Nice video of the landing: http://www.parabolicarc.com/2017/04/06/video-falcon-9-stage-landing-2/ http://www.americaspace.com/wp-cont...56_1502025303161140_2774689898140660606_o.jpg Dream chaser to get a docking port http://www.parabolicarc.com/2017/04/06/dream-chaser-europes-nextgeneration-docking-system/ Other space news http://www.parabolicarc.com/2017/04/07/nasa-invests-22-visionary-exploration-concepts/ Bezos looks to spend a billion of his own per year.
So, Elon has said that the test launch of Falcon Heavy will be a "dummy" payload of something "unexpected". Factoring that comment in, could they have made a deal with KFC to really launch a chicken sandwich into space?
And without Spacex we wouldn't have the Andromeda Initiative...... haha. Have you seen Elons latest idea for tunnels running under LA to ferry cars to and fro?
KFC is probably going to cheap out to the Karman line on Branson's so called spaceship. Or zero-g sub-orbital flight just to show the chicken floating.
I just wonder if sponsors could help the cost of such a venture... I'll find the one I am thinking of ....... Maybe something like this.
^ Reminds me of The Expanse. The FedEx logos on the Guy Molinari's breaching pods when the assault team raided that Protogen space station... "Special delivery, motherfuckers!"
Looks like Musk will make an announcement on possible changes to MCT/ITS/BFR this September--a year after its roll-out: http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/0...ation-rocket-at-iac-2017-sept-25-29-2017.html Everyone seems to be having tanking trouble these days. Friction stir pin weld problems--ruptures to composites. Maybe we need less white-coats and more of the hard hats. One reason I keep pushing Sea Dragon. Here is why that may be more likely--or so I hope: http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/0...will-be-worth-350-billion-over-ten-years.html Now AUSTAL is in Mobile Alabama--my home state--and they look to make lots more of these LCTs that were recently shown on the Science Channel. They look to be swimming in money. I hope Musk adopts Sea Dragon. We have a good steel plant there--and there are good shipyards in nearbyPascagoula Mississippi: http://ingalls.huntingtoningalls.com/ Dumb things down--scale things up.
Sea Dragon is about as far as you could get philosophically from Musk's ideas for making space economical.
I suspect the negative publicity that ecologically damaging Sea Dragon launches would attract would be a big concern for Musk even if technically and economically they were feasible. The same goes for nuclear pulse propulsion from sea/ground level with the added contribution to the global death rate due to nuclear fallout
I don't think it is that damaging. Surtsey made that look like a pipsqueak--let alone the metal rich smokers. Now, you are never going to launch a pulse-Orion from here. Now, I have heard it said there are only 200-300 years worth of uranium mining left. I actually want to see that rushed. That and the new method of extracting said ore from seawater. Get it all off-world--on the Moon say. You have a nuclear-free planet-save for thorium and other things that cannot be weaponized. Interesting article here: https://arstechnica.co.uk/information-technology/2017/05/sdr-to-hdr-conversion/ Looks like X-37 will have a new ride: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/06/bulgariasat-launch-spacex-secures-x-37b-contract/ http://www.parabolicarc.com/2017/06/06/spacex-falcon-9-launch-x37b-space-plane/