SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

I am pretty sure at some point in history, launching two rockets at the same moment must have been a big achievement. And now you have two rockets (in some sense boosters are rockets) landing back at the same time.

wlll• 8 years ago

Is it just me, or are those both the same landing pad but with different cameras?

narrator2• 8 years ago

I get a headache watching Star Wars like sci-fi where everything is manually controlled by the pilot. How did sci-fi get so disconnected from the actual future?

zdwolfe• 8 years ago

Ya, was stunning.. https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/961084879432597504

ggregoire• 8 years ago

Official picture of the landing:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DVZ0NPoU0AAMWk6.jpg

yetihehe2• 8 years ago

For some time both streams looked like they were the same. That synchronization!

dgritsko2• 8 years ago

It's unbelievable how precise the landings were: https://imgur.com/570TgAI

DangerousPie• 8 years ago

They were the same. In the end you could see both of them heading for the same landing pad before they cut to fullscreen.

nicpottier3• 8 years ago

Pretty sure they were, as at the very end they both dial into the same landing pad.

TeMPOraL18• 8 years ago

They were the same. Don't know if they did this intentionally. I actually watched them for two minutes for that, and was 99% sure they're the same image, just translated a bit. The final confirmation came near the end, when the other booster entered the view, and you could see for sure, both rectangles streamed from the same camera.

madamelic3• 8 years ago

That was absolutely insane.

When I saw that, all I could think about was seeing hundreds of those and that scene being as mundane as a plane landing.

rplst8• 8 years ago

It feels like the human race is starting to master space travel. It's probably just an illusion, but I feel like we're entering a new era.

DonaldPShimoda2• 8 years ago

These are only baby steps at the beginning of the adventure.

nightski• 8 years ago

Wouldn't landing rockets vertically show that we have mastered in-atmosphere conditions rather than space?

I'm not trying to be negative, just trying to understand how you came to the conclusion you did.

mamon2• 8 years ago

Space rockets are 1960s technology, so I think we entered that era 50 years ago.

clon2• 8 years ago

Open a chapter about "History of the 21st century" and this image will be there.

Scramblejams• 8 years ago

https://youtu.be/wbSwFU6tY1c?t=37m48s

gdubs• 8 years ago

Yea, unreal. One of those rare moments when you're watching history unfold and completely aware of it.

smnscu• 8 years ago

Almost brought me to tears! What a historical event! Wish I could've been there.

StillBored• 8 years ago

Yes, that was pretty SF.

So, whats to stop them attaching an additional two (or more) to the existing rocket now that they have the basic synchronization worked out.

hesdeadjim• 8 years ago

Musk has said there is no reason they can't attach two more in the future.

elihu2• 8 years ago

I guess they'd have to make the center rocket stronger to handle the added force of more rockets. Also, there may be diminishing returns when it comes to adding more boosters, and at some point it makes more sense to just redesign the rocket to be bigger (hence the BFR, which is the planned successor to Falcon Heavy).

jacquesm15• 8 years ago

The fairing diameter would not be much larger than it is right now and that is a limit all by itself. A bigger rocket would support a larger fairing.

sophacles• 8 years ago

Watching that made me realize I now have to re-evaluate many "bad sci-fi scenes" into "pretty accurate predictions of the future"!

megy2• 8 years ago

So true. Was that just a happy coincidence? I wonder how much work went into coordinating there landings.

Savageman• 8 years ago

Well they do separate at the same time and fly the same path back to earth so not a coincidence (though it's really satisfying)

zerostar07• 8 years ago

gravity i guess

verytrivial• 8 years ago

It was almost a brain stack-overflow for me. I made a weird, bleating laugh noise and tried to open my eyes wider than design spec. A sincerely surprising and amazing sight.

heurist• 8 years ago

I looked around my office expecting that someone else was watching and as stunned as I was. No one else was watching :(

lasermike026• 8 years ago

Like a ballet.

toephu23• 8 years ago

Seriously, I was in awe, it looked so futuristic. The future is here now. It's crazy what we humans are capable of in this year 2018.

srcmap• 8 years ago

They should name the landing "Double Eagle" or "Double Falcons".

taneq4• 8 years ago

In the past few years we've gone from not even having a reusable launch vehicle to synchronized spaceships as performance art. (Oh and sending a car to Mars for fun.) What a time to be alive.

imron• 8 years ago

I remember watching the artists impression animation video of how the the falcon heavy launch and landing would proceed, and when it showed both boosters landing at the same time I thought "heh, I wonder if they'll be able to pull that off in real life", and they did! Almost identical with the animation.

meerita• 8 years ago

My skin went in chicken skin mode automatically :)

andygates3• 8 years ago

Even when we know that each one is fully automatic, and really (after staging) the booster return is just two instances of $booster, it's still absolutely magnificent.

adt2bt• 8 years ago

And both boosters landed simultaneously!

That was seriously impressive to watch. Congratulations to all the SpaceX engineers who made this a reality.

ASipos2• 8 years ago

yes!

dopamean• 8 years ago

That was incredible. Watching the double landing of the boosters I couldn't help but feel like we live in the future. It was actually a little emotional.

pc2g4d• 8 years ago

That was thrilling. An incredible accomplishment. The first time in my life I thought I had an inkling of what it had been like to watch the Moon landings.

ekrebs• 8 years ago

Watching those boosters land side-by-side made me question my reality. Beautiful.

TeMPOraL18• 8 years ago

I. Am. Just. Speechless.

Perfect takeoff, 2 simultaneous landings (still waiting for confirmation on the droneship landing), the car is in orbit.

I don't remember being so nervous watching a launch video since... Space Shuttle missions, I think.

Great job, SpaceX!

fokinsean• 8 years ago

Yup that was amazing. Slightly related, I'm already nervous for the James Webb Telescope launch. Maybe Spacex should launch it :)

grondilu• 8 years ago

The main argument for Falcon Heavy over Ariane 5 is cost, not reliability. Ariane 5 remains the most reliable heavy launcher, so that's the launcher you want for JWST.

detuur• 8 years ago

1 successful launch vs 1 launch anomaly in 16 years and 80 consecutive succesful launches.

I know where I'm putting my money.

Diederich9• 8 years ago

car is in orbit.

That is correct...but NOT in orbit of our home planet!

rainbowmverse2• 8 years ago

My understanding from the diagrams they showed is that the orbit is a wide one (oval) around Earth that passes near Mars.

seletz• 8 years ago

Hmm, I think it's still in parking orbit around earth, no?

