Incredible! Rocket moves sideways and returns to launchpad

life imitating art is slow coming but every once in a while something astonishing happens and this is the beginning of something amazing and something militarily dangerous.

Nah man,

This is just the new graphics update for Kerbal Space Program

reply to post by n3mesis


Too true....... Some "Oldies" may remember old reruns of "Space" movies from the 40s, 50s and 60s on TV, where the rockets ALWAYS landed on the Moon or Mars just like this new concept..landing on tripods, bottom first.

I think the 3 Stooges go to Venus or something had this...well that's the one I remember.

This also reminds me of the Alien ships in Battle LA, where they hover and maneuver in our atmosphere, via pulsing rocket engines, exactly like the Lockheed test shows.

Life imitating art? or Mans imagination coming to reality?.

Originally posted by Catacomb
Many thanks to the forum member butcherguy, who helped me find the video I was referring to in my original post, in this thread. The video is in this ATS forum thread:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Do you think the rocket in the OP is a derivative of the technology in this youtube video?

edit on 16-8-2013 by Catacomb because: (no reason given)

Good find.

I thought i saw a ufo back in '91 or 92, but it behaved just like this. It looked like a star, but darted around at right angle, stopping and starting with instant speed.

Guess it was a bigger version of this...

reply to post by gladtobehere

Agreed that private businesses will always be more efficient than government.

The always is a false preposition, it depends on the quality of government...

Even with the corrupt and self centered (serving) government we have today your calculations should be a bit off since you do not calculate externalities the same in a corporate setup twhere the ONLY objective is to be profitable (this is a generalization, since any corporations that do no have profitability as a single objective will be supplanted by any competition that does, so the most profitable), in any way the externalities I'm speaking is social and experimental considerations, like the dead zone in the Golf of Mexico or the need to keep people employed and happy... Like the US car industry that needed to be bailed out by the private citizen...

I'm thinking thunderbirds! are go!

Although it is pretty cool to watch, I don't know why we continue with this antiquated technology. It already requires so much fuel for these type of rockets, and the ability to land it, just requires more fuel, which require a larger rocket that weighs more, which requires more fuel and so on. Our technology has evolved SO FAR in 50 years, but when it comes to any kind of propulsion, other than more power or better economy, nothing has really changed.
Sometimes I wonder, if there is an advanced race visiting our planet, if maybe in their early development, they went a path that didn't require burning things for power. Simply taking a different direction from the get go made a huge difference along the developement of that race.

I wonder what type of fuel it uses. It doesn't appear to be liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen like the space shuttle orbiter because the exhaust is relatively invisible. (Hydrogen and oxygen fuels form massive clouds of water vapor that are very visible.) Still, it must be some sort of liquid fuel because solid propellent rockets cannot be throttled up and down. It's either full on or full off (burned up).

Originally posted by Oannes
If this is designed for use in outerspace, don't think we aren't being watched. Off-world intelligences already know we have found the matches (nukes). Many attempts to put weapons in space, have resulted in them being "shot down". Earth is under a type of cosmic quarantine. Our Brothers and Sisters will not allow us to bring destructive madness into space.

No we aint, also a superior intelligence could wreak more destruction simply by knocking asteroids towards a planet.

reply to post by aboutface


Demonstrations like this one are truly amazing and it is my belief that these seemingly new abilities are not so much the product of a "new" technological device, but rather they are the result of huge advances with respect to the speed at which we can now receive, process and react to information.

In other words, we've had rocket engines for decades and the smaller directional rockets have been around for just about as long. What we haven't had is a pilot who could react quick enough to pull off a landing like that. Well due to advances in computer processing speeds now we do, meet your pilot, the microprocessor.

I authored a thread in the Science & Technology forum about this phenomena back in June of this year but it didn't garner much attention. It was entitled; "Feedback Control & The Coming Machine Revolution" and can be found here; www.abovetopsecret.com...

For those who are willing to invest 24 minutes of their time, in this video the orator walks you through a brief history of the advancements in information processing & reaction time or "Feedback Control" and what a huge difference a few milliseconds makes. He starts with the fly-ball governor used on steam engines of the past and brings you up to date with the very technology being used in these Space X demonstrations. Not to mention some unbelievable flying maneuvers, enjoy.

reply to post by Flatfish


Thanks so much for your input. Sorry I missed your thread back in June, but I am so happy to have viewed this video about feedback. It has to rank way up there in demonstration lectures. It has the effect on me of making me think that anything at all is possible. Let's hope and pray hard that wise heads will prevail in its applications to future developments.

remember this one ?
www.youtube.com...

reply to post by suicideeddie


Thanks, eddie. That took place in the 90's I have to admit my ignorance about this program, but thanks to the posters in this thread I'm learning a lot. It seems to have died in a way until the Grasshopper launch revived it. Why so long an intermission do you think? Costs? Fuels?

Here's your video

It's pretty much a throttleable and gimballed rocket with same really good (inverted pendulum) control logic. Wonder how easily I could create the software for something like that, doesn't seem overly difficult if you gave me enough time (and money).


EDIT: Look what I found.

Results

I successfully derived a model for, simulated, trained, animated, and produced a fully
functional and stable controller for a virtual Grasshopper vehicle. The controller performs
wonderfully in the simulator, but was not tested on hardware

cs229.stanford.edu...

cool,
actually just posting so I can watch the videos when I get home, they have youtube blocked at work.
so...yeah