Hold my beer :-)
John Insprucker
62 posts
John Insprucker
@jinsprucker
Grew up in Detroit, Univ of Michigan man (Go Blue!), Retired AF, life-long Rocket Engineer (starting at age 6), space historian, SpaceX webcaster 🏆
Earth, Sol System
Joined March 2016
- A few of my favorite phrases from sci-fi suddenly have new meaning. Fighting through landing-"Never give up, never surrender!" "Oh! My God! It's real," when we've done it. And of course "These are the voyages of the Starship(s)..." Cue the music. Now to work on video and clouds.
- I hope to get some sleep, but it will be a short night. We’re on set prepping for webcast from Hawthorne in predawn hours. Remember, this is the first test flight of the all-up stack. Goal is to learn from it. As Teddy Roosevelt said – “Far better it is to dare mighty things…”
- Happy First Contact Day! As Troi said to Data and Picard - would you three like to be alone? Hey, it's a Titan! And here I am w/ a Titan IV years ago. Now it's Falcons and Starships. Spending time now working on webcast rehearsals for first test flight of Starship.
- Exciting day & not over! #10 came through - flew to 10km, did the Adama maneuver, got the data we needed, flipped and landed! Time for #11...Geronimo! And more to come - I'm working Falcon 9 launch tonight. But no webcast for me, I've done mine today (abort, recycle, launch).
- I realized in the webcast this morning's Starlink flight means the last 2 launches from historic 39A were the Demo 2 booster (1st flight, left) and the Demo 1 booster (5th flight, right). In the 2+ months in-between, the Demo 2 booster has already flown again (ANASIS-II mission).
- How do you do a 4+ hour webcast this coming Wednesday for the Falcon 9/Crew Demo 2 mission? Practice! Lots of moving parts and pieces. Today gave us a chance to do it in parallel with crew rehearsal.SpaceX and @NASA completed a full rehearsal of launch day activities with @AstroBehnken and @Astro_Doug ahead of Crew Demo-2
- Ever notice the similarities between Falcon 9 and Santa's sleigh? Both have 9 'engines' (counting Rudolph). Both carry crew and cargo, and both land and can be reflown! Like the story says "More rapid than eagles his coursers they came"... obvious Falcon reference. On Merlins!
- After yesterday's launch and Wednesday's scrub, I've got enough clips of me doing the weather that my next career might be local weather announcer. I can hear it --"I'm John I., Principal Weather Engineer for station XYZ. I'll be bringing you weather updates throughout the day."
- Two Falcon 9s vertical on 39A & 40 today! Wish there was a good aerial photo of them. Future - SpaceX launch vehicles with payloads on top of both in countdown at same time. For now, look back at Gemini 11 and Agena target vehicle... launched ~97 minutes apart in 1966.
- And we also have the Starship 150-meter flight on Sunday, 30 Aug. Reminds me of the line from the movie Ghostbusters - "We might have to put a little overtime in on this one!"Replying to @SpaceXWeather is 50% favorable for liftoff of Starlink and 40% for SAOCOM 1B
- First example of a Regolith Unplanned Disassembly if orbital dynamics holds true.In a little more than five weeks, a spent upper stage from a Falcon 9 rocket is likely to strike the far side of the Moon. arstechnica.com/science/2022/0…
- Jan 28th - a day of mixed emotions. We're getting ready for flight of Starship SN9 (spacex.com/vehicles/stars…) But it is also a Day of Remembrance of past pioneers who helped get us here (nasa.gov/specials/dor20…). Ad astra per aspera God speed the crews (past, present, future)
- We've done all our rehearsals... but the one thing we all talk about but no one can do anything about - the weather. See if Sunday brings better weather for capsule recovery and good views of F9/Dragon in flight escape test. But a 6-hour window, ugh. Reminds me of my Titan days.