FLUX-YOU• 8 years ago

Watching the car orbit and the Earth's reflections in the windshield and paint and Starman's visor is sublime (sometimes goes to cameras of the engine/orbit overview)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBr2kKAHN6M

e.g. https://i.imgur.com/Yu6gRar.jpg

This is all I'm watching for the rest of the day https://imgur.com/oKWTAQk

rhn_mk1• 8 years ago

What are the particles flying with different speeds when the camera points away from the Sun?

ethagnawl• 8 years ago

Same here.

Might I suggest pairing it with Pink Floyd's _Echoes_[0]?

- 0 - https://open.spotify.com/album/468ZwCchVtzEbt9BHmXopb

shaan7• 8 years ago

And I'm playing this in the background https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lERqGULWxs

King-Aaron• 8 years ago

https://i.imgur.com/VrBII8Y.jpg

I've had the same running all day, to be honest. Having the 2001 a Space Odyssey soundtrack and Interstellar's soundtrack in the background is quite pleasant.

Intermernet• 8 years ago

I only just noticed the "Don't Panic" on the center console. I presume that's there in case Starman picks up any hitch-hikers.

jotm9• 8 years ago

It seems unreal - like some sort of advertisement. In fact, they should put that in a commercial! :D

mr_spothawk• 8 years ago

I don't remember being so nervous watching a launch video since

landing of the mars mission was pretty big in the spectacle sense.

pestrov• 8 years ago

So what about the core?

MBCook8• 8 years ago

Is the core designed to be reusable or is that a one-time-use part?

gordon_freeman2• 8 years ago

reusable of course.

alexdumitru2• 8 years ago

The core was supposed to land on the barge, but the video footage got disconnected and they said they don't know what happened to it yet.

madamelic3• 8 years ago

I'd assume if they are landing it, it is reusable. It'd be sort of wasteful to pack fuel for landing, if we were just going to dump the module.

javaes2• 8 years ago

Impressive! But what happened to the core?

ptrincr• 8 years ago

That was really impressive. Does anyone know what happened to the core? Seemed to lose feed to the drone ship.

ASipos2• 8 years ago

any link to the center core landing video?

pikchurn6• 8 years ago

No. Watch SpaceX's twitter feed. It might be a while though.

globuous• 8 years ago

Absolutely amazing. Just watched it live, gave me goosebumps. Although:

"SpaceX also attempted a recovery of all three of the first stage boosters it used during the launch. It has recovered two of those thus far, and we’re waiting to hear back from SpaceX on the official status of the final, third booster, which was landing at sea."

TeMPOraL18• 8 years ago

Yes! Just that one piece of information short of calling it perfect. Can't wait 'till we know what happened to the center stage!

nafizh• 8 years ago

Anybody saw the 'Don't panic' thing on the Tesla? Made me chuckle, they sure have a sense of humor.

nabla9• 8 years ago

It's reference to the HHGTTG. Tesla has Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy installed.

johnohara2• 8 years ago

Saw the don't panic. Wondering if they packed a towel.

ABS• 8 years ago

of course they did :-)

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/936782477502246912

leonroy• 8 years ago

Apparently they stuck in the glove compartment ‘a copy of Douglas Adams' book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," along with a towel’.

Source: http://m.dw.com/en/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-falcon-he...

redler• 8 years ago

They did. It's in the glove box.

bolasanibk• 8 years ago

They did. The glove box has a copy of the 'The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy' plus a towel

johnohara2• 8 years ago

Makes my day that much better. Giving approval to that kind of lightheartedness shows great confidence in the team's ability and makes overall morale palpable. Well done.

weej3• 8 years ago

Loved it. Absolutely amazing. https://i.imgur.com/KF87gOR.jpg

I posted more screen shots of launch: https://imgur.com/a/gh410

komali2• 8 years ago

I absolutely love that Musk is putting a car into Mars orbit. Assuming mankind doesn't have an extinction event (or dark ages event), it is extremely likely we'll populate the solar system over the next millenia. In 200 years, Martian children can look up in the sky and know that one of the quickly moving visible satellites is a hilarious, old-Earth car. Depending on how accessible orbit is from planets over the next couple hundred years, it could very well be some sort of space station museum.

Or, imagine we hit a dark age and bounce back, and this event is lost to history. Five hundred years later we manage to get some people to Mars orbit and they find a fucking car in a capsule with a little mannequin stuffed into it flinging around the planet at hundreds of kph.

All while it's blasting David Bowie over their radios.

njarboe2• 8 years ago

It would be cooler if it was going to be in Mars orbit, but it is just going into an elliptical solar orbit that will vary in distance from the sun between Earth orbit and and Mars orbit.

megy2• 8 years ago

Part of me enjoys it, but a big part of hates that he put a car there. I don't associate cars with anything good, only bad.

sillysaurus3• 8 years ago

It's not going into Mars orbit. It's kind of weird that Musk never corrected that. Even his tweet from December said "mars orbit."

euphoria83• 8 years ago

Is it okay to put unnecessary stuff in the orbits around our or other planets? Isn't this space trash that can potentially be problematic for future endeavors? Are we creating problems for ourselves to satisfy our vanity?

tbabb2• 8 years ago

It's not in orbit around Earth, and won't be visible from Earth. As soon as it boosts out of its parking orbit, it will be orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars.

Also, there is not any danger of stuff "crowding" out there because the amount of space between Earth and Mars is really quite extremely huge.

yorby• 8 years ago

it's in orbit around the sun:

Following launch, Falcon Heavy’s second stage will attempt to place the Roadster into a precessing Earth-Mars elliptical orbit around the sun.

csomar• 8 years ago

It'll become a touristic attraction.

PinguTS• 8 years ago

Still don't understand this waste of ressources. Waste of ressources to build this Tesla Roadster. And then the waste to kick it into space. It is not that we are littering our earth itself. We now do it in space as well.

maxaf• 8 years ago

Considering the historic significance of Musk's mission, a little extravagance is entirely deserved.

ctdonath• 8 years ago

ADVERTISING.

The amount of coverage both Tesla & SpaceX got from launching the Roadster equates to advertising costing considerably more than the cost of the car.

bpicolo• 8 years ago

The Roadster was in use by Musk for years. They didn't build it for the occasion

zrail• 8 years ago

It's a test flight. Can't put paying cargo on a test flight, so you might as well put something on there that's going to give you press.

