SpaceX to attempt launch/landing to ISS today at 4:43pm EST

[edbermac]

Hope they stick the rocket landing.

http://www.spacex.com/webcast

[edbermac]

1. Liftoff!

[edbermac]

2. First stage lands on drone ship!

[Zorro]

3. That landing is an astounding accomplishment

Wow. On a bobbing platform, too.

[Warpy]

4. This is truly astonishing

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/falcon-9-boosts-cargo-ship-to-orbit-sticks-ocean-landing/

An upgraded SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket boosted a Dragon cargo ship into orbit Friday, kicking off a two-day flight to the International Space Station to deliver 3.5 tons of cargo, including an innovative inflatable module that could pave the way to future deep space habitats and commercial space stations.

And in a notable first for the California rocket company, the booster's first stage flew itself to a picture-perfect touchdown on an off-shore barge, whimsically named the "Of Course I Still Love You," stationed about 185 miles northeast of Cape Canaveral.

Video from a company helicopter showed the 156-foot-tall stage descending vertically on the power of a single rocket engine and sticking the landing just a few feet from the center of the drone ship's deck, stable on its splayed landing legs as the ship rocked in somewhat choppy seas.

"'Of Course I Still Love You,' we have a Falcon 9 on board," a SpaceX engineer triumphantly radioed about eight minutes and 35 seconds after launch.

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. Image SpaceX lands equivalent of 25 story building on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean

[hunter]

7. That is a very impressive display of math, science, and engineering talent.

Anti-intellectualism in the U.S.A. is a very serious handicap that prevents us from having many nice things, even ordinary things like clean water.

This rocket is a very nice thing. It's exactly the sort of rocket optimistic science fiction authors were imaging in the 'thirties, 'forties, and fifties.

My grandfather was one of many engineers who landed men on the moon. During World War II he was a U.S. Army Air Force officer but he rarely spoke of that, maybe because he was a romanticist who wanted to fly but they kept him on the ground greasing various wheels, mostly not mechanical. But he was always intensely proud of his civilian space work. Some of the metal bits he made took man to the moon and back. I'm pretty sure this SpaceX stuff is how he imagined the future of space exploration, with rockets landing on their own legs as the men and women who built them cheered.

[petronius]

6. Awesome Iain M. Banks shout-out as well, I'm guessing (hoping)

Naming the barge Of Course I Still Love You, after a Culture GCU?