What "weed need" is a space mission!

[kladner]

http://www.gizmag.com/falcon-9-landing/31797/

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that boosted the CRS-3 Dragon spacecraft into orbit made a controlled power landing on the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. The historic first controlled landing of a liquid booster was tracked by telemetry and recorded on video. Unfortunately, heavy seas destroyed the rocket before recovery operations could retrieve it.

(With 20 foot waves, not even the Coast Guard would put out.)

[chappy]

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/...space-station/

cool article on something I had never heard of--or at least I don't remember this happening.

[Nick]

Orbital Evaluating Mission Status

Orbital Sciences Corp. is currently evaluating the status of its mission. Visit http://1.usa.gov/1r42Ssu for the latest information.

That usually means the rocket blew up, doesn't it?
Fortunately, this one has no people aboard.

[firejuggler]

view from the press site, might be nsfw as coarse language is used

[Nick]

Good pictures! There is now a statement on the NASA website:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/st...h/orbital.html

[xilman]

Another viewpoint from the Beeb, starting with a close-up of the launch itself.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29813109

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by Nick

Good pictures! There is now a statement on the NASA website:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/st...h/orbital.html

I wonder if the RSO had criteria that they followed to let the rocket fall if it was below a specific height. Once it goes pop and begins to fall, I would think that that is the time to hit the button.

[Nick]

At least one person is dead and another injured after Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo space tourism craft crashed in a California desert, the California Highway Patrol has said.
The craft was undergoing manned testing when it experienced what the company described as "a serious anomaly".
Television images shot from a helicopter showed what appeared to be wreckage bearing the Virgin logo.
SpaceShipTwo is carried aloft by a jet, then launched into sub-orbit.
In a statement, Virgin Galactic said the "vehicle suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of SpaceShipTwo".

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29857182
http://www.virgingalactic.com/news/i...rgin-galactic/

[xilman]

Boldly going where 12 men have been before.

To be serious, I hope they get this thing off the ground. A £600K (approx $1M) kickstarter sounds eminently reasonable.

[chappy]

Originally Posted by xilman

Boldly going where 12 men have been before.

To be serious, I hope they get this thing off the ground. A £600K (approx $1M) kickstarter sounds eminently reasonable.

I'm in! Now, I got to figure out what to put in my digital locker. I could start recording my voice speaking the largest known Prime numbers...I wonder how long that would take? :)

[Nick]

The lander will also contain a public digital archive of human history and science which will be compiled as a legacy which will survive even if our species becomes extinct.

Will they also be checking whether such a thing is already there from some previous (and now extinct) species on earth?