SpaceX Falcon Heavy successfully launched the Tesla Roadster and Starman!
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQMhGCofsiw

https://twitter.com/EricHolthaus/sta...706883/photo/1

I watched it live on Space-X, of course I could have stuck my head out the window and watched the real thing but I had a better view inside:rolleyes:

It looked like they stuck a couple of go-pros on the sides of the rocket, the clarity of the video was pretty amazing

My connection stuttered so I came in between the launch and Max G.

My favorite part was watching the synchronized propulsive landings 1/4 mile apart. I never get tired of watching those. I used to watch Rocky Jones, Space Ranger on B&W TV. They'd fly in from stage right, nose up and settle s l o w l y onto the tail.

I saw Sputnik once too. Now New Zealand has a commercial space program that lofted a 2-frequency geodesic sphere into LEO — the Humanity Star. It's faceted instead of compound curved so it should twinkle better than the similar sized Sputnik.

I have to admit it all was pretty cool. Far more advanced than the stuff NASA used to do with the shuttles etc.

I watched an interview with Elon Musk. He said that the boosters landed a half second apart (as I had noticed) because they were concerned about cross-talk between the radar on the two boosters. So the discrepancy was intentional and managed.

The most valuable part of the boosters is the (new and bigger) titanium guide vanes.

The main first stage went kerplunk.

Pretty cool stuff! It has been too long since we have seen space stuff. I am glad we won't have to pay Russia to launch things.

Paraphrasing Elon Musk in the interview: "Falcon Heavy is starting to look small to me".

Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are already deprecated. They may build out the fleet, but the focus going forward is the BFR. He said they hope to be making short hop flights (maybe barge to barge) by the end of this year. :eek:

edit:
I just watched Right Angle: This Really Happened on Youtube. It's a real-time reaction video but I watched at 1.25x. Some thoughts from that:

• Falcon Heavy looks a lot like the Enterprise
• Boeing or Northrup would never have Don't Panic on the dashboard display, and that's why they can't do this
• A real test of the structural integrity of the Roadster itself
• When Musk gets hisself to Mars, his car is pre-positioned and will run just fine in the Martian atmosphere
• The space suit is a big deal-'Spandex for every body'

On re-watching, I think maybe even before the synchronized landing (there'll be lots of those) is the shot of the driver's arm on the door of the roadster, with the Earth in the background. That is as important as the Earthrise over the Moon that appeared on the cover of the Whole Earth Catalog.

Also, just before the synchronized landing, You can see the first stage flame out most of it's rockets just before the barge is enveloped in smoke and flame. ...then the Space X rep bounces out all happy and says "We got everything we wanted". What he meant was "...just enough mayhem to keep Elon happy!"

If you're not breaking enough you're not innovating enough.

I don't understand how landing the first stage is cheaper in the long run than using a parachute and recovery apparatus.

Extra fuel has to be loaded on the booster for the purpose of decelerating and landing it. When you load extra fuel on a booster, you have to load several times more fuel just to accelerate that extra fuel. In other words, most of the fuel spent by a rocket is used merely to accelerate the weight of the fuel. Finding ways to reduce the need for small amounts of fuel ends up allowing larger amounts of fuel to be saved.

How is the weight and simplicity of a parachute a disadvantage compared to the weight and complexity of powered landing and control systems?

It's all down to turn-around time. SpaceX talk about an operation that would be like a busy airport. ...or airports.

What's rilly interesting is what they will use for a payload when they test the BFR. it's 30ft across and as big as an Airbus A380. Volunteers?

edit:
The guide vanes are larger because the nose-cone caps spoil the drag compared to the Falcon 9.

Let's see how long this works as a live embed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO3h4FBLWqY

It reminds me of the opening scene in Heavy Metal where the Corvette falls from orbit to the Earth. ...while Don Felder thrashes his guitar.

https://weburbanist.com/wp-content/u...2c-644x356.jpg
https://weburbanist.com/2017/07/02/like-a-rock-star-12-iconic-movie-corvettes/

I was wondering if instead of wasting fuel on re-entry and landing it would be possible to slow down and maneuver the booster rockets towards their landing zone using the Magnus effect, e.g. by making them spin horizontally around their axis to convert downward movement into horizontal...
The Magnus wing effect is not very efficient, but that does not matter here as there is a lot of speed and height to be lost. Maintaining rotation should be quite easy.

Then I found this site, by NASA. Guess they already know. So it probably won't be feasible. But one can dream.

Sure, turn-around time is important when you have a full schedule. Not important at all when you've got weeks/months between launches. Besides, doesn't it still take several days to prep those boosters for another launch? I find it hard to believe that retrieval is the slow part of the process.

I'd really like to see footage of the core crash yesterday. There has to be footage, right? At least a feed from the barge.

I was afraid you miss my edit at #7. :(

SpaceX want to land the boosters right back on the launch cradle. The're not quite there yet.

[saltwater corrosion]

Have a "spare" (or two) as backups...swap them "in" as needed when recovered unit(s) aren't usable anymore (or lost).

The Verge reports that Starman overshot Mars:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16...elon-musk-mars

I wonder if the tires survived the Van Allen Belts. And if they were deflated so they wouldn't pop.

