Comment by mrandish
1 day ago
The number of SpaceX video clips that I know are "actual things really happening" which still activate the involuntary "Sci-Fi / CGI effect" neurons in my brain is remarkable.
1 day ago
The number of SpaceX video clips that I know are "actual things really happening" which still activate the involuntary "Sci-Fi / CGI effect" neurons in my brain is remarkable.
Yeah. I know that feeling.
That tower catch. That _had_ to be a new version of Kerbal, right? The physics looked good, but there's no way that was real...
Indeed. The one that still flips a bit in my brain is the two Falcon rockets landing in unison side by side. I'd say it was high-end CGI except no director would approve an effects shot of orbital rockets landing in such a perfect, cinematically choreographed way.
It would just be sent back to ILM marked "Good effort, but too obviously fake. Rework to be more realistic and resubmit."
Just to link that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c&t=1793s
Such an unbelievable moment. And I also think an indicator of how much better society could be if we focused more on doing amazing things. The comments on YouTube are just filled with hope optimism and general awesomeness. FWIW that link goes straight to the moneyshot - it's always so much better if you watch it all the way through. It's an amazing broadcast.
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Seeing a rocket land vertically goes against almost 70 years of what we "know" about rockets. Falcon 9 rockets landing on legs seem unnatural enough; now we have a rocket, the size of a 20-story building, landing on chopsticks.
There are lots of vertical-landing rockets ... in science fiction, and only before Sputnik in 1957. Once actual space programs came about and lots of engineers understood just how difficult landing a rocket is compared to launching it, they all went away. Fictional vehicles became more and more complex to make them "realistic" (that is, consistent with real spacecraft on the news), or just didn't bother with the details at all and went to quasi-magic technologies like in Star Wars and Star Trek.
SpaceX is taking us to the future by going with something from the past.
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