Also, space is big once you leave low earth orbit. It's really hard to actually understand how big it is. Putting a roadster out there isn't exactly junking up the place.

jacquesm15• 8 years ago

Think of it as performance art.

Because if all you can think of is utility then all art should go as well. After all, it's all just a waste of resources. /s

outworlder3• 8 years ago

It is not a waste of resources. The car was built, it was used for its purpose. Now it is being sent out of the planet so you could argue that the overall amount of trash was reduced.

Also "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space"

vpribish3• 8 years ago

step back a moment, friend. your sense of perspective is completely out of whack. maybe take a moment to consider that everyone else is not wrong about this.

djaychela• 8 years ago

That was like watching a sci fi film when the two cores landed.... I watched it with my mother (who is 80!), and she said it was as significant as the moon landing.

Do we know the fate of the centre core yet?

kawfey• 8 years ago

I'll bet it blew up on the droneship. It was weird they didn't have an immediate confirmation; I thought they have a boat or heli within visual range for the photo.

madamelic3• 8 years ago

Yeah, that's sort of how I feel as well. It seems odd that they didn't immediately know or say, then they cut it off immediately.

mewm• 8 years ago

Perhaps they have to "structure" a more formal statement even though the rocket could have been observed exploding. Purely speculation though.

hectormalot• 8 years ago

I feel the same! Suddenly I think I can grasp a bit of how it must’ve felt to watch the Apollo missions back in the day

ghostDancer• 8 years ago

Where i live it was 21:45 and i couldn't help but told my son that was on bed to come and see it, cause IMHO it's a significant moment for space exploration. He went to bed later than usual but has a nice story to tell tomorrow at school.

kiriliponi• 8 years ago

Same here! ;-)

retSava• 8 years ago

Considered the same with my 4yo, but she was fast asleep since hours before. I'll be sure to show her tomorrow though! Not every day you see someone launch an astronaut in a car into space, then land two boosters next to eachother.

We already dig other nice videos on youtube with rocket launches and the like. "How it's made" and so on. Some manufacturing videos have, believe it or not, caught her attention for half an hour! I think it was especially a video from manufacturing the Mini (car), lots of robots and automation.

mcv6• 8 years ago

I watched last evening alone (my wife wasn't interested, sadly) and this morning again with the entire family.

dgritsko2• 8 years ago

It sounds like it was lost: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B_tWbjFIGI&feature=youtu.be...

Although there hasn't been an official statement by SpaceX yet, and whoever said "we lost the center core" could have just been referring to the video feed from the drone ship.

coryfklein• 8 years ago

The quote from the video is: "We lost the center core."

For those like me unfamiliar with the terminology used in this context, is this wording reserved for situations where the rocket is destroyed or could it also mean they lost contact/video feed with the center core?

nraynaud• 8 years ago

It’s a command center of a complicated operation, nobody cares if someone has a camera issue on a side goal, it’s all about situation. I vote the booster was lost, and it was not worth using more bandwidth on it.

sangnoir• 8 years ago

Do we know the fate of the centre core yet?

I might be reading into something that's not there, but the presenters (I didn't get their names) acted like they received surprising news in thier monitors at 39:03[1] just as they were about to report on the drone ship landing.

Dude: "We've just gotten confirmation..."

Lady: "oh!"

Dude: "Oh"

Lady: "[laughs] We are waiting to hear what happens..."

1. https://youtu.be/wbSwFU6tY1c?t=39m5s

navls• 8 years ago

Also, as she starts saying "We are waiting to hear what happens", he says "Scratch that...".

vpribish3• 8 years ago

in the background you can see the feed from the drone ship - they see that it comes back on and the smoke is clearing but there's no rocket. They were a bit surprised. :)

ben174• 8 years ago

I felt like they were trying to redirect people to the main site for more information. I think the presenters were instructed not to give people more news so they could gain more traffic to their site. Seems like a smart way to gain more interest.

aerophilic• 8 years ago

I think it was the right move, even if they knew then the main core had blown, it is too easy for the naysayers to make that the story. Taking away from the real and powerful narrative SpaceX must tell. That for the first time since the Saturn V we have a rocket powerful enough in active service to take us to the Moon/Mars, at a 1/3 of the price of the next heaviest lifter.

peterwaller3• 8 years ago

Of the centre core, these are the last few moments before it is lost from the feed. Smoke can be seen...

https://youtu.be/wbSwFU6tY1c?t=38m20s

... and then back to the presenters. As someone said to me, "That's their lying face!" :)

Can't fault them for wanting to dwell on the positives though, was an amazing moment to watch.

Edit: You can switch cameras on the above youtube video to the countdown net; you can clearly hear them saying "We lost the centre core" at 38m30s - not sure if that means "lost signal of" or otherwise. The people in the control room appear to become more muted at that point, though they still seem composed. It's really not clear.

Edit: On the countdown net you can hear some minutes later "suspected loss of signal": https://youtu.be/-B_tWbjFIGI?t=42m21s

Klathmon5• 8 years ago

Can't fault them for sure, but it's strange for them. SpaceX tends to be very upfront with their failures, and tends to broadcast and in many cases re-upload video of their failures.

Doubly so when the "failure" isn't part of the primary mission.

dz0ny• 8 years ago

Center core lost, announced on internal feed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B_tWbjFIGI&feature=youtu.be...

nohat• 8 years ago

The feed quality drops in a way that makes the shaking antennae explanation seem plausible. I doubt the announcers knew then (why not just say so unless there was some ambiguity?), but it must have been a distinct concern, hence their 'smile nervously' reaction.

It is a bit odd they haven't announced that it was lost yet, but I agree that seems very likely.

andrewwharton• 8 years ago

I noticed on the top right screen when landing the 2 outside boosters that they did a 3 engine landing burn. Previously they'd only done this over the water, but considering that the last one went well on 31 Jan, perhaps they also tried a 3 engine landing burn over the drone ship this time and something went wrong.

Just speculation, but it makes sense to me...

nicolashahn• 8 years ago

Texted a friend who works at SpaceX, it didn't make it

bendavis381• 8 years ago

https://youtu.be/wbSwFU6tY1c?t=34m8s

You can hear "Centre core defect on shutdown". Definitely didn't make it.

voodooranger• 8 years ago

I heard center core boostback burn shutdown

pilom• 8 years ago

The stream cut out before they were able to report on the main engine recovery. Anyone have more info?

gordon_freeman2• 8 years ago

still waiting for CORE to land but ohh boy..was that awesome to see both the boosters land together at the same time.

alexdumitru2• 8 years ago

I hope the main core landed successfully too.

franzb• 8 years ago

Absolutely amazing, we watched science-fiction today.

