SpaceX successfully sends four amateurs into orbit for three-day tour SpaceX has successfully launched its first all-civilian crew into space. The only glitch in the mission, dubbed Inspiration4 as a nod to the crew and its association with a hospital that specializes in childhood cancer, was a lack of video stream from the Dragon capsule after the cover of its transparent domed cupola was …
The launch was a particularly loud and bright one, to start with. You could hear windows rattle across the street, and nobody even bothers to use car alarms around here any more.
When the stages separated, the second stage passed into the sunlight and put out a huge white oval plume, and you could see the first stage cold-gas thrusters firing, as the bursts disturbed the plume. I can't wait to see decent pictures and videos of that in the days to come.
I even saw the reentry burn from my house, which is very unusual. This was an orange flare moving downward really fast for about 30 seconds. (edit: the YouTube lag is apparently about 17 seconds)
There was an ISS pass at the same time, so I watched that afterwards. I caught about the last 2/3rds of that.
The mosquitoes were swarming. I was swinging around one of those electric tennis racquets and it was snapping like a string of firecrackers.
On the stream I watched (despite an earlier posting, I did end up staying up past 0100 to watch it live :-)), the long shot cameraman stayed on the 1st stage rather than following the 2nd stage/Dragon. Watching all those cold gas thrusters going off was pretty damned amazing :-))))
Take a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLVfdGO7tHw about 2hr 6m in for a poor video of it.
It was far far better in person. That whole area was lit up white. I don't know why it doesn't show in the video.
Edit: the entry burn afterward was a streak, not the little red dot shown. His camera is an absolute potato.
I don't know what's bothering the OP, but I am very bothered by the colossal and utterly pointless carbon dioxide emission from this, and any other, vanity space flight. I can't think of a worse thing for the planet that is completely unnecessary, except various acts of war.
Spoilsport, do you say? Yes, this is a "sport" that should not be allowed.
"colossal and utterly pointless carbon dioxide emission from this, and any other, vanity space flight"
Whilst this was a flight done entirely by non agency astronauts, they were doing serious research, including some for NASA. This is after all the highest altitude people have flown since the hubble repair mission (and that only by a few km) many years back.
So it's hardly comparable with the vanity sub orbital hops that have recently grabbed headlines.
The "colossal" carbon emissions equate to 50-75 tons/person.
"A reasonable estimate for aviation CO2 emissions is therefore 250 kg i.e. 1/4 tonne CO2 equivalent per hour flying". https://www.carbonindependent.org/22.html
So that's ~400 hours flying, or forty seats going across the Atlantic (my US jaunts are ~10 hours flying time).
That's surprisingly little in the grand scheme of things, yes it's a lot for one person - but they are at least doing something useful whilst in orbit.
Second link:
https://www.treehugger.com/spacex-launch-puts-out-much-co-flying-people-across-atlantic-4857958
That's ruined all the excitement of rocket launches for me.
What was with the 'Nebraska's Got Talent' audience applauding and cheering at random points though the video?
And astronauts with nothing to do but thumbs-up at the camera? Give them 'Hi Mom!' signs to wave a least.
Also worst-spacesuit-design-ever. Low budget TV movie white suits and black wellies?
(Glad those who saw it live enjoyed it. I saw a Shuttle launch and it's still the most awesome thing I've seen.)
It's supposed to be low budget. That's the whole point is to make it cheaper, so thrill seekers hoping for infamy can afford to shoot themselves into space on one of Musk's home made rockets.
God Speed, I'll be watching from the couch with a beer when everything blue screens on you.
The cheering came from SpaceX employees gathered to watch the launch. If you watch earlier launches of Falcon 9s and the Heavy you will hear a lot of the same cheering.
I've wondered about that in the past. Were they told to be there and cheer on cue or did they show up on their own. It almost sounded like someone waved a flag saying "cheer now"... rather inconsistent.
Really exciting stuff. That's proper space travel.
The glowing white hot engine was pretty impressive.
I go stir crazy after a 12 hour long haul flight, so God only knows how I'd fare stuck in that capsule for 3 days.
Question: was the crew put on a special diet for the past few days? I imagine the toilet facilities in there are rather limited.
That billionaire dude who donated three seats to worthy recipients... what a guy.
If I was going to be floating around in a metal can for three days, those three seats would be taken by a blonde, brunette and maybe a pot-luck to make things interesting.
He's a better man than me.
...but just civilians, not in the employ of the government or the military, they still trained for months for this mission, had to learn the procedures, the emergency drills, do the simulator training and will be carrying out experiments that contribute to human knowledge of space, just go watch the Netflix series on it.
To label them as "amateurs" simply for not being paid to do this as a job, is as bad as the sniping between Blue Origin & Virgin imo.
Call them commercial astronauts, call them private astronauts even call them citizen astronauts if you must, just dont call them amateurs.
As someone old enough to remember looking at the moon during the first landing and thinking that there were actually people up their - to see 4 "everyday astronauts" get 3 days in orbit is a part of history that I thought would come much sooner - time to start building the Bigelow hotels.
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