SpaceX's Grasshopper

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/spacexs-grasshopper-test-rocket-flies-sideways-su...

1:13 - SpaceX's Grasshopper test rocket flies sideways successfully
http://youtu.be/2t15vP1PyoA

Is the math as difficult as balancing a witch's broomstick at the tip of your finger?

"Is the math as difficult as balancing a witch's broomstick at the tip of your finger?"

Weird, I thought the same thing when I first saw the video. How do you tilt a long cylinder nearly sideways and then right it again with only "jets" on the bottom? Like balancing a broom on your finger! Must be a huge chunk of software and sensors controlling those rocket nozzles and the engineers want them to be reliably reusable? Amazing accomplishment, boggles my imagination - I am impressed with a long rocket just going up in a controlled manner.

Amazing accomplishment, boggles my imagination -
I am impressed with a long rocket just going up in a controlled manner.

Yep, just like the 1950's golden age SF rockets.

The car in the foreground doesn't look like it will have rocket tail fins at the back. Not a 50s thing for cars? Computers make trillions of decisions per-second. When that is applied to rocket nozzles and sensors it shouldn't surprise what the engineers have done with their model. It couldn't have happened with expensive clueless careerist placeholders in management (leadershit) and ITIL.

The Merlin-1D appears to be a standard type of rocket. I would have expected an aero-spike or something more unconventional. Who knew?

#5 It is that gap between concept and execution that is the killer apparently for technology IMOHO The stresses and conditions that the materials are subjected to seem to frequently be problematic, I am glad Spacex and the Curiosity crew are executing so well. Snafus like the Russian/Euro attempt to visit a Mars moon are disheartening.

#6 You need some links on those Merlin-1D & aero-spike terms for us amateurs Justified. I had to get wiki educated on them ;-)

Didn't help that I had a hyphen in aerospike:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerospike_engine

The Merlin engine family:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_1D#Merlin_1D

I actually have an experimental link to Wikipedia embedded in my brain.

Dear #7, Dugsbooks, could I get some more detail about your second picture? Also an 'oldsmobile'?

#9 Here is a link to info on the car, yes they are both the Oldsmobile. I am not sure that many exist now as it was a concept car at the time. Mine is NFS ;-)

http://www.carstyling.ru/en/cars.1956_Oldsmobile_Golden%20Rocket.html

(8,10) How do you both separate the broken bits of glass from the quality gems in Wikipedia? Does it hurt to have it embedded in your brain?

Before going to the article for aerospike, I had imagined it resembling the hovering laser gun ball like the one for young blind folded Jedi to train with.

There's a '55 concept car by Ghia with what sounds like a jet engine on youtube.

I had never heard of this, DC-X Reusable Rocket which was being designed to land after launch as is the Grasshopper. The article explains it is the 20th anniversary of the successful tests.

http://www.space.com/22391-reusable-rocket-nasa-dc-x-anniversary.html

AKA # 13 .....:-) reminds me of a nostalgic song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlCiDEXuxxA

A new contender for traffic to the ISS entered the race today with the launch of Orbital Sciences resupply ship to the International Space Station from Virginia. Below is the first stage separating.



Link to NASA description of the event. The link below from the site is a great Youtube vid of the launch event in HD approx. 6 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s9jXCnL1ig&feature=youtu.be