Falcon 9 over Pleasanton (3 min 7 sec)

There were actually very few good photos of the arc & no closeups, compared to east coast launches. The problem was fog. Everyone bent on getting good photos went close to the launchpad, under the fog. The few slackers stayed hundreds of miles away.

ISO 6400, F1.8, 1/30, 28mm for the video
ISO 400, F5.6, 30sec, 50mm, no mirror lockup for the stills

Surprised how much more interesting a video is when it shows a rocket over where you live. The USlaunchreport videos are the same white dots with the noise of a cell phone, but boring because they only show the context of a spaceport.


The color came out quite dramatic. The atmosphere & space are clearly deliniated by red & white. Was surprised how red the flame 1st was. There was no saturation effect, just a very high gamma setting, obliterating the haze. The reentry burn was another surprise. It showed it really was a Falcon 9 & the stories were real. It's another sign of a world Elon created, in addition to all the cars being Teslas.

Finally had a go with Freecad's anaglyph feature. It's the 1st time the lion kingdom had anaglyph support in a modeling program. Maya couldn't do it, 15 years ago.

If you held your breath, you'd last a minute on Mars without a space suit. You could feel the ground & the cold of Idaho, see an atmosphere naked eyed, but feel no air if you waved your arm. Taking your last breath would reveal a hard vacuum. You be unable to inhale & die.

Still, you could probably run out of an airlock & back in after a minute, just to feel it with your own body. A face mask could fill in while the airlock repressurized.

As usual, the lion kingdom was the 1st to notice the heat shield isn't black, but the same color as the BFS renderings. It's a bit of fiction becoming reality & shows the BFS's color wasn't just a mockup. It's also different than the material used on the block 5 Falcon 9.


It's probably not the famous PICA derivatives but some metallic compound involving titanium. PICA was orange. It's been 80 years of trying to develop a better heat shield.

The July 4 cruiser swore allegiance to the god emperor & chief & could make a lot of noise. It was going to be a night of fire, noise, & mane hair.


The 8 year old glow stick barely lit up. Either it expired or lion vision has deteriorated too much to see anything since using those as a kid.


The fireworks were pretty minimal. It was an overcrowded street with limited visibility & humans who were too busy yelling at each other to notice their god emperor. It was a pretty awful place for a fireworks show. The speaker wasn't needed, since they had barely audible music & the radio station didn't seem to be broadcasting the soundtrack, anymore. The FM banger came in a lot better in downtown. Then, during the 1 mile drive from the show, the $60 steering servo died. The metal gear came undone from its servo horn.

This part never got threadlock because of its tendency to crack plastic. The next idea was to threadlock just a bolt in the metal gear, let it dry, then install the servo horn. This is why you should never overhaul less than 50 miles before an important mission.

The $60 TS-940HG was the only one in stock. They sure made a big deal about the helical gears. It's heavy, but fast. Standby current is no different than normal servos.