Tomorrow is the first Presidential Debate. It’s all a lot of dross and slag. I will sit through the debate, but I don’t want to dwell on it. Yesterday, something happened in space world that was utterly and completely gobsmackingly fabulous. Elon Musk’s Space X Falcon Heavy Rocket carried the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency GOES-U satellite to Low Earth Orbit. The abso-freaking-lutely cool part was watching the rocket boosters landing on side by side landing pads nearly simultaneously. It was totally radical.

While Lilliputian types like Jake Tapper and Dana Bash try to prop up Joe Biden and claw Donald Trump to shreds, there are always intellectual giants around the globe like Elon Musk and Space X doing huge things. I have to give Tesla props even though I don’t want one, X (Twitter) has begun improvements, but Space X is beyond belief. Elon Musk’s companies are far from perfect, but he keeps trying. After his Starship explosion gave us RUD “Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly”. Little people grind us down. Big people do great things and change the world.

From NOAA:

GOES-U, the latest of NOAA’s four advanced geostationary satellites, soared into orbit on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket at 5:26 p.m. EDT from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch team confirmed the satellite’s solar array panels have deployed, and GOES-U is operating under its own power.

After approximately two weeks, GOES-U will reach geostationary orbit at 22,236 miles above Earth and will be renamed GOES-19. Following a thorough checkout and validation of its instruments, the new satellite will shift to the GOES-East position and replace GOES-16 in the mid-2025 time frame.

“GOES-U will combine high definition with advanced speed and precision to the real-time observations it will capture, which will help improve the accuracy and timeliness of our weather forecasts,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D. “Also, this satellite will ensure these critical data are available to NOAA forecasters into the 2030s.”

GOES-U is making history by carrying the first operational satellite solar coronagraph (CCOR-1). This instrument will work in tandem with the satellite’s other solar and space environment technology to detect hazardous space weather that could disrupt power grids, communications and navigation systems.

The take-off was uber great:

10th liftoff of Falcon Heavy! pic.twitter.com/Qf1mHwBKk5

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 25, 2024

The money shot was of the boosters. From Tweaktown.com:

Shortly after launch Falcon Heavy initiated its booster separation phase which means exactly what is in the name, the Falcon Heavy booster disconnect from the ship and begin their descent back to Earth’s surface. The boosters landed successfully in Space Landing Zones 1 and 2 back at Kennedy Space Center approximately 8 minutes after launch, and there was no effort made to recover the core booster.

And it looked like this:

Getting one booster back standing up was freaking awesome, but this aeronautic duet was magnificent. You know that wherever there is ointment, there will be a Lilliputian fly:

That's obviously a video played backwards right?

Is it the original video? pic.twitter.com/66lcho5yeP

— Noriil (@NoriilETH) June 26, 2024

Yes, that booster video was just run backwards. Tomorrow, when Jake, Dana or Joe are ticking remember that intellectual giants do big things and then there are Lilliputians squeaking along.

Featured Image: NASA Headquarters Photo/flickr.com/cropped/Creative Commons