Was wondering about that too. The tires are subject to direct sunlight, and they are black which will absorb much of that energy. Since the vacuum of space insulates, it would get extremely hot. Perhaps they were filled with nitrogen so they wouldn't oxidize. In that case, the tires just have to resist getting gooey and deforming. Perhaps they are capable of withstanding a couple hundred degrees F and relatively low pressure.

Apparently, most people are wondering why they can't see the stars on their TV, when you can go out at night in Montana and they're right there.

The car was put into a slow rotation to heat up both sides of the car evenly (and maybe more importantly the camera equipment).

A parachute would weigh less than the extra fuel, but doing controlled landing of a rocket that large into anything but water is very difficult. If you wanted to land on a barge with a parachute you would need a very complex and expensive apparatus to catch the rocket without damaging it. You'd also risk damaging a very expensive ship and apparatus. You'd also need a control system for controlled autonomous gliding of the rocket to a specific location. That's only ever been done with much smaller equipment, usually with helicopter capture.

Landing the rocket in the ocean with parachutes is fairly easy. NASA did it with the Shuttle boosters. The problem is that salt water is very bad for engines, especially when they're hot. Refurbishment would be very expensive, as it was for NASA even with their much simpler solid rocket boosters. You'd also need a large boat with a crane to retrieve the rocket. It ends up being a much more expensive proposition, especially since for most payloads, you don't actually need the extra payload capability.

Parachutes would also be impossible for SpaceX's upcoming BFR rocket, which is much larger. Parachute landings also don't work for landing large payloads on Mars, which is SpaceX's primary goal.

If I was Musk I'd be shooting for Uranus first.
I love that planet. You know Sir William Herschal wanted to name it The Herschal Highway but after some resistance he went with Uranus. Seriously he called it the Georgian planet so we should call it Georgia, butt some German thought Uranus was better, much to the cheers of 12-70 year old boys everywhere.

A vehicle capable of propulsive landing is suitable for landings with or without atmosphere. The BFR will have two different sized rocket bells for operation in or out of an atmosphere.

Shame Musk wasn't in the drivers seat at the time. Would have made the world a little better.

Any word on the other payload yet?

The hopes and best wishes of Humankind?

Or that cylindrical object that spun off while the view of the rocket bell was partially blanked?

edit:
Rosieuk — Musk is the epitome of the handsome and successful African-American.

Was there other payload?

The man who made electric cars cool, cooler and even cooler than that?
Sells Boring flamethrowers?
Who sent his own car to Mars and beyond?
Aims for a revolution in public transport?
Makes the Aussie grid reliable and green?
And so on, and so on...

Perhaps it was misplaced ire that was intended for the President_45.

The Segway was supposed to revolutionize public transportation, too. Nobody cooler than Paul Blart rides them, though.

When the Boring Company stalls out in the face of community politics, I hope they bore a tunnel from the Pacific to Death Valley below sea level. It's about 200 miles.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/...mpanys_culver/

I guess you didn't see the live feed.

The Segway is about as advanced and practical as an electric horse.
Or, probably more to the point, an electric horseless chariot.

It might have revolutionized public transport in the times of Ben Hur. But even then people would have complained that a horse can eat faster than a Segway can charge.

You can track where the roadster is (well, more or less ;)):
Where is Starman? Track Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster's Current Location.

Funny thing, they added fuel economy calculation to the statistics.
Its launch burned a lot of fuel, but it has done quite a lot of miles since so they count it in for over 185 mpg now, and rising quickly :)

The funny thing is, after cheap, explosive Chinese self-balancing scooters flooded the market, Segway has been bought out by the Chinese, and is now selling cheap, non-explosive self-balancing scooters under the Ninebot brand.

:p

Somehow mentioning Ninebot sent me on a 2hr journey that culminated in this discovery:

https://media.giphy.com/media/gBW8Qgfaa2ije/giphy.gif

Simone Giertz! Love her videos
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3K...8eYnwBC34RaKCQ

WAKEUP MACHINE for early morning teenagers?

I am sure it would have taken quite a while to charge a Segway in the days of Ben Hur.

Sandwiches, thank you for linking that. I have watched a few of her videos at double speed while my work day progresses at half speed. So, she is a pretty budget Colin Furze?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lft51kJdDxc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8Jj...ature=youtu.be
((it's a trap))

A year has passed...
 

In which the Roadster has clocked almost half a billion miles on its orbit around the Sun.
https://www.whereisroadster.com/Roadster_Earth.png
3,775 MPG...
That makes it by far the LEAST economical car in our solar system!
(I always wanted to use size 7 ;) Size 9999 happens to be just as big :D)

Because my Insight, for instance, only used 250 gallons while it traveled an even greater distance in the same time.
The Earth is much closer to the Sun than the Roadster, so it moves much faster too. That's easily more than 2.5 million MPG for the Red Devil.

Then my living room sofa moves me at roughly the same speed around the sun.
At infinite MPG.
It is even red, well kinda.

http://edcil.club/wp-content/uploads...wall-mural.jpg

(this is not mine - but just as economical as a spaceship)

Economy is accomplishment of a useful task with the fewest resources. An empty car is getting zero miles per gallon. The roadster in space is cool though. Hard to quantify the usefulness of entertainment and novelty.

Spaceship Earth.

The roadster in space is cool and pointless -just like its mpg as measured over its orbit.

If only we could determine what the greater good is.

We could investigate using AI and social media, but then I already know the answer.
More cat vids.