Anyone knows what happened to the core booster?

pjscott• 8 years ago

Elon Musk just confirmed in a press conference that the third core was lost; two of the engines that should have slowed it down failed to re-ignite and it came in too fast. I predict either success or a more interesting failure on the next flight.

ChuckMcM2• 8 years ago

One of those "this must be the future" moments for sure. I'm really amazed that there is a Tesla Roadster on its way to Mars at this point. That blows my mind.

scientician• 8 years ago

Cried proud human tears today.

Even if the droneship didn't work out...

irln• 8 years ago

The booster landings were incredible, however, the initial shot of it clearing the pad looked like a scifi movie intro.

JustAnotherPat• 8 years ago

Amazing to see. Hard to imagine if not for Musk, we'd be stuck with ULA garbage and a realistic Mars tripped planned for 2050+

crsv• 8 years ago

It was so captivating to watch the launch production. Just watching this test launch you can see how SpaceX is recapturing the hearts and minds of the world and generating the same level of wonder that NASA did in it's hay-day. It's a proud day in annals of mankind and engineering. What an absolute feat. Congratulations to everyone on the team at SpaceX.

alangibson5• 8 years ago

Yet another incredible show from SpaceX. At this point, if they said they were going to build a football stadium on Europa, my only question would be when does it open.

But I couldn't help but laugh at the fact that they can launch a massive rocket on the first try and land (at least) 2 cores, but the camera STILL cuts out on the drone ship.

nicpottier3• 8 years ago

I do find that super weird. You would think one of the nearby ships would have a feed as well no?

pikchurn6• 8 years ago

What nearby ships?

jasongill• 8 years ago

There aren't any nearby ships, for obvious safety reasons. Plus, any nearby ships would have the exact same issue - where exactly would you "feed" to, when any ship that far out is going to be using a commercial satellite data feed (ie, very slow and unreliable)?

porjo2• 8 years ago

Yes, very hard to believe this was a technical failure/limitation. My money would be on a deliberate cut, possibly even automated, when the systems became aware of impending failure. It'd be important for SpaceX that any negative outcomes are delayed from public release in order to control what makes it into the headline news. The fate of the reusable components would be a particularly sensitive aspect of the PR campaign.

pikchurn6• 8 years ago

I don't find that surprising. The communication link back is presumably by satellite since it is in the middle of the ocean, and probably a directional antenna because of the high bandwidth. You have any good suggestions for having a reliable connection via directional antenna on a flimsy barge that a rocket is landing on in this middle of the choppy north Atlantic?

post_break• 8 years ago

Keep the camera and antennas on the boat instead of the platform with a zoom lens?

niftich2• 8 years ago

Tow a cable from the barge to a nearby ship, buoy, or platform on which the antenna sits, that's out of range of the vibrations and faces a different direction?

alangibson5• 8 years ago

No, but I'd guess that the guys that land rockets like it's nothing would. I'm on the bungee-cord-and-duct-tape level of engineering.

plopz• 8 years ago

I wonder if their internet constellation would help at all with that.

dfox• 8 years ago

On the pictures of the droneship the quite distinctive Inmarsat BGAN (which is in essence 3G bounced of geostationary satellite) antenna pod is plainly visible.

Edit: inside the pod is fairly high-gain directional antenna mounted on motorized positioner, but it is designed to track the satellite from slow (ie. ship) or predictably moving (ie. truck) platforms and certainly cannot cope with vibrations from the landing reliably. Man-portable BGAN terminals usually have fixed antenna and officially require quite lengthly positioning process (on the other hand it will work for some value of "work" when you just throw it into car trunk and park with trunk vaguely pointing to south, but you will be lucky to get reliable phone connection, not to mention video stream, in that case).

nomercy400• 8 years ago

How about a camera feed from the tow ship (with a view like the two other boosters landing)? If you can film a rocket 300km in the air, you can surely spot a rocket landing 15 miles away. Unless ofcourse you don't want the world to see it crashing into the ocean live.

oh_sigh• 8 years ago

They could perfect it, by having say an underwater wired data feed going to an ancillary ship which transmits it, which then is out of the thrust cone of the rocket. But it's probably just not worth it to get the footage 5 minutes early.

DonaldPShimoda2• 8 years ago

I'm just an amateur following along, but this seems likely to be one of the most important launches in modern rocketry history. This sets the stage for deep-space missions with reusable launch materials, which can greatly reduce the cost of future space exploration. Absolutely incredible achievement by the SpaceX team.

alangibson5• 8 years ago

This definitely feels incredibly significant. The Soviet Union tried and failed 4 or 5 times to launch a rocket with this many engines, but now we're able to nail it on the first try aaaand land the boosters.

icc978• 8 years ago

I was just assuming it was going to blow up.

janoc2• 8 years ago

Well, but to be fair to the Soviets, they had to do it with really "stone age" electronics and technology and not knowing the many things we know today.

I am pretty sure that SpaceX was able to achieve what they did today also because they studied the Soviet N1 rocket and learned from what the engineers at that time had to figure out from scratch.

The other thing is that the N1 Moon rocket was a very different design - a single booster with many small engines, so incredibly difficult system to control, especially given the state of technology 50 years ago. Falcon Heavy is more similar to the successful Energia booster - core + strap on boosters - that was originally designed for the Russian shuttle. Or the Angara series.

JumpCrisscross8• 8 years ago

this seems likely to be one of the most important launches in modern rocketry history

SpaceX's Falcon project is the first major progress we've made in the field of human spaceflight since the Apollo program.

jacquesm15• 8 years ago

The ISS should count as major progress as well.

pilsetnieks2• 8 years ago

To be fair, I think the Space Shuttle was substantial progress as well. An evolutionary dead end maybe but still a lot was learned.

philipwhiuk• 8 years ago

ish. I mean it's not the most powerful ever rocket - so in some ways they are still catching up to the Saturn V.

InclinedPlane7• 8 years ago

It's definitely another inflection point. The Falcon 9 is 75% reusable by cost of components, the Falcon Heavy is 90% reusable. And it's capable of much, much more. That might open up the heavy lift launch market to a whole new gaggle of players and begin really expanding out what is done there. It'll certainly put a lot more missions on the table that weren't there before, like low cost outer planets space science probes.

Also, something nobody has talked about yet. Falcon Heavy is capable of something no other US rocket is really able to do yet, launch new space station modules (or new space stations period).

avmich4• 8 years ago

Also, something nobody has talked about yet. Falcon Heavy is capable of something no other US rocket is really able to do yet, launch new space station modules (or new space stations period).

I'm pretty sure one can launch space station modules on regular Falcon-9 as well. Russians launch some on Soyuz rocket.

Surely FH is more convenient for big stations.

shyrka• 8 years ago

Absolutely outstanding! Incredible footage watching the simultaneous landings! Landmark achievement

neilprosser• 8 years ago

It got a little dusty in my house when those two boosters landed. I think someone was cutting onions too.

yohann305• 8 years ago

It seems SpaceX has even perfected its tests to the point that their simulations are doing an amazing job at predicting real life situations. Great job on spaceX. Today History was made, and the new generation of children is inspired to choose space-focused careers

astronautjones5• 8 years ago

Even the modeled exhaust in the rendering looked almost identical to reality. Top minds.

TeMPOraL18• 8 years ago

Yes, there were two or three moments during the livestream when my mind literally said "nah, they spliced in that promo video from few days ago; this can't be real".

arekkas• 8 years ago

Man, the lift off, separation, landing, and don't panic sugared with Bowie. How great was it to witness that?

dancek• 8 years ago

The official YouTube live broadcast video by SpaceX is at: https://youtu.be/wbSwFU6tY1c

snake117• 8 years ago

Seeing both boosters land side-by-side was absolutely an epic moment. Showing Star Man in the Tesla Roadster with the text displaying "Don't Panic" was just amazing. Very grateful that SpaceX allows us to join in on the excitement. I can't wait to see what comes next!

LoSboccacc• 8 years ago

I wonder for how long we're going to get images from that tesla. there's no power source so the stream will end, but it does sit next some very huge batteries so let's hope it's going to last and we'll be able to check with the spaceman every now and then!

Whomee• 8 years ago

Hopefully they put some of those solar tiles on it?

ph0rque2• 8 years ago

Maybe a house with solar tiles, powerwalls, and a Tesla or two :)

crocal2• 8 years ago

Just curious. They did not put solar panels? Too bad... :D

tromp• 8 years ago

Next test flight will put a Tesla supercharger in the same orbit...

cududa• 8 years ago

By 2020 the super charger will have an arm to dock with the Tesla and recharge it

nik736• 8 years ago

Any news on the core?

halamadrid• 8 years ago

What an amazing feat! Well done SpaceX. Hope the core made it too!

MBCook8• 8 years ago

So the car is supposed to be in an Earth-Mars orbit. It it stable or is it designed to fall to earth at some point soon (say one or two orbits)?

skykooler3• 8 years ago

According to SpaceX, the orbit could potentially last for a billion years if the timings work out.

JumpCrisscross8• 8 years ago

Source? I was poking around for the orbit's parameters last night...

julien_c• 8 years ago

Someone has a GIF (or explanation) of the Earth-Mars Orbit?

jws• 8 years ago

I think right now the car is in a low Earth orbit. There will be a second ignition of the top stage later to shift it to the Mars orbit. The timeline ends with…

Mission continues on an experimental long coast and third stage two burn to target a precessing Earth-Mars elliptical orbit around the sun

… which I can't completely decode.

Update: SpaceX says "Upper stage restart nominal, apogee raised to 7000 km. Will spend 5 hours getting zapped in Van Allen belts & then attempt final burn for Mars."

didgeoridoo• 8 years ago

The target orbit will be a ellipse around the sun.

The closest point to the sun will be about 1AU (Earth-Sun distance). The furthest point from the sun will be something like 1.5AU (Mars-Sun distance).

This orbit will precess, meaning that it will slowly rotate its axis around the sun, rather than staying locked into the exact same path.

debt2• 8 years ago

Elon over there landing rockets on drone ships, I'm over here finishing a new photo app.

Elon over there going to Mars, I can't even get this dang app to build.

Might be time to move....

http://www.spacex.com/careers

anvandare• 8 years ago

But even to be a dishwasher, which I wouldn't mind:

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, applicant must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

I mean, I understand, but it still puts a damper on the "Team Humanity" vibe. :/ Same as when the SpaceX team were chanting "U!S!A!" at one of the Falcon launches.

(Hope this doesn't come across as petty.)

debt2• 8 years ago

Elon agrees. He’s complained publicly about this law.

adventured5• 8 years ago

Consider that the SpaceX team can simultaneously be team USA and team humanity. They are after all exactly that.

People outside the US want to feel part of the accomplishment, which is understandable as there are only a few nations that are likely to ever have the resources to do something like this. So the USA cheering feels exclusionary, naturally. I chalk it up to them being proud of the immense work they've done to get the US back into space properly again.

crocal2• 8 years ago

I am stuck in the worst traffic jam in Paris since 10 years. Bah. Who cares? :D That was insane!

lprd• 8 years ago

How about dat snow tho? Hope you made it home safe! :)

buildbuildbuild• 8 years ago

Love that SpaceX’s own team shoots, announces, and switches the live production in-house rather than hiring a production company.

Also love seeing machinists side by side cheering with software engineers, standing by a mission control which is placed feet from where engines are assembled on the shop floor.

Open company culture well-executed.

Congratulations to all there!

DaiPlusPlus4• 8 years ago

It’s like that at BlueOrigin too. I visited twice (they gave me a job offer but withdrew it after I got badmouthed by a reference, gah). They have an avionics software engineering room right next to where they assemble the engines.

electricslpnsld2• 8 years ago

they gave me a job offer but withdrew it after I got badmouthed by a reference

Why in the world would someone agree to be a reference and then bad mouth afterwards? Some folks...

mabbo3• 8 years ago

This is why I love the live streams hosted by John Innsprucker. He doesn't look like a TV star, he looks like an engineer, a rocket scientist. He looks real.

The other hosts are great, but if you told me they were hired actors or PR people I'd believe it.

CydeWeys7• 8 years ago

You're showing your biases here. The other people on the livestream are also rocket scientists. They aren't PR people. They just happen to be younger, or women, or of color. So you might want to re-evaluate what you think a rocket scientist "looks like", because your notion is outdated.

Sorry to call you out like this, but these kinds of prejudices about who is the "correct" kind of person for tech jobs are harmful and discouraging to the people who don't fit the stereotypes, and helps contribute to keeping them out of the field.

kinkrtyavimoodh• 8 years ago

The other hosts are great, but if you told me they were hired actors or PR people I'd believe it.

