back to article SpaceX blasts a mischief of mice, a 3D printer and a cuddly toy* into SPAAAACE

Elon Musk's private spaceflight company SpaceX successfully launched its unmanned, mouse-laden Dragon 'craft in the early hours of this morning. The commercial cargo ship is carrying 2.5 tons of supplies destined for the International Space Station, NASA said. SpaceX rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral. Image credit: NASA …

  1. John Robson Silver badge

    Photo

    That's a pretty sweet photo!

    1. JeffyPoooh
      Pint

      3D Printers in SPAAAAAAACE...

      Good. Two major advantages.

      1) They'll finally be able to 3D print things enclosing a vacuum, such as vacuum tubes or barometers. Obviously they'd need to leave the ISS door ajar during this procedure, and make other arrangements for breathing - details, details... Sales of 3D Printed in Spaaaace vacuum tubes to discerning audiophiles are expected to reach $3.2 Billion, nearly six such tubes, by October.

      2) In zero g, they'll finally be able to 3D print little things that are floating inside other slightly larger things, without the inner unsuspended part falling down while being printed. There may be minor issues with the unsupported middle bit drifting during the printing process, but we mustn't let such trivial practicalities obstruct our view of the future.

      Such 3D Printers in Space are the future!! Someday very soon, perhaps by January 2015, everything we buy, everything!!, will be custom manufactured by 3D Printers in Earth orbit.

      This message brought to you by the 3D Printer Hyperbolic Claims Association, a leading source of 3D Printing information.

      1. Crazy Operations Guy

        Re: 3D Printers in SPAAAAAAACE...

        I wonder what the labor laws are in space... Next thing you know, the Chinese will blast hundreds of children into space to make things while paying them slave wages. Perhaps that is what their doing with their space station....

      2. phil dude
        Thumb Up

        Re: 3D Printers in SPAAAAAAACE...

        In zero-G , some amazing scale of self-assembling structures would be possibly...

        P.

        1. Rustident Spaceniak
          Boffin

          Re: 3D Printers in SPAAAAAAACE...

          ... provided you bring amazing quantities of material, and amazing numbers of amazingly powerful 3D printers, plus some amazingly smart controllers.

      3. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
        Devil

        Re: 3D Printers in SPAAAAAAACE...

        Sales of 3D Printed in Spaaaace vacuum tubes to discerning audiophiles are expected to reach $3.2 Billion, nearly six such tubes, by October.

        JeffyPoooh,

        You may mock, but there's a huge difference. The vacuum in space is analogue, whereas the artificial vacuums created in machines on earth are inferior digital. Space-vacuum sounds much warmer with infintely better sonic spacing (if you'll pardon the pun).

        Just because you can't hear the difference, that doesn't mean that those of us with properly trained ears and set up systems can't.

        I'd also imagine that space is the ideal place to manufacture oxygen free cables.

    2. Gene Cash Silver badge

      Re: Photo

      Yes it is! I took pics from Space View park across the river, using settings suggested by the local paper, but they came out horribly underexposed. Oh well. The view (and the SOUND) was great.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    20 mice. TWENTY? What ever do you need that many mice for?

    1. John Bailey

      "20 mice. TWENTY? What ever do you need that many mice for?"

      To make a mouse organ.

      1. stucs201

        re: mouse organ

        That only needs 6 : Charliemouse, Eddiemouse, Janiemouse, Jenniemouse, Lizziemouse and Williemouse.

        1. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: re: mouse organ

          The other 14 are driving the wheel, seeing as hamsters aren't space-rated.

      2. Oldfogey
        Mushroom

        And the 3d printer to make the Marvelous Mechanical bits. After all, it's hardly rocket science.

    2. Mark 85

      They're to give the cat something to do.

    3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Alien

      "20 mice. TWENTY? What ever do you need that many mice for?"

      You've got it all wrong. The mice aren't being "taken". They are evacuating. Next thing you know there'll be dolphins doing strange back-flips and somersaults before disappearing.

      <Caution - Construction Zone>

    4. EddieD

      They know the Vogons are coming.

      Dolphins will be next.

    5. Fungus Bob

      "What ever do you need that many mice for?"

      Food for the Space Python.

  3. Oldfogey
    Happy

    Extra mice?

    The rest are to operate the Marvellous Mechanical Mouse Mill, for the chocolate biscuits

    1. MrT

      But...

      ...there were no butterbeans on the inventory, and as for breadcrumbs - positively hazardous in zero/v.lo g... maybe they can make a small sailing boat instead?

      1. stucs201

        Re: small sailing boat

        Hmmm, get some transparent material and 3D printing a ship in a bottle could avoid all that tedious mucking about with folding sails.

        1. MrT

          Re: small sailing boat

          Only if we can rig up the printer control software to play "Heave! Heave!" on each pass...

  4. Chris G

    FF obsolete

    Marvel's Fantastic Four are about to be pushed out by Musk's Mutant Mice, after being exposed to cosmic rays there should be a new race of mutant hybridised mice that can print stretchy, invisible, supertough, flaming objects.

    The ISS will become their orbiting base. Twenty mice allows for failures and other properties.

  5. stuartnz
    Alert

    Holy Zarquon Singing Fish!

    More than a dozen comments, and no one asked if two of those twenty were Frankie and Benji? Are y'all actually waiting for the dolphins to do a double-backwards-somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the "Star Spangled Banner" before acknowledging what it means when MICE start fleeing the planet en masse?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    57.7-foot ... robotic arm

    WTF? Doing it in decimal is silly -- at least get rid of the imperial measure.

