>basically a perfect landing even with the waves >one of

>>7794546
Shit's hilarious. SpaceX is doing a good job though considering they're a private organization.

>>7794546
Turns out that if you cut corners in something as complicated as space vehicles then you end up with something that's unsafe and ineffective.

>>7794546
If they had 5 legs, it'd probably have remained standing.

>>7794586
>>7794553
You've got to have the balls to fail, and a plan to survive failure, to do something really new in a way that's worth doing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNorTzdtWZs

The guys doing the space shuttle, for instance, were so insistent on not failing in some narrow technical sense that they utterly failed at achieving the purpose of the project.

Bunch of babies sitting around laughing at the only one standing up and walking for falling down a couple of times.

did it hit too hard? Or just a failure of some part?

Why does it explode because it tips over ? is this a fucking michael bay movie??

>>7794618
Funny you mention the space shuttle, because it has the same exact problem. By the time you over-engineer something enough to make it reusable, it isn't any cheaper than just using an expendable vehicle.

>>7794627
Angular acceleration is a bitch. That top part was moving fast when it hit.

>>7794586
>unsafe
All those poor plankton
>ineffective
At... what? It did its job exactly as well as any other rocket would have. It failed to do something that's never been done before anyway.

>>7794627
as far as i know
1) it landed pretty much perfectly, not too hard, dead center, perfectly straight up and down....but one of the landing legs didn't lock in place correctly, so it fell over.

2) it explodes when falling over because the leftover fuel breaches containment and the still very hot engine autoignites it, it all just happens really fast

>>7794630
Not true in the slightest.

Why dont they just make some kind of catching system?

The rocket would still take some damage but the whole thing wouldnt become a total loss

>>7794658
Because "some kind of catching system" would be a completely new and complicated problem compared to just beefing up the landing legs. What kind of a stupid question is that?

File: 1422674062128.jpg (9KB, 200x200px) Image search: [Google]

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>>7794546
>All the articles coming out saying it failed

NO IT SUCCEEDED MOTHERFUCKERS, DID YOU SEE THAT SHIT STANDING THERE FOR AT LEAST 3 SECONDS, IT WAS TIRED AND DECIDED TO LAY DOWN. IT JUST LAID DOWN A LITTLE TOO HARD.

>>7794634
>It failed to do something that's never been done before anyway.
>What is the DC-X

>>7795648
>What is the DC-X
Aside from not being part of an orbital launch system?

Delta Clipper wasn't a realistic design. DC-X was nowhere near flight weight for orbit. The Delta Clipper was supposed to be a single-stage-to-orbit, but they would have struggled to make a version of it that could reach the karman line. DC-X was limited to short, low-altitude flight.

Building a rocket isn't hard. Kids do that for fun. Building an orbital launch vehicle is hard. Governments and megacorps commonly spend hundreds of millions trying and fail.

Similarly, building a VTVL rocket is modestly challenging. Small teams do that in a few years with a few million dollars. Making one that also has the performance to be a useful part of a terrestrial orbital launch system is something people have wanted to do since the 1940s, and failed at up to now.

>>7795648
The DC-X landed on a barge after deploying payload into orbit?

>>7794609
Hahahahaha kek

>>7795633
Yeah, it is kind of like winning a boxing match and having your coach give you a pat on the back that brings you down because you are so tired and your knee gave out. Then having all the newspapers say you lost the match.

>>7795633
>>7795668
Shit. Due to this kind of comments I'm still coming to 4chin

>>7795667
True though. The more legs there are the more stable it will be. 3 legs are all that is technically needed, 4 is better, 5 is even better, and so on. With 5 legs, one can have a fault and there's a good chance it will remain standing. 6 legs and it'd never have any problem if it sticks the initial landing.

>>7795672
I think adding legs is not a perfect solution.

Imagine if the rocket is staggering just before landing. The more legs you have it becomes vulnerable to errors. Imagine 10 legs: the rocket is staggering, hits one leg and because of that broken damage the rocket is staggering even more and BAM shits broken

>>7795659
>>7795665
>Still can barely do what was done in the early 90's

>>7794633
Interesting comment. The webm at .25 speed appears to show the main body bending. I put it down to camera angles originally and shut up.

File: FALCON-9.png (11KB, 362x453px) Image search: [Google]

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>>7794546
Obviously, the deck was wet and its leg slipped.