Because they are young and good looking and good at public speaking?

focusgroup0• 8 years ago

I went to school with one of the other hosts. He's legitimately a genius, top marks and well-decorated in academia. Kind of weird to see the guy I used to hang out with livestreaming to 2.3mm people.

tribune• 8 years ago

At the start of the video they introduced themselves as Lauren Lyons: Flight Reliability Engineer and Michael Hammersley: Materials Engineer. All rocket scientists it seems

NotQuantum• 8 years ago

Take Lauren, for example, she's a super accomplished mech/aero engineer who also happens to be a really good host.

EDIT: Of course she's also involved in FIRST :P

taneq4• 8 years ago

He doesn't look like a TV star, he looks like an engineer, a rocket scientist. He looks real.

Which is funny because, reading the job titles given to the SpaceX announcers, my first thought is always "wow, SpaceX hires some really attractive engineers."

Yetanfou2• 8 years ago

Seeing how a harmless comment on a man 'look[ing] like an engineer, a rocket scientist´ leads to yet another long thread about 'bias' and similar concept is worrisome. The more speech is stifled, the more people have to weigh every word, every expression before they dare to utter it for fear of being accused of violating something, somewhere, making someone feel 'harmed', the less open and welcoming society will be. Less open to new ideas and new concept, less welcoming to those who come forth with those ideas and thoughts.

It also does not mean people will actually change in such a way that they won't think someone 'looks like an engineer' or 'looks live a TV star', they just won't say it out loud. Instead they'll say it among friends they know they can trust, more vehemently than they'd have done if this type of speech were not taboo.

I can only hope that the hyper-sensitivity currently found in the public sphere will pass when enough people from enough parts of society speak up against it. If it doesn't we're in for troubled times as it touches something which lies at the core of the enlightened western society, freedom of speech and expression. Those are precious things, too precious to squander.

stcredzero2• 8 years ago

Should have been written: "Love that SpaceX announces, shoots, and leaves live production in-house." Not because it was grammatically incorrect, but because I wanted just one more chance to make an Oxford comma joke. http://a.co/gc5Izsa

mcv6• 8 years ago

The 4 presenters were also engineers. And by doing it that way, they got to show that some engineers are black women. Let's hope this inspires a generation of black girls to seek a career in space or tech.

gnode• 8 years ago

It makes sense, as publicity is central to SpaceX's / Musk's mission. SpaceX evolved out of Musk's Mars Oasis concept, with the aim being to inspire and reignite interest in space with a greenhouse on Mars.

alistproducer22• 8 years ago

I could've done without the constant clapping and screaming on the webcast. Kinda took away from the experience for me.

Cshelton• 8 years ago

Yeah.. sorry you were inconvenienced by the cheers of the people who built it...

alistproducer22• 8 years ago

Good for them. There was a good amount of production value in the broadcast. It seemed an odd creative choice to leave the audience audio feed maxed the entire time.

mastax2• 8 years ago

There's a non-hosted webcast which, I believe, is just rocket footage.

pricechild• 8 years ago

Yes, for each launch they tend to do "Hosted" and "Technical".

weej3• 8 years ago

Unbelievable. The simultaneous booster landings were incredibly impressive feat. Outstanding launch and spectacular landings!

Screen shots from live feed: https://imgur.com/a/gh410

jacquesm15• 8 years ago

Hard to pick favorites from those.

weej3• 8 years ago

I know. I'm rotating my desktop.

davidw• 8 years ago

Wow, beautiful and moving to see people building wonderful things. Have been focused on politics for a while and it's really a breath of fresh air. Made my day!

omot• 8 years ago

I think it's worth noting that NASA wasn't the one to accomplish this, it was a private company. It makes me hopeful that there might be a real possibility of huge infrastructure development by private companies, because it seems like the government is unable to organize itself to accomplish huge infra projects like in the past.

aaron-lebo• 8 years ago

What's the difference in how SpaceX is run vs Musk's other companies? It seems to succeed doing the hardest things whereas the others have struggled to meet their goals.

Would Musk focusing only on it make any difference?

edit: This is not a complaint, just a question, why the downvotes? I'm used to getting downvoted for no reason, but this is basic a question, with great answers. Come on HN! We can't ask questions?

JumpCrisscross8• 8 years ago

What's the difference in how SpaceX is run vs Musk's other companies?

One, this is his baby. I believe he spends more time at SpaceX than his other companies. Two, B2B. The public only sees breathtaking videos. The contract negotiations, sales process, pricing, support, insurance, et cetera happen behind the scenes. Finally, nothing has been on time. Years' delays don't feel that bad because (a) space is hard, (b) space is awesome and (c) everyone else going to space is even worse at keeping to timetables.

mi100hael• 8 years ago

NYTimes article mentioned their initial target for a heavy rocket launch was 2013 due to being "naive." Safe to say SpaceX isn't all that different from Tesla or Solar City in that regard.

skellington• 8 years ago

Yeah, it must be really hard on you that world changing, incredible technologies have unknowns and sometimes take longer than expected to deliver. You should let us all know how to do it right.

pythonaut_16• 8 years ago

I think this is a big point. SpaceX has a solid business just with their Falcon 9 rockets. Delays to the Falcon Heavy really only impact them for payloads that require the bigger rocket and their overall R&D costs.

Landing and reusing the Falcon 9 cores is probably a much bigger benefit to their bottom line overall.

Tesla on the other hand has to be able to deliver tons of reliable cars to people all over the place in a competitive market. Delays to the Model 3 mean they're burning money they can't afford to lose while their competitors are rapidly catching up to them.

While SpaceX could continue their successful Falcon 9 launches during the 5 year delay on Falcon Heavy, Tesla will likely be gone in 5 years if Model 3 delays are even close to that long.

kbyatnal• 8 years ago

Saw this on their careers page right after the landing. Looks like it worked!

https://i.imgur.com/noM0glO.jpg

callesgg2• 8 years ago

To bad that it is only for americans. Due to some sort of US regulation.

Klathmon5• 8 years ago

That's not really their call because of ITAR.

jonkiddy• 8 years ago

A truly historic moment. Well done SpaceX!

perilunar• 8 years ago

"There's a starman waiting in the sky He's told us not to blow it Cause he knows it's all worthwhile"

lisper2• 8 years ago

That was amazing. But... what happened to the core?

lisper2• 8 years ago

https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/06/spacex-landed-two-of-its-t...

