I agree... I love it when a smart woman looks terrific. I like it when a gorgeous woman is inordinately smart. Sorta like Sandy Magnus (last woman to fly on the shuttle).

The two are not mutually exclusive and it's a mistake to think that they are. Just look at Amy Mainzer for cryin out loud... WHOA! Or, Danica McKellar...

I think brains and looks are the sexiest of all in a woman...

Later! OL J R

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The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

Summed up in two "words"... SpaceX 2X!

(another successful barge landing)

Blue Origin who?

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I love sanding.

Wikipedia Autonomous spaceport drone ship:
The ASDS landing location for the first landing test was in the Atlantic Ocean approximately 200 miles (320 km) northeast of the launch location at Cape Canaveral, and 165 miles (266 km) southeast of Charleston, South Carolina.[2][12]

200 miles downrange for a first stage shows how soon the vehicle goes near horizontal. If you look at the webcast of the launch it shows a real time altitude and speed indicator you can view at staging. That will give you a 3D map of the trajectory.

They need a wider barge.

Marmac 303, Just Read the Instructions is berthed here:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/A...!4d-118.2724848

Wikipedia:
SpaceX indicated in November 2014 that they plan to eventually use ASDS as a floating launch platform, refueling a landed first stage with sufficient propellant to enable it to fly back to its launch site. No date has been provided for when this conceptual capability might be developed, tested, or made operational, or if it is still being actively developed.[6]

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So did i get erroneous info that SpaceX just delivered a Japanese satellite and made another barge landing, or are you all such Blue Origin fanboys that you cant acknowledge SpaceX is orders of magnitude beyond them?

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I love sanding.

Thank you--this was a wonderful pleasant surprise! (I had prepared to read bad news today, since SpaceX had downplayed the odds of a successful landing this time.) This SpaceFlightNow article (see: http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/05/0...e-night-launch/ ) describes the much greater difficulty of achieving this landing, which involved much higher re-entry heating, required a high-deceleration *three-engine* landing burn, and had to omit the normal boostback burn to direct the stage toward the ASDS (because the landing propellant reserve margin was razor-thin). Also:

Here are Space Daily's (see: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/S...launch_999.html ) and Space.com's reports (see: http://www.space.com/32808-photos-s...et-landing.html and [video here] http://www.space.com/32810-spacex-l...ties-video.html ). The JCSAT-14 Technical Webcast is here (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lYZLxr3L4E ), the ~1 hour hosted webcast is here (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0bMeDj76ig [here's an abbreviated version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlnIT39NkVM <but it might be from the technical one--I haven't watched it yet>]), and here (see: https://www.youtube.com/results?sea...lcon+9+JCSAT-14 ) are numerous other videos of the JCSAT-14 launch and/or the first stage landing. In addition:

Regarding Blue Origin, keep in mind their motto, "Gradatim Ferociter" ('Step by step, ferociously'), which is matched by their heraldic device (which includes two tortoises). Their philosophy is one of gradual, incremental progress; of thoroughly proving innovative techniques, materials, and systems one step at a time, to ensure that they can be relied upon to provide a firm foundation for future developments. Blue Origin isn't "losing out" to SpaceX at all--they simply have a different outlook, a different customer base, and a different internal schedule. They are already advancing the state of the art in deep-throttling-capable rocket engines (the BE-3 LOX/LH2 engine that powers New Shepard's booster and will be used [with a vacuum-optimized nozzle] as an upper stage engine for orbital use) and in LOX/CH3 rocket engines (their BE-4, which will power ULA's Vulcan and Blue Origin's orbital rocket).

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NAR #54895 SR

I'm a fan of *both* Blue Origin and SpaceX. Good-natured public verbal jabs from Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk at each other aside, the two companies aren't really competitors because their markets are different, for the most part. Unlike, say, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas (which both produced airliners to offer to the same airlines), SpaceX and Blue Origin are serving different customer bases (rather similar to how Boeing's and McDonnell Douglas' military aircraft [Boeing's bombers and jet transports versus McDonnell Douglas' supersonic fighters] were intended to fulfill different requirements, even though the same military branches bought their various aircraft). For example:

SpaceX has no apparent interest in suborbital space tourism, and they build everything for their own exclusive use, while Blue Origin has developed and is developing their BE-3 (LOX/LH2) and BE-4 (LOX/CH3) rocket engines for other launch vehicle contractors (ULA, for their Vulcan, and Orbital ATK is also evaluating the BE-4 for use on its vehicles [see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BE-4 ]) as well as for their own suborbital and orbital vehicles. Neither SpaceX's nor Blue Origin's way of doing things is right or wrong, or better or worse; they're simply different. (I'd love it if SpaceX would license production of their Falcon 1 smallsat launch vehicle to some other firm because it was cheap and reliable once its "teething troubles" were behind it, but they aren't interested in doing so--but that is neither right nor wrong either.)

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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
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http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR

I watched the launch/landing last night on the web.....My jaw just dropped when the flash (that I thought was the first stage exploding on the drone ship) died away and there was a booster standing, right in the center of the landing circle.

Just amazing stuff.

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Indeed--now we know why (when the last such three-engine ASDS landing attempt went awry--the video "froze" and went to the color bars test pattern) "everything went white"--the camera was literally "Blinded by the Light." (I won't be surprised if someone, maybe even SpaceX, has or soon will put up a brief video of this latest landing, set to the music of that song by Manfred Mann's Earth Band [see/hear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJh47LybCkU ]... :-) ). Also, someone (not a detractor) commented below the SpaceFlightNow.com article that the landing looked like a David Copperfield magic trick, and it does! One instant you see the floodlit empty ASDS landing deck, then there's a dazzling white flash, and poof!--there's a 15-story rocket stage standing there...

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http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR

In George Gassaway's thread on Falcon 9 landings over on TRF the same analogy has been made - it looked just like a magic trick....

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Bernard Cawley
NAR 89040 L1 - Life Member
SAM 0061
AMA 42160
KG7AIE

I'm glad to read this--and it also (although certainly not intentionally) provides more ammunition to the new generation of "Flat Earth" folks (who not only deny the Moon landings, but deny *all* space missions, including Sputnik 1--the YouTube videos of them confronting and badgering John Young, Gene Cernan, and Buzz Aldrin are funny yet disturbing). I'm sure they'll say something like, "Yeah, it sure was just like a magic trick! What was SpaceX trying to hide? A helicopter lowering the stage to the deck while no one could see what was going on?" :-)

__________________
Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR