The Pod Bay

geoffc

00:51

Hey ho, Uhoh!

Wed at 4:33PM EST we have the manned launch of SpaceX's Crew Dragon! Only fourth manned system flown in the US. (Orion and CST-100 will be 5 and 6 when they fly people).

PearsonArtPhoto

12:44

Today is the day... Wow...

Humans to orbit. There are at least 2 systems that have launched people suborbitally to space.

geoffc

Suborbital doesn't count. Pshaw.

PearsonArtPhoto

It has to count for something...

Also, there has been 4 orbital crewed US systems.

SpaceX is 5.

Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Space Shuttle, and now Crew Dragon.

And I could argue Apollo was two separate systems;-)

geoffc

Bah! I was counting on fingers. And counting to 4 is too hard.

S-1B with S-5 with Apollo capsule as two? Or LM vs CM?

PearsonArtPhoto

LOL.

LM vs CM is how I would divide it, but the rocket launching also is the same.

geoffc

Suborbital systems: Manned: X-15 and SpaceShip One.

PearsonArtPhoto

12:56

Yeah. I don't count SpaceShipTwo.

Feeds

13:12

The 2020 Developer Survey results are here!

Ben Popper on May 27, 2020

We’re excited to share the results of our 10th annual developer survey! 65,000 developers shared their thoughts on the state of software today.

PearsonArtPhoto

15:21

My website is actually doing really well today...

PearsonArtPhoto

16:37

60% chance of violating conditions for launch.

geoffc

Weather is not looking good, alas.

Life in non-Russian launch vehicles. Russians launch in anything. :)

Glad to hear it is driving traffic your way. Anything special for the event on the site?

PearsonArtPhoto

Nope.

I thought a bit about it, but... Time is short right now.

I just moved to the Hunstville, AL area.

geoffc

That is nice. Hotter there I assume. Rocket park by Redstone Armory is kick ass!

PearsonArtPhoto

Yeah, if it was open.

It's a bit warmer, but not that much really, or so it seems.

I'm actually about a mile from the rocket park right now.

Crew Demo-2

►

DylanSp

17:34

hey folks! who else is watching the NASA TV stream right now?

geoffc

Still early, I am expecting to be disappointed by the Weather today.

I am watching the spaceflightnow.com update feed though.

spaceflightnow.com/2020/05/27/…

DylanSp

weather's not looking great, true. still, pretty amazing to watch the crew suiting up and heading out to the launch pad

geoffc

17:51

I saw somewhere that they are calling them by first names, so Bob and Doug... Wonder if we get any hoser jokes through this flight?

Rory Alsop

@geoffc Lucky it's not Neil and Bob...

Still 2 and a half hours - hope the weather improves.

PearsonArtPhoto

I'm watching it off and on, so...

Looks like they are getting suited in the spacecraft, so...

Wow, about 10x my normal website traffic today...

DylanSp

18:08

@PearsonArtPhoto on your site with the Roadster location, or have you launched another site?

PearsonArtPhoto

The roadster site.

It's going to be a good month, and I didn't think it would be...

geoffc

Just saw a pic of the sky, not looking good.

PearsonArtPhoto

Yeah, pretty crazy...

DylanSp

tornado warning near the Cape: twitter.com/SpaceflightNow/status/1265702942725849089

PearsonArtPhoto

That's probably a weather violation, but...

Wait, a warning. They might have to evacuate the pad...

PearsonArtPhoto

18:36

Weather is improving actually.

PearsonArtPhoto

18:47

AirForceOne just flew right over the rocket.

uhoh

19:10

I don't think I'm going to be able to stay awake here in UTC +8:00

DylanSp

@uhoh time for the caffeine injections

geoffc

Convienient to live in EST for stuff like this.

Bets of weather scrub? I expect them to scrub.

DylanSp

I'll take that bet, weather's looking better

uhoh

@DylanSp ha! I buy this coffee from Indonesia that has plenty of kick to it, but there's limits...

2

A: Hot coffee brewing solutions for deep woods camping

Indonesian "mud" coffee works fine. If coffee beans are ground sufficiently fine, you can just put some together with near-boiling water, stir a bit, wait 3-5 minutes and all of the grounds will sink to the bottom. They really do, if the coffee is ground sufficiently fine. You just need a cup ...

I'll bet that it is either scrubbed, or goes as planned; either way it will be just as fun to watch in the morning. Later!

geoffc

Sleep tight

PearsonArtPhoto

19:22

There is still hope, but...

geoffc

15:16EST: The lightning weather rule is now observed GO. The surface electric fields, attached anvil cloud, cumulus cloud and flight through precipitation rules remain NO GO at this time.

Per SFN

PearsonArtPhoto

Yeah, but it looks on the radar that all of the storms are at the very end...

Still, there's a pretty good chance of not launching today.

geoffc

Looking forward to JRTI being back in service to avoid these road blocks of only one barge to land on.

Actually more curious to ASOG and when it will be ready.

uhoh

0

Q: Why do they make the astronauts sit in Crew Demo-2 for so long?

I just tuned in to the live "broadcast" for the Crew Demo-2 and it looks like the astronauts sat down over an hour and a half ago, and there's still more than an hour to go. Why do they have to sit there for so long before launch? To calm down? To test all of t...

DylanSp

are they still on track to make ASOG ready? I haven't heard anything about it in months

uhoh

19:29

so long folks I'll check back in the morning

geoffc

T-minus 70 minutes. Here are some statistics on today's launch:

85th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket since 2010
93rd launch of Falcon rocket family since 2006
1st launch of Falcon 9 booster B1058
73rd Falcon launch from Cape Canaveral
116th launch from pad 39A
22nd SpaceX launch from pad 39A
2nd launch of a Crew Dragon spacecraft
1st Falcon 9/Crew Dragon flight with humans on-board
8th Falcon 9 launch of 2020
8th launch by SpaceX in 2020
10th orbital launch based out of Cape Canaveral in 2020

I think 73rd from Cape Canaveral is not specific enough. CCAFS and Cape Caneveral are not the same.

