I watched the Falcon Heavy launch yesterday with bated breath, half-expecting an accident on launch of the type they jokingly call a 'rapid unscheduled disassembly event'. But it went almost like clockwork.
If you missed it and want to watch this historic moment, here's a link.
If you watched the whole thing, did you see the shots from a camera mounted just outside the viewing area of SpaceX's Mission Control room? See the large crowd of excitable SpaceX fans? Well I'm pretty sure that most of them were actually off-duty SpaceX employees. The Mission Control and most of the fabrication facilities (as far as I know, which isn't far) are in Hawthorne, California. Can you imagine having worked your knuckles off for months, labouring long hours in a workshop or lab, testing hundreds of components, striving to measure up to Elon Musk's almost fanatical standards... and then, finally, watching on a screen as your handiwork roared off the pad and into the sky?
No wonder they were cheering so loudly. I imagine they were incredibly relieved that the huge new rocket didn't explode or fail in some other way. I imagine they went home feeling like they had contributed something meaningful to the world, that they were making history.
That's a great way to live - a life of meaning, getting involved in something larger and more significant than yourself. But you don't have to work for SpaceX to get that buzz - the opportunities are all around us.
If you missed it and want to watch this historic moment, here's a link.
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| My personal favourite moment: the 2 Falcon 9 boosters touch down noncholantly after their few minutes of glory |
If you watched the whole thing, did you see the shots from a camera mounted just outside the viewing area of SpaceX's Mission Control room? See the large crowd of excitable SpaceX fans? Well I'm pretty sure that most of them were actually off-duty SpaceX employees. The Mission Control and most of the fabrication facilities (as far as I know, which isn't far) are in Hawthorne, California. Can you imagine having worked your knuckles off for months, labouring long hours in a workshop or lab, testing hundreds of components, striving to measure up to Elon Musk's almost fanatical standards... and then, finally, watching on a screen as your handiwork roared off the pad and into the sky?
No wonder they were cheering so loudly. I imagine they were incredibly relieved that the huge new rocket didn't explode or fail in some other way. I imagine they went home feeling like they had contributed something meaningful to the world, that they were making history.
That's a great way to live - a life of meaning, getting involved in something larger and more significant than yourself. But you don't have to work for SpaceX to get that buzz - the opportunities are all around us.
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