Space In General

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Leadfoot530
That duel booster landing was...gah! I can't even explain it, it was that cool!

Did the "Core" make it back down as well?
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Was supposed to land on the barge. Wonder if something went wrong if they didn't show it.

Either way I missed the whole thing. The internet at my work is, well, 🤬 to be honest and between the buffering and freezing I have up. Completely ruined my day. :mad:
 
The last thing shown from the water platform was like a fog had rolled in before the feed cut out.

Guess they didn't think to have an external camera running in case the platform camera failed.
 
From CNN Link: http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/06/technology/future/spacex-falcon-heavy-launch-mainbar/index.html

In a never-before-seen feat, SpaceX managed to guide at least two of the Falcon Heavy's first-stage rocket boosters to land upright back on Earth. They cut back through the Earth's atmosphere and landed in unison at a Kennedy Space Center landing pad. The third booster was supposed to land on a sea-faring platform called a droneship, but it wasn't immediately clear if that landing was successful.

I would think that after 1 hour they would know what happened.
 
I'm starting to think the central booster got enamoured by the droneship saying "Of Course I Still Love You" and went in for a slightly too passionate kiss.

Either that or the both the droneship and the escort ships have been vaporized.
 
And coming soon . . . some out-of-this-world advertising (too) for the Tesla Roadster.


"At the convertible’s wheel is SpaceX’s “Starman,” a dummy in a white-and-black-trimmed spacesuit, and on the soundtrack is another nod to David Bowie: his 1969, pre-Apollo 11 song “Space Oddity,” featuring the memorable line “Ground Control to Major Tom.” SpaceX is hoping for live shots of the car from on-board cameras, once the protective enclosure comes off and the car sails off fully exposed."

http://canoe.com/technology/the-heavy-showtime-for-spacexs-big-new-rocket
 
ProjectWHaT
It looks photoshopped :lol:

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It does, but then again, ask yourself this - what would a genuine photo of a robot spaceman driving an electric roadster in space look like?

I only caught the launch by virtue of a friend who works for NASA posting a link on her FB page, so I was lucky to catch it at all. I must admit, the landing of the boosters almost brought a tear to my eye - it really isn't every day when you see something so positive that takes your breath away - a much needed reminder of what the human spirit can achieve. I thought the whole roadster thing was a bit gimmicky when I heard about it, but once it was actually happening I realised how ridiculously cool it was, and the inclusion of the Bowie music and reference to Douglas Adams just made it even better.

Massive congrats to all involved - and with a bit of luck they will achieve all of their aims the next time; but by all measures this was a pretty damn successful test!!
 
Touring Mars
a much needed reminder of what the human spirit can achieve.
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I just watched an entrepreneur launch an electric sports car he designed and built into space using the worlds largest payload booster. 50 years ago it took the collective might of a nation to do this, now it is possible by one person.

It takes your breath away.

Separately, massive props to Musk. That was as binary a moment in your life as you get, between utter success and becoming a laughing stock, and he did it live on telly.
 
Touring Mars
I thought the whole roadster thing was a bit gimmicky when I heard about it, but once it was actually happening I realised how ridiculously cool it was, and the inclusion of the Bowie music and reference to Douglas Adams just made it even better.
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I thought the same at first but in the end it looked pretty cool and the Douglas Adams reference indeed made it better.
 
Forgive me for being way behind all of this, (I only saw the trends yesterday), but SpaceX has launched its Falcon Heavy rocket on its maiden flight with a Tesla Roadster as its dummy payload and it will.... come back one day to prove the viability and reusability of the Falcon Heavy?

That's pretty damn awesome.
 
Liquid
Forgive me for being way behind all of this, (I only saw the trends yesterday), but SpaceX has launched its Falcon Heavy rocket on its maiden flight with a Tesla Roadster as its dummy payload and it will.... come back one day to prove the viability and reusability of the Falcon Heavy?
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Only the boosters/rockets were supposed to come back after the launch - the first two boosters did come back and landed simultaneously - and that was incredible... the third booster (the 'core') which carried the payload was meant to land later on a barge in the ocean, but that didn't happen. Fortunately, however, it did successfully deliver its payload, albeit with a slightly different trajectory to that planned, meaning that it could either end up orbiting more distantly, or (perhaps more likely) end up in an unstable orbit which will see the payload eventually end up in the Sun. Either way, however, it was a very successful demonstration of the technology and was almost completely successful but for the loss of the core booster.
 
Touring Mars
Only the boosters/rockets were supposed to come back after the launch - the first two boosters did come back and landed simultaneously - and that was incredible... the third booster (the 'core') which carried the payload was meant to land later on a barge in the ocean, but that didn't happen. Fortunately, however, it did successfully deliver its payload, albeit with a slightly different trajectory to that planned, meaning that it could either end up orbiting more distantly, or (perhaps more likely) end up in an unstable orbit which will see the payload eventually end up in the Sun. Either way, however, it was a very successful demonstration of the technology and was almost completely successful but for the loss of the core booster.
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Nice one, ta.

Pretty awesome alright. The pictures are lovely.
 
The Falcon Heavy launch was significant for the reason that a rocket with 27 engines cleared the pad without anything exploding. That's a pretty big deal.

Currently the US has no means of putting an astronaut into low Earth orbit using our own national technology, whether private or government. So we are WAY behind the curve where we need to be, with plenty of work yet to be done.
 
The Saturn V will remain king of course, capable of delivering almost TWICE the payload that the Falcon Heavy can deliver... which keeps the achievements of the Apollo program in perspective. The burn needed to achieve mars orbital radius was successful, the roadster is on a trajectory to take it deep into space. I don't know if the plan was to encounter mars or not, but it will require some precision deep space navigation to do. There's no way it's going to orbit mars though, because it doesn't have the propellant needed to capture at mars. So the best we're gonna get out of this thing is a shot of the roadster with mars in the background briefly (that would be pretty darn cool though).

(tree'd, removed link for redundancy)
 

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