Got mostly practical stuff but I did get an Ikea Detolf display case and a nice size gift card to megahobby.com.... So I can get some of the models and supplies I need...
I got a book I already had, a Millenium Falcon T-shirt, a T-shirt with a potato and a box of french fries saying "I am your father", a pair of Santa Claus themed boxer shorts, and a "voucher" (in the form of a written promise in a Christmas card) for €25 off my next plane ticket.
Woooo. Merry thingy...
On the other hand, this happened:
...Which is pretty much the best Christmas present I, or any other member of the human race, could have hoped for. I watched it live, and was utterly, utterly euphoric at the moment of touchdown.
I got a lump of coal. Merry Christmas to everyone on this board!
You guys have it all wrong, it’s not what people got you. It’s all about what you got for yourself.. lol as for me I got 2 of the diecast Star Wars figs Ray and Captain Phasma, and one of the guavian enforcer from the black series. And I also picked up the dvd set se.1 DR. Who Christopher Eccleston. and that's how you do x-mas.
Since my previous post, I got a late present of an Amazon Kindle. I bought and am rapidly reading "Seveneves" by Neal Stephenson on it - incredible so far.
^ That is incredible!
Djc242, and anyone else interested by SpaceX's incredibility - That was them nailing their very first ever attempt to land an orbital booster on dry land.
Landing the boost stage of the rocket intact means that, in contrast to pretty much every other rocket ever (which the complicated psuedo-exception of the very expensive-to-refurbish Space Shuttle), it should soon be possible to inexpensively and quickly refurbish and refuel the rockets for future flights. Once the kinks in that process are shaken out, the cost of access to space should tumble, as, instead of paying 60 million dollars for the rocket every time (already a record-settingly low price for a launch in that class - 1/5th the cost of the closest domestic rival), you're paying $12 million for the expendable second stage, some number under a million for refurbishment of the first stage, and $200,000 for the fuel in the first stage.
SpaceX aims for 100% re-use of its rockets in the future, which could potentially lead to a 100-fold or more reduction in the cost of access to space. As Star Trek fans, THAT is why we should be excited about SpaceX - they're actively striving towards a science-fiction future in real life.
(Oh, and did I mention that the company's increasingly-plausible overall goal is to build and populate a city on Mars!?!?!)
In recognition of this particular booster's achievement, it is to become a museum piece once inspections and testing are complete, but the next recovered booster will be re-used.
There's another launch coming up soon with an attempt to land on an "Automated Spaceport Drone Ship" - aka a robotic barge at sea. Some launches will require too much fuel [because of heavy payloads or high orbits] to be able to reverse course and land back at the launch site, so ASDS landings are a necessary skill to perfect. The last two times they tried it, they hit the target, but technical issues resulted in a "rapid unscheduled disassembly".
Even hitting the target is a feat of precision in the same vein as Tim Urban's "throwing a pencil over the Empire State Building to land on a shoebox on the opposite side during a wind-storm" analogy from my previous post's video.
This next launch will take place at Vandenberg Airforce Base in northern California, and is currently scheduled for January 17th at 10:42am local time. Launches are very sensitive to the prevailing conditions and technical issues, so that time may change.
SpaceX's official webcast site - currently, it's still covering that last mission, Orbcomm OG2, but it will update to the next mission, Jason-3, soon. For further details and delicious, nutritional, information, discussion and speculation about the upcoming launches and SpaceX in general, there's no better place than the SpaceX SubReddit on Reddit.