:-(

Still a tremendous accomplishment.

outworlder3• 8 years ago

Double landing of reused boosters. No matter how you slice it, it's quite a feat.

noonespecial• 8 years ago

Remembered watching an old Star Trek film where the Cochrane character wouldn't launch without playing "Magic Carpet Ride" on the way up and thinking that space travel could never ever be so glib...

Well played Mr. Musk. Well Played.

alangibson5• 8 years ago

After the rocket took off, I told my wife that Elon Musk is our Zephram Cochrane. She looked at me like I was a 40 year old virgin.

slfnflctd• 8 years ago

I stopped everything and set aside time to sit and watch the whole thing. It was like seeing magic made real, only better, rapturous. Very emotional launch.

typicalbender• 8 years ago

Sounds like they lost the center core (might just mean the signal its not clear), hell of a showing though the team should be really proud of the accomplishment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B_tWbjFIGI&feature=youtu.be...

developerdanny• 8 years ago

That could just mean they lost the feed.

callesgg2• 8 years ago

"We lost the centre core" at 38m27s https://youtu.be/-B_tWbjFIGI?t=38m27s

jagger274• 8 years ago

Does anyone have a "top-down" view of the Roadster's (planned) orbit? I've read that it's on a Hohmann transfer towards Mars's orbital neighbourhood but haven't seen a diagram.

wolf550e• 8 years ago

https://youtu.be/wbSwFU6tY1c?t=1357

jagger274• 8 years ago

Ah thank you! I missed that. Here's a screenshot

https://i.imgur.com/LviKKdg.png

Diederich9• 8 years ago

See also the other reply. https://imgur.com/a/NJsIv

songzme• 8 years ago

delete

alangibson5• 8 years ago

Tell me more, oh king of non sequiturs

balnaphone• 8 years ago

In case you haven't already been acquainted...

THEY'RE MADE OUT OF MEAT by TERRY BISSON

http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

GREYLORN by KEITH LAUMER

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23028/23028-h/23028-h.htm

Shivetya• 8 years ago

the coolest part to me is watching both boosters touch down in sight of each other at the same time. that was science fiction worthy

csallen• 8 years ago

There was a strange part of the video near the end where they show the car floating through space, and suddenly a background image pops in for a second: https://imgur.com/a/ZyVqK

Any idea what that was?

EDIT: I think it's a replay of the capsule opening that initially contained the car, just spliced in at a weird part of the video.

ranger207• 8 years ago

The background is the inside of the fairing.

Deathmax• 8 years ago

They were looping the fairing deploy. The "background image" you see is the inside of the fairing: https://www.instagram.com/p/Be3m_LNgOYY/?taken-by=elonmusk

jimnotgym• 8 years ago

That was fabulous. My son sat cheering in his space suit all the way until the live feed cut off. Can we turn a corner as a species now and look towards exploration again?

ph0rque2• 8 years ago

Watching the launch with my daughter: "Daddy look! It's two daughter rockets helping the mommy rocket!"

jacquesm15• 8 years ago

That's so sweet.

pulkitanand• 8 years ago

They lost the center core: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B_tWbjFIGI&t=2307

But 2/3 is impressive! Seeing the simultaneous landings had me in tears!

ct0• 8 years ago

Lost, or lost video feed?

Diederich9• 8 years ago

There's been word from unofficial but reliable sources that it came in 'too hot' and died on impact.

brosky117• 8 years ago

Thanks. That clip is the confirmation I’ve been looking for since the live stream ended. I agree that it’s still an amazing achievement!

webXL• 8 years ago

Was there anything special about the center core other than boosting longer and needing to land out at sea? Seems like they've landed plenty out at sea, but not while landing two on land.

I thought this was impressive: "With a total of 27 first-stage engines, Falcon Heavy has engine-out capability that no other launch vehicle can match—under most payload scenarios, it can sustain more than one unplanned engine shutdown at any point in flight and still successfully complete its mission." http://www.spacex.com/falcon-heavy

phpnode• 8 years ago

The centre core is significantly strengthened to cope with the additional load from the side boosters. It also has slightly different aerodynamic properties because of the fixed struts that hold the boosters in place. Either of these could have affected the landing. They'll collect data and fix it.

eunoia• 8 years ago

Here are some really rough numbers derived from pausing the live stream.

Falcon Heavy Side Booster Separation - 61km, 6,881 km/hr

Falcon Heavy Core 1st Stage Separation - 92.5km, 9,474 km/hr

Also a link to screen caps of speeds/altitudes of previous Falcon 9 separations

http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/space-images/charts/falc...

NamTaf4• 8 years ago

It is probably the fastest/highest burn they've ever tried to land, and thus needs the most fuel to land, expeirences the most structural stress, etc. etc.

daniel-wer• 8 years ago

Regarding the center core, if you switch to the second stream (mission control) and go to 38:30, you can hear "We have lost the center core" - could be referring to the signal though. https://youtu.be/wbSwFU6tY1c?t=38m26s

rainbowmverse2• 8 years ago

My uber is here, in the final frontier.

mempko• 8 years ago

NASA money put to good use.

thanatropism• 8 years ago

I like everything about private space exploration except this: when we sent the Voyager golden record to space, we consulted with the great minds about which were the important landmarks of our civilisation.

In this model, it's all about idiosyncrasies: the Voyager record had the Vitruvian Man, this has an astronaut on a sports car and largely-irrelevant sci-fi stories.

Of course, private space probably means the whole timeline comes faster and private associations are soon launching Dostoyevski and Pollock too. Still, this payload is culturally cringeworthy, as much as the sheer engineer accomplishment must be lauded.

JumpCrisscross8• 8 years ago

the Voyager record had the Vitruvian Man, this has an astronaut on a sports car and largely-irrelevant sci-fi stories

They were both done, principally, for fun. If practical value is constrained to the non-ET, I'll argue for the latter any day. It promotes an electric car; presents space as a fun--instead of austere--place; and gives everyone a laugh. Given the times, I think we need a laugh more than sober awe.

losteric3• 8 years ago

Voyager went interstellar. The Tesla is still bound to the inner solar system.

Paul-ish2• 8 years ago

Sounds like a service SpaceX could offer wealthy space geeks. Pay us to send your own culturally significant artifacts out of our solar system, to follow the footsteps of the voyager probes and one day encounter alien life.

Then of course Martin Shkreli (or someone like him) will send something outrageous into space.

aeorgnoieang• 8 years ago

I'll take real progress over whatever the modern day version of the Voyager golden record might be.

