Heads up: SpaceX launch - 30-40 minutes away

[Omaroo]

Falcon 9 and Dragon to launch to the International Space Station in T-1 hour. Commercial era of space travel is about to begin.

http://www.spacex.com/webcast/

[Omaroo]

11:01am ADST - 34 minutes to go...

[AstroJason]

Thanks for posting this. Tuning in!

[Liz]

Thanks young fella, have tuned in. :thumbsup:

[Omaroo]

Five minutes....

[gary]

Thanks Chris!

[gary]

The sight of the second stage engine bell glowing white hot is impressive.

It is interesting watching the small gimbaled engine making corrections.

Image below copyright SpaceX.

[Omaroo]

Fantastic, eh Gary! I've never seen imagery from within the engine area - live... Amazing :)

[h0ughy]

work has locked me out - bugger

[AstroJason]

Yeah cant believe how that engine can glow that hot and yet still function! Awesome stuff

[Astro_Bot]

Thanks for the heads up. That was good. :thumbsup:

[gary]

Hi Chris,

One can imagine the complex logistics involved in retrieving the bulky film cameras
from the stages in the Apollo era.

And it's not hard to imagine that the cameras on SpaceX are probably not
much bigger than your first, HD, possibly off the shelf and cheap enough compared
to the cost of a mission to just throw away. Plus streamed digitally around the
world in real-time and available to whoever wants to watch (well, except to h0ughy).

[Astro_Bot]

I can rewind the video stream and watch again, so maybe h0ughy can watch in "catch-up mode" later?

[Waxing_Gibbous]

Wow!
Great stuff.
Thanks for the 'heads-up'.

[Omaroo]

Yes, absolutely, but these cameras and video streaming technology have been around for a while though. Just ask RC/FPV pilots. I think that the incentive behind the incorporation of this level of operational transparency is public and ultimately NASA support - buy hey, what a bonus :)

[ZeroID]

Real cool to watch :thumbsup:
That engine bell glow and the bay shots and the liftoff and the separation. Awesome. I can't beleive how long the engines burn for ...!!

According to the tracking system it just passed over Auckland about 10 minutes ago heading NE.
Between that and Curiosity chatting away it's all moving again. Just so nice to have some good interesting news with all the other male bovine manure that's flying around down here.

Fly dragon, fly !