Monday, November 11 at 9:56 a.m.EST launched 60 Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
Falcon 9’s first stage supported the Iridium-7, SAOCOM-1A, and Nusantara Satu missions, and the fairing was previously flown on Falcon Heavy’s Arabsat-6A mission earlier this year. Following stage separation, SpaceX will land Falcon 9’s first stage on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
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Well if we are using “tramp steamer” to mean “bespoke cargo service” then that’s a more reasonable analogy I guess.
Bespoke contractual hauling being the stage before being able to hop onto regularly scheduled cargo liner service, how would you characterize that then? Merchant navy then?
As for the equivalent to tobacco and molasses, it looks like the recently returned ZBLAN fiber optic manufacturing demo done on ISS has yielded better fiber than on earth. That appears to be a closing business case at launch prices right now.
I don’t think “tramp steamer” is the right analogy at all.
Tramp steamers are ships that came into being once the technology of steam powered ocean going ships had been developed to the point of being available cheaply and able to be maintained by low budget crews of low end merchant sailors.
Think Firefly or the Millenium Falcon.
We haven’t reached that stage yet for space launch. We DREAM of entering that stage for space launch.
At best we’re exiting the Viking longboat stage and entering the Iberian Caravel stage. Maybe we are now at the point where actual trade can be profitable between worlds.
Maybe.
Assuming an equivalent to Tobacco, Pepper, Cloves, Sugar or Cotton can be found. Or an equivalent to the Aztec treasure.
Or the equivalent to rounding up all the criminal classes and sending them so far away that they will never come back. We could do that. We could make it a live TV game show. “Who do we vote off the island?”
Not just easy, but normal/regular. We are now exiting the tramp steamer stage of space logistics. Thankfully, unlike Apollo, where the public rather rapidly lost interest after the flags and footprints, Musk keeps the hits coming (now with Starlink and Starship).
A picture perfect launch and return of the 1st stage.
SpaceX really makes things look easy.
Bit of a shame; was looking forward to double-catch, fair enough though.
No fairing catch, they didn’t want to risk ripping the arms off the boats in rough seas.