I asked this before, years ago, but don’t have time to look for it now: When was the end of the Space Age? Also, was there something between the end of the Space Age in the Information Age (which I think we’re still in)?
They already did that for seven of the Apollo/Skylab/ASTP splashdowns with some of the Iwo Jima Class LPHs. But as mentioned, in this case the actual operational need is fulfilled by a tender and even an LPH type vessel would be overkill unless you end up really off course . A large oceangoing tender should suffice. In fact part of the benefit of being so relatively close to shore is that you can shore-base any supplemental assets (helicopters, backup craft) rather than have them afloat.
As to the intruders, spreading the word about venting hydrazine may serve as a dissuassive.
They’ll probably look into whether they can do that short of legislation, especially if as in this case you may be out of the 12-mile territorial zone but still within the 200-mile economic zone.
Thing is, this is operations of a private contractor (SpaceX) for a civilian agency (NASA), it’s merely offshore rather than in the middle of the open ocean and, to be blunt, there’s no international manhood-measurement contest involved, so hard to justify sending a blue-water Navy Task Force to do the honors. And as the Coast Guard said, not that easy when you are so close to port to deal with potential swarms of “tourists”. Even if you only declare a 5-mile radius as the exclusion area, that’s a 31 and a half mile line to patrol all around, you know some doofus is going to ignore every order to turn back that does not involve a burst of .50-cal splashing across his bows and we really don’t want to waste good ammo just to scare a mere FloridaMan.
Ha. Have you not been following the whole masks-in-Covid debacle? Saying please don’t do this, it isn’t good for your health has been proven to be the opposite of dissuasive.
This may have been suggested, but perhaps it would be a good idea to land in the middle of the ocean where rubber neckers can’t go.
I had NASATV on my computer and CNN on the TV and somehow CNN’s feed of NASA TV was ahead of the website’s. Very disconcerting, because I wanted to hear the raw audio; not CNN’s current talking heads who sounded more like spokespeople PBS gets to do pledge drives, rather than science correspondents. Even Miles was subpar. And could they have lit the recovery bay on the ship any worse? No.
Not quite related to the Crew Dragon mission, but SpaceX is about to “hop” their Starship prototype. Some live feeds:
Assuming it doesn’t get scrubbed, it should happen in 10-15 minutes. Should be exciting!
Hop got scrubbed. Will try again tomorrow. RUD* or not, it’s gonna be fun!
* Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly. See also: lithobrake.
MSNBC anchor kept saying first splashdown since 1945 and eventually a guest corrected her to 1975. I don’t know why someone at MSNBC did not correct her.
Wow.
Was she speaking of V2s that missed and confusing Germany and the USA?
No she said first US splashdown since 1945. Said it about 3 times.