>>7794618
To be fair, such insistence on not failing is a bit more justified when half a dozen people's lives are at stake. Of course that all goes out the window when you've got management that goes "Eh, fuck it, sure it could fail catastrophically, but it hasn't failed in he past so we should be good." whenever someone comes forward with a major safety issue.

>>7795687
>what was done in the early 90's

What was that? Cheaply deploy satellites into orbit with a reusable rocket that can land itself?

>>7795688
The bend is the camera lens. Which is why it is all bent one way and as it comes down that angle of bend maintains along a fixed area of the lens instead of a fixed area on the rocket body.

>>7795698
Thankfully no lives are at stake with the Falcon-9 and Barge shenanigans. The closest person was 200 miles away from them.

>>7794630
The problem with the Shuttle wasn't over engineering but Congress. Shit gets expensive and convoluted when you've required to source shit from every state even if you could get a better cheaper part from a different state.

>>7795701
>The closest person was 200 miles away from them.
SpaceX have support personel on ships and in the air nearby to the barge.

>>7795705
Source?

File: Falcon_9_first_stage_attempts_landing_on_ASDS_after_CRS-6_(17170624412).jpg (1MB, 1920x1080px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 1920x1080px

>>7795706
>source
That one time they filmed it with a telephoto zoom lens from a helicopter.

>>7795672
>>7794609
is that what mathfags and physicists think? Any engineer would know that adding legs makes things unstable.

http://twentytwowords.com/a-mathematical-explanation-of-a-3-legged-stools-complete-inability-to-wobble/

>>7795710
If I recall correctly the Helicopter was land based. Here's an article that has a basic overview of how it works:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/06/spacex-augments-upgrades-drone-ship-armada/

>>7795710
That's the CRS-6 mission, not the Jason-3 mission. Got any for the Jason-3 mission? The reporters said there was no one near it during the landing.

>>7795712
We are talking about something already landed then failing. Also, all normal 3-legged stools are wobbly as fuck.

>>7795717
By no one near it they meant no one on the barge. The support ship or ships are probably within few miles away. I haven't found anything which gives a specific distance, but there are support ships in the area.

>>7795717
>The reporters said there was no one near it during the landing.

Near is a lot less than 200 miles.

why not just make the legs quite a bit longer and at a wider angle? I'm not a rocket scientist is there something I'm not getting?

It seems likely it would have been a success, but there was heavy fog on the launchpad at launch and the leg lockout failure was a result of heavier than normal icing. Even so, this was the last of the 1.1 Falcon 9's which were particularly experimental. They are now only flying the new 1.1 Full Thrust version, (the version that landed perfectly a couple weeks ago) which has several improvements, including to the landing legs. I would expect them to solve the ice buildup problem before the next launch, and considering this one landed at the correct speed and exactly on target in high, rolling seas, the next attempt will very likely be a success.

>>7795739
and I know the guy who mentioned more legs was basically called an autistic but what if there were the original 3 legs and then 3 more legs -- one inbetween each that are a bit springy, longer and at a wider angle

The rocket is cool as fuck, but I'm more interested in SpaceX designing a web-stream system that dont go to shit right before a landing....

>>7795722
>>7795731
It was over 1000 miles from any human bean.

File: Rocket for Ants - The Falcon has landed Recap of Falcon 9 launch and landing.webm (713KB, 256x144px) Image search: [Google]

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>>7795712
The rocket has 4 legs, Mr. Engineer.

>>7795749
It is all fake. Their rendering system ran out of RAM so they needed some time for it to buffer again.

>>7795763
then maybe it should have 3, twat.

>>7795791
Three legs provide no wiggle room provided all stay in contact with the ground, but that is hardly guaranteed. Stability is lower compared to more legs when you take center of mass into account. Besides, with proper engineering it is easy to make four or more legs align in a plane, so the sole advantage of three legs is gone anyway.

>>7795698
>such insistence on not failing is a bit more justified when half a dozen people's lives are at stake.
There was never any need for a human pilot on the space shuttle. It was totally irresponsible from the beginning to plan that it would never fly unmanned.

In the early 70s, the landing might have been a bit tricky without a pilot, but by the time it actually flew it was obviously unnecessary, and by the time the shuttle program was cancelled, the risk to human life was blatantly gratuitous.

The concept should have been proven with an unmanned model before they even considered building one with a crew compartment.

That some bad behavior follows from other bad choices is not in any way a mitigation.