NASA isn't even trying to get people to Mars anymore

[archibaldcrane]

Why you gotta blame people of color man?

[BerenTebogo]

Darkies did it.

But really, I did use a horribly obscure shorthand. Proof Of Concept.

[Waraji]

Welp shit.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/11/75...a-subcommittee

Senator Ted Cruz appointed to oversee NASA in Congress

Marco Rubio, a Florida republican, will chair the subcommittee overseeing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

http://reaksjon.nu/images/store/35.jpg

[Cantih]

A topical and excellent xkcd What If? from last week

What if there was a lake on the Moon? What would it be like to swim in it?

http://what-if.xkcd.com/124/

[Waraji]

Launch today, no landing seas were too rough, went for soft landing on water.

Edit Launch Video: http://new.livestream.com/spacex/eve...ideos/76835105 (it's damn beautiful really).

The video of liftoff was amazing though, they followed the rocket to the point of first stage separation and and second stage burn, it was beautiful.

Planning a significant upgrade of the droneship for future missions to handle literally anything. Maybe give it a Merlin for good measure

Merlins are the rockets they use for the Falcon. lol

[Ghost_Wheel22]

Also their latest Dragon returned with a giant sack of lewt from the ISS. Everything from 3d-printed tools to crystallized proteins to pore over and apply.

[Waraji]

Rocket soft landed in the ocean within 10m of target & nicely vertical! High probability of good droneship landing in non-stormy weather.

Fuck Yeah! :D

[Aumaan_Kujata]

Totally awesome. At the rate they're going they'll have all the stages coming back and reassembling themselves vertically on the launchpad before long, heh.

Also, a little more from twitter:

@elonmusk
Planning a significant upgrade of the droneship for future missions to handle literally anything. Maybe give it a Merlin for good measure

@DanielLockyer
@elonmusk Build it into a flying aircraft carrier like in the Avengers

@elonmusk
@DanielLockyer We could actually do that...maybe we should

[Waraji]

rofl

You have to really appreciate their nonsense enthusiasm. That's how the future should be. That's how we got to the moon.

[Cantih]

[Byrthnoth]

epic twitter exchange.

[shepardG]

Is that the same john carmack from the vidya quake?

[Cantih]

Yep

[Waraji]

Wikipedia shows he was lead engineer at now defunct Armadillo Aerospace. Ex-employees of Armadillo started new company to carry on the research from the old company to building new commercial tourism spacecrafts.

~cool, had no idea.

[Waraji]

Bump for a near-landing on a drone-ship.

https://vine.co/v/euEpIVegiIx

The rocket toppled right after this video, unfortunately - came in a little too wobbly.

Real close. June should be good, assuming good weather for the barge.

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/...4410630984.gif

[archibaldcrane]

So beautiful.

[Waraji]

Just posted on that video, someone compared this to trying to shoot missiles at the ground to someones question of why they weren't trying to do this on land.

[Waraji]

Successful Pad Abort Test

Skip to 15:48 @T-15s


LoL this shit looks like its straight out of KSP first or second launch attempt!

[Waraji]

It's that time of the month again kids.

Sunday SUNDAY SUUUNDAAAAY

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2015...4721435264347/

"Post-launch analysis has confirmed the throttle valve as the sole cause of this hard landing," the company stressed. "The team has made changes to help prevent, and be able to rapidly recover from, similar issues for the next attempt."

[Waraji]

Blew the fuck up 2:30 into flight. Quite depressing. Will post update videos/tweets.