1.7 million lbs of thrust... That is like 4 and a bit Raptors. :)

DylanSp

or about a single F-1 engine :)

geoffc

Good point!

DylanSp

19:48

go for propellant load. still watching weather

peterh - Reinstate Monica

Here you can watch them live on the youtube: youtube.com/watch?v=21X5lGlDOfg

NASA Live: Official Stream of NASA TV

►

DylanSp

20:15

sounding like a scrub :(

scrub due to weather. damn.

Mast

The risks of an instantaneous window.

10 more minutes and they'd be fine.

DylanSp

yeah.

Mast

What's the backup date again?

May 30th?

Ah, it is.

Better luck next time.

PearsonArtPhoto

Not super surprising, but...

Mast

Yea.

Saturday doesn't look great in the forecast either, so we'll have to see if that goes any better.

PearsonArtPhoto

20:22

It looked better, but...

Mast

Most days are better than the weather at KSC today I guess.

So if it was close today, it should be OK Saturday.

peterh - Reinstate Monica

They did not go?

Because of the bad weather?

Mast

Yup.

The ninjas couldn't keep the bad weather away.

peterh - Reinstate Monica

Sad. It might be a big step back for my afternoon, but it is only a little for the humanity.

DylanSp

tomorrow: Elon Musk announces a weather control company

3

Mast

20:28

There was a bit of a storm near. 10 minutes more and they'd have been fine. But you don't get 10 minutes on an instantaneous window, so it may as well have been hours.

peterh - Reinstate Monica

@DylanSp Silver iodide rockets could solve the problem.

Mast

Oh well, if the worst part of a missed launch is that the weather wasn't going with you, it's still great practice.

Now the ninjas have to go back up and open the hatch.

peterh - Reinstate Monica

Maybe... some kilometer-big foils in the space could solve as weather control in important places, by giving additional solar power where meteorologically optimal. Like if the Kim Jong Un visits the USA, no rain would be allowed.

PearsonArtPhoto

Wow, about 50x my normal traffic right now...

peterh - Reinstate Monica

@PearsonArtPhoto Be nice to them! Astronomy SE had a similar jump at the solar eclipse in the USA last year. They did not adapt, so they missed the opportunity.

@PearsonArtPhoto And now their stats are like before the eclipse.

Mast

20:37

@peterh-ReinstateMonica Does that solve a lightning storm?

PearsonArtPhoto

You mean space.SE? I mean, we are always nice to people here:-)

We had a huge jump for Falcon Heavy, but...

I'm talking my site that I started after Falcon Heavy, inspired from this site actually. whereisroadster.com

peterh - Reinstate Monica

@Mast No, but the SE is one of the top100 global content providers. And the world politics looks today so, that how the people of the USA thinks and votes, is important for the space exploration of the humanity.

@Mast If they ignore this whole thing, like they did after the second moonwalk, the money of the NASA will go from the current 0.5% to 0.1% in the USA budget. In the Apollo era, it was 5%.

Mast

I think launching too close to a lightning storm would get your budget to 0 if it goes wrong...

We'll see what time they plan Saturday. Probably a bit earlier, but I haven't found an exact window yet.

We can wait 3 days.

peterh - Reinstate Monica

@Mast Yes. But even Musk has a finite amount of $$$ and even a single rocket costs more as we all earn in our whole life.

geoffc

I saw 3:22 PM EST as window on Saturday.

Mast

20:47

@peterh-ReinstateMonica Musk will easily survive this little weather problem, don't worry.

peterh - Reinstate Monica

@Mast That the USA helps it with state funds, is a rare exception in the whole world history.

Mast

@geoffc That's a whole 11 minutes earlier than they expected today, right?

Timezones...

4:22 PM EDT, 22:22 CEST.

PearsonArtPhoto

That sounds about right.

The launch time to the ISS changes about 4 minutes /day

geoffc

I think the windows precess daily, and it is 24 hours minus/plus 7-10 minutes. So that sounds right. 11 min earlier.

PearsonArtPhoto

It cycles over something like 60ish days.

Mast

20:57

If it cycles every 60 days, 3 days should be an hour difference or so.

Oh, found the real windows here.

> The instantaneous launch window opens at 4:33 p.m. EDT, or 20:33 UTC, with backup instantaneous launch opportunities available on Saturday, May 30 at 3:22 p.m. EDT, or 19:22 UTC, and on Sunday, May 31 at 3:00 p.m. EDT, or 19:00 UTC.

So it's an hour and 11 minutes difference.

Earlier.

PearsonArtPhoto

Yeah... So I guess that is right, so...

Mast

@PearsonArtPhoto 0,4h a day, perhaps?

PearsonArtPhoto

Yeah, that must be it.

Long day, and I'm not 100% in this game, but...

Mast

1h11m is roughly 1,2h

PearsonArtPhoto

24 minutes/ day sounds totally right.

I'm much more sure about the 60 day cycle, plus or minus a few days. So it seems like 20ish minutes/ day is pretty close.

Mast

21:07

Yup.

The ninjas are back, so the astronauts probably won't have to wait much longer.

geoffc

21:28

Screw the scrub!!! SN4 flew!

First Flight of Starship SN-4.

►

Or did they?

Ah crap, it is a fake, sorry.

Tim did voice over that made me think it was real.

Very good video though!

And a COPV flying off at the end, that was clever.

XKCD

Hello and welcome to Millibar Millibarn Attometer, an advice show for the Planck era.

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