Be Excellent To Each Other

Don't know if peeps here are interested, but this evening is the first manned SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket + Crew Dragon capsule flight. They're (hopefully!) going to the International Space Station.

Blast off should be about quarter past eight this evening!

Yep, I'll be watching. Shame it had to be delayed, as the earier departure tonight means it'll be too light to see them going overhead.

Go on weather!

Fuelling starts in a couple of minutes...

Phew! That couldn't have gone much better!

As well as the Dragon making it successfully into orbit, the first stage of the Falcon 9 made a perfect touchdown on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You.

Just 19 hours to the space station, now...

Bravo and God speed, astronauts.

Their spacesuits look a bit disappointingly B-movie, though... or is it just me?

Yeah, it's because they were designed with input from a costume designer who works on the superhero films.

I thought the suits were better than in Pacific Rim Uprising but not as good as in The Martian.

Of course, they work in real life. So they've got that going for them.

(edit) Yeah, the welly boots aren't doing it for me. I mean, is it going to be muddy on the space station?



Of course, I'd really need to see Jessica Chastain wearing a SpaceX suit to make a fair comparison.

Clearly, their first project on arrival will be to clean the ISS sewers.

Hmmm... Rather them than me.

Meanwhile, they should arrive at the space station at about 3.30pm this afternoon.

I was watching at 3.30 and couldn’t see anything.

Also I am now blind.

Oh. Sorry to hear that. (?)

I watched it on the same stream as above, but it was actually pretty boring. The Dragon docked on its own - it just ever so slowly crept up to the station until it was attached. Various people made stilted speeches about how honoured they all were... That was it.

I imagine at some point the two dudes will be piling out into the station and there'll be hugging and clapping of people on their backs. I'll watch a recording of that.

They're just G-suits, right? They're not rated for vacuum?

They *are* vac suits - it said in the launch commentary. They're mainly in case of the cabin depressurising.

One cool thing is that when they're walking out to the pad their hands are bare. Then, when they get strapped in, the gloves unfold from inside the sleeve cuffs. They slide their hands into them, then seal them with two layers of gas-tight zippers up the side of each sleeve/glove. So it's then all one piece, and they don't have clunky metal locking rings attaching separate gloves like you see on every other space suit. I imagine that helps manual dexterity and comfort quite a bit.

I have a suspicion that that might be the reason for the "wellies" - to get a good seal with the trousers of the suit. They do look a lot thinner and more flexible than actual wellies.

Huh, they're very impressive then.

Yes, have you heard something about a manned flyby of the moon? I read that it was tentatively scheduled for 2023. Anyway, space is SPACE. The cosmic pleasure from all such news. If you are interested, you could continue this thread and share other interesting things about space launches from different parts of the Earth.

Thanks Tommy!

My intersting fact about space launches is that, and this may surprise you, Madagascar does not in fact have a space programme!

Thanks Trooper!

Did you know that very few launches have happened from Norwich?

It's because Norwich is so close to sea level, space is further away there.

Space is very poisonous. You should try your hardest not to breathe space.

I'm a little busy with my cosmic pleasure to be sharing info.

Fixed it for us all
Yay! Space!

Yes, there aren't many launches from Norwich) But not too far away something interesting starts happening. Namely, at the territory of the Kildemory estate in the North of Scotland.
It was there in the spring that the first tests of rocket engines in Britain in 50 years took place.

Tell me more, TommyJ!

Craster is the worst

Shut up Myp, I want to hear what else TommyJ has to say.

I've heard, for instance, that space is big!

We have weighted user scores in the Mod forum. TommyJ is currently, like, lapping you.

It must be time for this year’s mod elections.

I may bring back post of the week just for this.

Oh, how beautiful! (sarcasm) I certainly knew there were tons of trolls on the forums. But why offend the newcomers? I do not like what I wrote - transfer the discussion to another topic or ignore it.
I'm just tired of everyone around discussing one single project. Although these projects are a dime a dozen. So I tried to turn the conversation towards someone else, someone new. Yes, small startups and companies have not achieved such a result, but there are more reasons for a flight of imagination like: what will they be able to offer us in 10 years?

Hammers

WTF I was totally on his side, FFS.

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Space IS big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.

Don't listen to the knockers, Tommy.

I would never show such disloyalty