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NASA Space

Watch SpaceX Launch People To Space For the First Time Live [Updated] 85

Posted by msmash from the historical-moment dept.
SpaceX is set to mark a huge milestone in its own company history, with a first-ever crewed spaceflight set to take off from Cape Canaveral in Florida later today. From a report: The mission is Commercial Crew Demo-2, the culmination of its Crew Dragon human spacecraft development program, which will carry NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the International Space Station. The launch is currently set to take off from Kennedy Space Center at 4:33 p.m. EDT (1:33 p.m. PDT), though that'll depend on weather conditions. Those haven't been looking too favorable over the past few days, but SpaceX and NASA have said they could make the call as late as around 45 minutes prior to the planned launch time about whether to delay. If today's attempt is scrubbed, there are backup opportunities on the schedule for May 30 and May 31.

UPDATE: The launch has been scrubbed due to weather conditions. NASA and SpaceX will reattempt on Saturday.
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Watch SpaceX Launch People To Space For the First Time Live [Updated] More

Watch SpaceX Launch People To Space For the First Time Live [Updated]

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  • Go Elon (Score:2, Insightful)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 )

    Thank you Elon! Time to FREE AMERICA!

    • From the tyranny of gravity?

      • Exactly. Who wants to be stuck on a rock stuck in a gravity well?

      • Gravity has kept humanity down for thousands of years, it's time to fight back!

      • From the 'humiliation' (?) of having US astronauts ride up to the ISS atop a Soyuz rocket.

        Yeah I'm sure US <-> Russia relations must be friendly these days when it comes to crewed space missions. Perhaps a US astronaut won't care much as long as he/she actually goes up. And at the end of the day, it just comes down to what's available, reliable, and what the cheap or expensive options are (if >1 option). Mission objectives -hopefully- weigh heavier than politics. But still... having a Russian wo

        • A sad day for Russia. When you're the only game in town you're automatically the cheapest, even when you start dramatically ratcheting up the price for the same service.

          • Two crows are watching the launch of the Challenger shuttle.
            Crow A keeps croaking - it will explode, it will explode, it will explode.
            The other one just shakes its head in disgust.
            Challenger launches, and, you know, explodes.
            Crow B to A, angrily - you fucktard, you brought this on with your endless croaking.
            Crow A - "I serve the Soviet Union!"

  • I was just listening, looks like they scrubbed the launch for today.

    • I was just listening, looks like they scrubbed the launch for today.

      If you want to launch anything on schedule, do not launch it from Florida.

      • If you want to launch anything on schedule, do not launch it from Florida.

        Today's launch was scrubbed due to the last-minute discovery of some hanging chad still attached to the crew capsule.

  • Today's launch have officially been scrubbed

    • Yep. Better safe than sorry. Looking forward to Saturday :-)

      • Would be funny if one of the astronauts came down with Covid19 symptoms on Friday because an infected support crew members's mask was leaky.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Oh, well, next launch window is Saturday. Hopefully weather will cooperate then....
    • What would you have it be instead? A mechanical problem? An explosion?
      Fortunately it's just the weather.

    • I never understood launch windows. Why can't they use doors instead?

    • Can anyone explain why there's such a gap between launch windows?
      It seems like the ISS's orbital inclination means that each 90-minute orbit crosses the same latitude about 20 degrees to the east, so you've presumably got to wait until the positions align again, but the timing isn't making sense to me.

      The earth rotates once every 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds (with its orbit around the sun making up the difference in day length)
      The ISS orbits once every 92.68 min/orbit
      So for each orbit the Earth rotat

      • You're forgetting the whole North-South thing. 15.5 orbits puts the ISS in the same position East-West, but on the opposite side of the Equator....

        • What? 1 orbit (ignoring perturbations) puts it back at the same latitude it started at, the only change is the rotation of the Earth underneath it.

          • Sorry, yes, that .5 orbit puts it at the opposite latitude - but that's why I was talking 31 orbits - brings it back to where it started, and the earth has rotated almost exactly twice beneath it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      How risky was this weather? Thunderstorms?

  • Scrubbed at T minus 17 minutes (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Wednesday May 27, 2020 @04:19PM (#60112172)

    n/t

  • I want to know, Have you ever seen the rain? I want to know, Have you ever seen the rain Comin' down on a sunny day?
  • and launched that puppy.
    • It's because they learned that lesson on Apollo 12 that today's scrub happened. Sometime's those lessons come at a heavy price, so it's best to use them to our advantage.

  • A great point in history (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Wednesday May 27, 2020 @04:35PM (#60112240)

    Regardless of how you feel about SpaceX or Musk, really awesome to see we are at the point where private companies are sending people into safe with a very high margin of safety! A ton of work has been put into getting to this point.

    To bad the launch is scrubbed, but I look forward to watching Saturday...

    • Safe. If they can pull it off, they're golden. If statistically eventual failure occurs too early in the experiment though, the publick's goldfish like attention span will turn to a Kardashian venue the troglodytes generally respond favorably to.

  • Most of Elon's projects are crap but SpaceX has been doing great work. This is the one truly great no nonsense thing he's ever done.

    Looking forward to the launch this weekend.

