Remember the awesome landing SpaceX made last month with its reusable Falcon 9 first-stage rocket? This month’s attempt was almost as successful… and almost in rocketry is bad news:
Unlike the December landing on land, SpaceX returned to trying to land its Falcon 9 rocket on a barge, floating yesterday in 12- to 15-foot waves. They still managed to sit the rocket down right on target, but one of the four legs failed to lock into the landing pad, and… boom!
SpaceX still wants to achieve water landings, since they don’t require loading the rocket with more fuel to bring it back to land. Plus, if something goes wrong, there’s a lot less for rocket debris to hit at sea.
On the bright side, before it crashed, the Falcon 9 rocket did successfully heave NASA’s Jason-3 satellite into orbit, so we can get more data on sea levels and climate change that will support earthly policy and technology to keep our ecosystem from crashing and burning.
Tuition.
http://www.sncspace.com/ Sierra Nevada was one of 3 companies picked by NASA along with Space X to deliver cargo’s into space—Sierra Nevada’s “Dream Chasers” can land on a runway after returning from space. Pretty amazing!
speaking of monitoring climate change:
+2 degrees +4 degrees
Climateconference coastalfloods
COASTAL FLOODS
An estimated 2 million to 13 million
people each year will be
exposed to flooding
Roughly equal to the
population of…
New Orleans and
southern Louisiana
…Louisiana, Mississippi
and Alabama
Climateconference riverfloods
RIVER FLOODS
About 130 million to 250 million
people each year will be
exposed to flooding
…the entire South and
part of the Northeast
…the entire East and
Midwest of the U.S.
huffpo
(cont. from huff po today)
WATER STRESS
An estimated 1.5 billion
to 2 billion people each year will live
in areas without enough usable water
…almost five times
the U.S.
…six times the U.S.
Source: Committee on Climate Change, Census Bureau (population estimates). Charts show median estimates.
1. Coastal flood estimates assume that flood protections evolve with population and wealth.
2. River flood estimates assume that protections do