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A comment on SpaceX just landed a rocket on a drone ship for the first time. Parent comment

Re:SpaceX just landed a rocket on a drone ship for the first... by cr1895 on Saturday April 09, 2016 @11:24AM (#11461647)
That's insane. In offshore heavy lift we stick to barge motion limits around 2 degrees. Maybe we're just far more risk averse, but I cannot fathom how this would work with 8-9 degrees rotation. Even being on a ship with 2-3 degrees rotation you really feel like you're walking up and down a hill.
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Re:SpaceX just landed a rocket on a drone ship for the first... by pcl on Saturday April 09, 2016 @12:59PM (#11462063)
The barges are autonomous. The lack of people on board presumably significantly increases their tolerance for rough seas, both in terms of risk of human life and tolerance for human factors like seasickness and ability to perform labor in a bumpy environment.
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Re:SpaceX just landed a rocket on a drone ship for the first... by cr1895 on Saturday April 09, 2016 @02:02PM (#11462441)
That's true but there still have to be people coming aboard to seafasten the rocket. To my knowledge it's not welding itself to the deck.
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Re:SpaceX just landed a rocket on a drone ship for the first... by stcredzero on Saturday April 09, 2016 @04:32PM (#11463176)
If not already, this seems like a job that could be done by specially designed robots.
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Re:SpaceX just landed a rocket on a drone ship for the first... by tablewatcher on Saturday April 09, 2016 @11:43AM (#11461726)
I agree it's insane but looking at the few previous attempts it seems its a regular expected sea state so I suppose there is no option but to work around it.
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Re:SpaceX just landed a rocket on a drone ship for the first... by cr1895 on Saturday April 09, 2016 @02:10PM (#11462493)
To clarify I'm talking about a double significant amplitude limit, which for a given typical three hour sea state is the mean of the highest third of double amplitudes. Does anyone know the reasonably precise location of the landing? I can then find what the typical waves are in the region.

After watching the video I don't know what Musk is talking about. Maybe he's talking about a maximum double amplitude.

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Re:SpaceX just landed a rocket on a drone ship for the first... by jccooper on Saturday April 09, 2016 @12:49PM (#11462015)
Some fan calculations suggest it could handle even more, but SpaceX knows more about their coefficients of friction and center of gravity than we do.
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