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday May 27, 2020 @07:25PM (#60113086)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • He didn't invent PayPal. And they had a fuckton of sleazy shit in their early years.

        He didn't invent the electric car. And full self drive is bullshit. And so is violating SEC rules repeatedly.

        And so on.

        I was quite clear what I meant. Unfortunately you don't seem to know much about Elon and have a mild reading disorder. You can get help improving your comprehension skills even as an adult.

  • Looking for a better broadcast (Score:3)

    by Kiolan ( 66762 ) on Wednesday May 27, 2020 @04:45PM (#60112294) Homepage Journal

    I used to watch the shuttle launches and landing and a majority of the broadcast on NASA TV was just mission control and communications with just a little bit of additional commentary by one person if something was not clear. I have to say the new broadcast is quite annoying and they talk over mission control. Are there any better broadcasts? Or are we stuck in constant talking and filler?

    • Re:Looking for a better broadcast (Score:4, Informative)

      by Guspaz ( 556486 ) on Wednesday May 27, 2020 @05:05PM (#60112384)

      SpaceX has, for all launches, two streams: the "hosted" stream, and the "mission control audio only" stream. The video content isn't necessarily the same (for example, at the moment the hosted one has camera views in the access arm and the crew capsule, while the mission control one has a camera in launch control).

      For NASA launches, SpaceX's hosted stream and NASA TV usually have the same video feed.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Kiolan ( 66762 )

        On Saturday I will check SpaceX's website. On NASA they just had two versions, public (non-stop chatter) and media, which a moments had the mission control. but for the most part was just video of the exterior. Discovery, YouTibe and other places carried the piblic feed of NASA. So thanks for the option and hopefully that is better.

      • SpaceX has, for all launches, two streams: the "hosted" stream, and the "mission control audio only" stream. The video content isn't necessarily the same (for example, at the moment the hosted one has camera views in the access arm and the crew capsule, while the mission control one has a camera in launch control).

        For NASA launches, SpaceX's hosted stream and NASA TV usually have the same video feed.

        Almost everyone in mission control used to smoke and hand out cigars if the flight was good without a hitch, most likely not cuban though even today. Ah the old days when the tobacco companies put the bill for network TV shows.

        Kidding aside everyone with half a brain understands that today the weather patterns during the launch can cause serious issues with rockets that must be built lighter in comparison to their fuel carrying capacity. If the air stream at higher altitudes where the rocket has less mass d

    • Just tune in 30 minutes prior to launch. I agree too much chatter and feel good stuff. I want to see and hear the experts doing their job.
    • It's not your father's NASA.
  • Scrubbed due to weather. Next launch window is Sat afternoon.
  • "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our Elite class Starship journey that takes you from here to Sydney, Australia in a dazzling 30 minutes. We will be lifting off shortly, following a slight delay until next Tuesday when there might be just the perfect weather in all layers of the atmosphere."
  • 5..4..3..2.. ABORT!

  • To omy eye, the space suits look drab and, well, not spacey. They look like those cheap tee-shirts that have shrunk in the wash until they are wider than they are tall.

    They are of course more intended to be functional than flattering, but they are not far removed from the outfit the "Stig" looks reasonably professional in and I'm sure that Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken are well proportioned men. But they look odd and uncomfortable in those outfits. Presumably it's because the fabric is so stiff

    • Yeah, I think they're ugly as hell, and can't understand why Elon went on about how great they look. These things look like full-cover pressure-tight tracksuits. OTOH, stylish uniforms are a bit SS, and nobody (well, almost nobody) wants to be a Nazi.
  • A historic launch in several different ways, foiled by bad weather, that's got to make everyone involved a little sad. At least it's back on for Saturday.

  • NASA launched two men into orbit just a little over 55 years ago. It's taken the private sector only half a century to catch up.

    So let's raise a glass to Gus Grissom and John Young and celebrate what we can accomplish collectively as a society.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

      I too celebrate this milestone, but what makes SpaceX's Falcon 9 a "private sector" vehicle, but Lockheed Martin/Boeing's Space Shuttle was NASA's? Weren't they both commissioned and financed by NASA? Was it because the Space Shuttle was a joint effort between multiple companies? Was the Falcon 9 financed more from private funding than the shuttle?

      • I too celebrate this milestone, but what makes SpaceX's Falcon 9 a "private sector" vehicle, but Lockheed Martin/Boeing's Space Shuttle was NASA's?

        You've made something of a jump from the Gemini program to the Space Shuttle, which was 16 years later. And the main difference between both of those programs and the SpaceX Falcon 9 is that there wasn't any make believe "private sector" nonsense. They were all still government programs, but one of them took 55 years longer to accomplish the same end. And back

      • It's the difference between the USAF buying an F-35 and putting an airman on a Delta flight. Dragon wasn't commissioned by NASA and was under development prior to Commercial Payload or Commercial Crew. Unlike Gemini or the Shuttle, NASA doesn't ever take ownership of the vehicle, they're simply buying the service of getting astronauts to ISS
  • The touch screens, the space suits, the whole look is very 2001. I'm not a SpaceX or nasa fan Boi so the look was all new for me today. Now all we need is a monolith and a trip to Jupiter

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