    Otherwise, if you have to stick with an outdated system, say what it really is: 57 feet, 8 6/16th inches (nearly!). See how stupid that is?

    Is this just to placate the Americans who come on this site who don't know what metric means? (And, come to that, the UKIP-voting nob-eds that think pounds and ounces are still a good idea?)

    1. Martin Budden Silver badge

      Re: 57.7-foot ... robotic arm

      One of only three!

    2. cortland

      Re: 57.7-foot ... robotic arm

      How long is that in Ells?

    3. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Unhappy

      Re: 57.7-foot ... robotic arm

      "WTF? Doing it in decimal is silly -- at least get rid of the imperial measure.

      Tell that to the Americans. AFAIK they are one of only two countries in the world with the Imperial system (the proper name for this system of unit, which Americans don't seem to like it being called for some reason).

      The other is some pestilential hell hole in Africa.

      1. Richard Altmann
        Coat

        Re: 57.7-foot ... robotic arm

        The other is some pestilential hell hole in Africa.

        Icon: The 51% percent "shareholder" of MY company grabbing the rest my fortune accept the 25k$ which i´m allowed to take with me when i leave the country.

    4. imanidiot Silver badge

      Re: 57.7-foot ... robotic arm

      Much more importantly, what is that in standard double decker busses or brontosauruses?

    5. Fungus Bob
      Coat

      Re: 57.7-foot ... robotic arm

      "nob-eds that think pounds and ounces are still a good idea"

      It works just fine as long as you don't use pounds as currency too...

  7. Martin Budden Silver badge

    What are the four towers around the launchpad? They look like mobile phone towers but I doubt the mice needed really good reception in the minutes before launch.

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge

      What's the towers are for.

      "What are the four towers around the launchpad? They look like mobile phone towers but I doubt the mice needed really good reception in the minutes before launch."

      AFAIK they are lightning conductors. I think they have cables strung between them to attract away any lightning bolts in case of thunder during the launch period.

      1. Andy Gates

        Re: What's the towers are for.

        They're water towers for the sound suppression system - those jets of water that spray over the flame trench, they come from here. By muffling the thunderous acoustic battering of the engine somewhat, they prevent damage to the rocket and the pad.

        Also, they're lightning rods.

      2. JeffyPoooh
        Pint

        Re: What's the towers are for.

        "...they are lightning conductors."

        Wussies! Real men don't need no stinking lightning conductors; they just set SCE to Aux and carry on with their day.

  8. Martin Budden Silver badge

    Has no-one else made the connection between the payload on this launch and the payload on SpaceX's maiden flight?

  9. cray74

    Great Launch

    It really lit up the sky. The crickets and frogs went nearly silent down for about a minute after it got above my local horizon, and then quieted again (only a bit) when the thunder arrived a few minutes later.

    The Falcon 9 is different than other launches I've seen from the Cape. It has a bright orange flame (kerosene) without all the heavy smoke of solid boosters or the blue flame of hydrogen launches. However, I was able to observe a hint of a comet-like coma around the second stage from the highly expanded exhaust. I haven't seen that in a day launch.

    After the second stage dwindled to a star (about 4 minutes into the flight), I switched to teh interwebs and watched SpaceX's streaming video to see if the flight finished alright. (Too many launchers have stage separation, faring separation, or upper stage engine problems to stop watching after the first few minutes.) After a while, the feed started weaving in glimpses from the (I think) liquid oxygen tank between the visual and IR monitoring of the second stage engine. There was almost no sloshing, which surprised me - all the anti-slosh baffles included in propellant tank designs led me to assume rocket fuel splashed all over during a launch. Nope, the surface just quivered like a tray of water on a bass speaker. Only when the engine cut off did the LOX float everywhere.

    Interesting launch, glad I was in town to catch it.

  10. mIRCat
    Alien

    I keep telling them..

    In space no one can hear you print.

    Perhaps just a horrible tagline for a movie about office supply salesmen... in space. Perhaps my next profitable business venture.

    Who will be there for you when you're running out of toner... and breathable atmosphere?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Booster recovery

    Anyone know if they tried a booster recovery on this mission ?

    1. Andrew Newstead

      Re: Booster recovery

      There were plans to control the stage and manouvure it but it was not equiped with legs so I think a landing test was not being considered for this flight. Bear in mind the first time they tried to land a stage it had no legs and went into a spin that destroyed it. It was thought at he time that the legs would act as fins to stabilise the rocket during it's descent and this seems to have been borne out in the subsequent attempts.

  12. Lionel Baden

    I thought it was rats that fled a sinking ship ?

  13. Rustident Spaceniak
    Thumb Up

    See how efficient space research is?

    Rather than just packing a couple of mice and waiting a few weeks, they actually count them up beforehand. Saves loads of prepackaged, sterilized mouse food. And you'll know where to look for them (and how many of them to look for, and after). Smart people.

  14. GrumpyOF

    MICE vs. Geckos

    The Russian experiment with sex-crazed Geckos failed frozenly!

    Do the Americans think they can outsex the Russians using warm-blooded horny little buggers called Mickey, Minnie et al?

    Heaven help the Space Station if they get loose - or are they all infertile or the same sex?

  15. Benchops

    Every little helps

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