MECO and stage sep, it was very beautiful and you could clearly see the first stage firing and changing orientation as the 2nd stage sped away.
Unusually for a launch here there was no lateral movement from my POV, out my window the rocket flew directly away from my house with no N/S translation as they usually do when flying to the space station or one of the other inclinations.

Ah found one from a bit closer in, but this is more what I saw out my window:

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Up and down…

https://imgur.com/x2w5ixV

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We were at my daughter’s holiday performance at the local outdoor mall when the Falcon launched. We all looked back over our shoulder and saw it clearly, then as it got higher the sound reached us and due to the cool still air REALLY rumbled a lot. They were in between songs fortunately!

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My mom’s first husband was a NASA engineer during Gemini and Apollo. His designs earned a dozen patents for NASA. My older brother (his son) was also a NASA engineer. I guess it’s that background that makes me envy engineers. To play even the smallest part in something so cool…

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It is kind of fun seeing such a young crowd at Space X being so enthusiastic…is it just my perception that they are younger compared to the engineers I grew up watching (Space Shuttle/NASA era…)?

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I think young people looked old back then. Something to do with skinny ties, pocket protectors and a pack-a-day habit since 12.

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Plus don’t forget you’re really old now @BeachAV8R, so everyone looks too young. We have a new newsreader on our local channel that I blurted out ‘She looks about 7 years old, should she be up this late?’ and my wife just shook her head and said ‘So, it starts…’

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Not just that, but NASA itself got grayer starting around the 80s. They kept shrinking while the existing workers kept waiting longer to retire. So fewer and fewer new hires and the existing ones aging = they are older on average.

Being a tech-based space company, SpaceX basically requires under 40s to work for them by telling you up front you won’t be working less than 55 hr a week and probably much more than that, so you better not have kids, a family, or a life.

Some nice footage of the Vandenberg uh…Space Force Base?? (ugh)…launch and boost back…

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Watching those boosters land never gets old.

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The launch Monday was spectacular. Due to the angle of the setting sun and lack of clouds, we could see the launch, booster separation, fairing separation, booster turnaround and fly back, multiple burns, plus all components were brightly illuminated and never faded from view.

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