leighton w Online Upload & Sell: On
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huddy wrote:
Chuong, very well done. That one is a shot to remember.
Here is a huge pano from the latest Nikki post I am working on. I though it would be a good treat.
SpaceX Rocket Development Facility in McGregor, TX:
If you look on the far left, you will see a water tower and tall cylindrical white object on stilts. That white cylinder is Grasshopper, a 10-story VTOL rocket that currently is capable of taking off and landing itself upright... I don't remember it's maximum altitude or flight time right now, but we hear tests of it nearly every day, sometimes many times a day.
IIRC, the large white/gray metal building is where the company assemble Falcon 9 rockets for testing.
The large tripod looking structure next to the water tower in the middle is a vertical test structure for fully configured Falcon 9 rockets. I've been on the top of the concrete part. It's over 100 feet tall. I think the top of the structure is roughly 260 feet tall and has quite a view of the surrounding area. I don't know what the grid like structure next to that is. The various other outbuildings and mounds of dirt are used for fuel storage, testing of single engines on the ground etc.
When a full launch test is simulated, everything here in town shakes and it is very, very, very loud. If the weather conditions are correct, the rockets will make large streams of clouds along the ground that are miles long. The first large test caused several residents to think it was the apolcalypse. The company now posts signs along highways to notify the town of very large tests! 
Interesting story Alan. I've come away with one thought after looking at this image. And that's how anyone can live where it's so flat!
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