Not quite as bad...

I took SE hats off and will wear my own from now on, it's a lot more fun

Good photostream with launch and landing photos.

flickr.com/photos/spacexphotos/with/23282658734

@PearsonArtPhoto Seconds after I flagged my chat post, it occurred to me that this was not serious enough for a flag. I am going to respect the guidelines next time :)

You know what? the cows around the McGregor test site don't run away like they used to.

i mean, they trot off, but more like they're annoyed than like they are going through armageddon like the first time

@kimholder Worlds most blase cows.

They must taste delicious!

My favorite is the video where the herd is there, the engines light, about half or so get up and run around like the world is on fire. Other half are so calm about it.

Natural selection for tasty beef!

it later occurred to me that maybe their hearing isn't as good as it used to be...

What?...

:P

I couldn't find a video of armageddon-style cow escape

that's the classic one, though now that you mention it, some of them aren't running all that fast, are they.

@kimholder Cows are not the smartest of the mammals...

Well, running doesn't seems like stupid against a magic fire breathing flying magic stick

dang fences... i assume that's why they are running sideways, instead of directly away from the bellowing magic stick

@Antzi Flee (not Flea) is a good general instinct, when as you suggest magic fire breathing sticks are flying about.

Are we seriously trying to understand the motivations of cows?

If so, lets begin.

I suspect they are Russian plants. I would frisk the quiet ones for recording devices.

The scared ones are clearly innocent.

I wonder how much market share could Space X take from russians by slashing the prices

@Antzi All of it. Like they will from Ariane space as well.

@Antzi SpaceX will be limited by production and ability to launch. Ariane 6 with Abilene is looking at a 2024 (?) start date. Vulcan is looking at a 2020 or later date. And both of those won't be as good as what SpaceX likely has today.

geoffc that's assuming the cost is the only incentive when you launch multi million things into space

National pride is likely a very huge factor

@Antzi When it is $100 million vs $60 million, you can make that argument. When it is 100 vs 30 or 20, it starts to get harder and harder.

France flew Rafales from mainland to mali just to prove that they where useful and combat worthy

When they had older planes ready to do the same jobs in the vicinity

@Antzi Gov't launches, sure. Witness Jaxa and H2. Only JAXA uses it really. 4-6 launches a year max?

Ha I almost got to see a launch from a nearby island :(

Missed the launch date by a few days

@Antzi Dang! Jealous!

Maybe some japanese conglomerate would consider using it because of national pride

@Antzi Usually because JAXA drops the price on it.

But I remember that Jaxa praised the cost efficiency of their rockets when I visited Tsukuba space center

H-IIA flew only 4 non Japanese payloads...

@Antzi Compared to what? Elephant is mouse built to gov't specs. :)

@Antzi One was Canadian, right? Telestar?

According to wikipedia yes. That's the only one which didn't involved piggy backing japanese payload along with it

Blame Canada!

I'm really worried for the future of Japan...

11 objects in orbit from yesterday's launch. Looks like nothing unexpected.

^ (tomorrow, Launch of Russian govt Proton rocket w/ Briz M upper stage deploying Express AMU1 comms satellite, tsenki.com/306)

^ (all five, Jan. 4-8, AIAA SciTech 2016 (5 days), livestream.com/AIAAvideo/scitech2016)