But I think you might also be imagining how the golden record was created. It was spearheaded by Carl Sagan but there wasn't time to consult "with the great minds" [emphasis mine], whatever that might be. I'm sure Sagan worked with 'great minds', but it definitely wasn't some kind of Grand Committee of Earth.

jnevelson• 8 years ago

Those "largely-irrelevant sci-fi stories" are partially what helped inspire the people that accomplished this.

jpindar• 8 years ago

Still, this payload is culturally cringeworthy,

According to whose culture though? I suggest the culture of the people who built it is the most relevant one.

dqpb• 8 years ago

The golden record is more cringworthy

gradyj• 8 years ago

Absolutely insane. I had goosebumps throughout the launch. Well done SpaceX

ninjamayo• 8 years ago

And I have to deploy a few web services tomorrow, woohoo... Elon has created a vision for generations to come, that is why today is so historic.

stanlarroque• 8 years ago

It was awesome. The synchronized landing of both boosters was emotional.

Might be a naive thought, but for a few minutes, you forget everything else. There were millions of people from every nation live-watching the broadcast and everyone was cheering and hoping for the best.

The world seemed at peace during that moment and this is what I love about space exploration and all these great human achievements.

BozeWolf• 8 years ago

I sort of was hoping for a big bang. Am I the only one?

Landing these things will become the standard. mmillion dollar fireworks will not. Anyways, still very impressed.

MBCook8• 8 years ago

The recoverable rocket stuff is new/cool enough I still like seeing it work. It’s still amazing.

mattnewport• 8 years ago

Some men just want to watch the world burn.

xrayzerone3• 8 years ago

There was a comment thread on reddit where people were checking in with "GO" from all around the world before the launch. Mexico, Netherlands, Portugal, UK, Eastern Europe, South America. This is humanity united under a common cause that's greater than us. How anyone can say space exploration doesn't have tangible benefits for humans after witnessing today's events is a complete mystery.

makkesk8• 8 years ago

Man next to one of the boosters: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DVYYekSWAAEHpTa.jpg

That's nuts.

dobecker• 8 years ago

they looked so tiny on the video stream: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DVYWR2IUQAAutMB.jpg

mcv6• 8 years ago

I was also surprised that the Falcon Heavy didn't look all that big, really. Until I saw people next to a booster. Scale is hard.

goshx• 8 years ago

This is an amazing day for all humanity.

LewYard2• 8 years ago

> [...] the rocket’s payload [...] will pass through the Van Allen belt — a zone of charged particles and extreme radiation surrounding Earth. Assuming it makes it through that radioactive beatdown [...]

What can happen ? Did a payload already exploded passing through the Van Allen belt ? Are batteries a problem ?

alkonaut3• 8 years ago

I guess the worse that can happen is that computer chips and similar (camera sensors etc) are damaged?

Can’t see what would make it not “make it through” but I could see how we might never I find out.

LewYard2• 8 years ago

Oh okay. And last Elon's tweet says that the last stage still has a burn to do after the belt. So if the chips are damage it may be impossible to do the burn.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/960988527159795712

technics256• 8 years ago

In engineering terms, how does this compare to the most powerful rocket ever made, the Saturn V?

Diederich9• 8 years ago

Heavy in full reusable can lift 140,000 pounds to low earth orbit. The Saturn V at its best lifted 310,000 pounds.

So Heavy is about 1/2 as lift capable...at a tiny fraction of the $/kg.

dmix3• 8 years ago

Reposting my comment from the other thread:

Someone noticed there was a camera feed on the mission control wall that shows the Center Core's drone ship, after the smoke clears no ship can be seen: https://twitter.com/Darkphibre/status/960990105581240321

9:00 into the feed, it's likely the core either missed or failed to land properly. Although the screen is partially out of view. So this is still speculative.

woliveirajr• 8 years ago

Center core going to Mars?

https://twitter.com/FalconMainCore/status/960992022575374336

InclinedPlane7• 8 years ago

Vaguely. In reality it's going to an orbit that will cross Mars' orbit, but it won't actually be particularly near Mars for a very long time. It's a good proof of concept that they could launch something to Mars with this vehicle though.

blackrock• 8 years ago

Did they need to modify the Tesla to make it vacuum worthy?

Like, remove any fluids, remove any parts that might explode in the hot or cold of space, deflate the tires, etc.

Note: I'm more interested in a scientific answer, as opposed to casual conjectures. Preferably from an engineer knowledgeable of such things. And specifically, the materials sciences aspect of how materials will survive in a vacuum.

jacquesm15• 8 years ago

They have a bigass vacuum test chamber, you can bet they did their homework and every container that might end up pressurized had a hole in it to allow the leveling of the pressure. No point taking chances with something like this, it only has to look good, it doesn't have to drive.

urda• 8 years ago

it only has to look good, it doesn't have to drive.

After all, where it's going it won't need roads.

lmm3• 8 years ago

It's not like they're trying to keep it driveable? I would guess they'll have drained any fluids but I don't expect it to be fully operational after the van allen belts, for example.

Retra2• 8 years ago

How would the Van Allen belts disable a car?

mike7413• 8 years ago

the car is not actually in the vacuum AFAI can tell from their GIF: https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/spacero...

id imagine a 360-camera is projected onto the inside of the sphere/case the car is actually inside of.

gliptic• 8 years ago

What are you talking about. That gif is showing the fairing separation. There's no sphere.

NamTaf4• 8 years ago

As a mechanical design engineer (not of cars, of other vehicles) I can't think of any systems that you'd need to modify if you don't plan on driving the car again. This is all off-the-top-of-my-head theorycrafting, so I could be wrong.

Space is only -1 atmosphere and even then, it only affects sealed systems. For the rest, they'd equalise. Also, cooling in in space is actually fairly gradual as there's only radiation, not convection or conduction. Let's go through the systems and evaluate what that means:

For structural components, nothing will really change. After all, we built spacecraft out of aluminium before. The ISS has to cope with this more, as it goes in and out of sunlight every 90 mins, so it gets something like 15 cycles of high/low temperature a day. The thermal shock of going from darkness to sunlight is the main issue, but this won't be passing through the earth's shadow constantly since it'll be orbiting the sun, so changes will be far more gradual.

Bigger issues come from different materials joined together, such as steel to aluminium, since they expand at different rates, but that's not really a problem here and even if it is, it'll just crack a bit at the seam. That's not going to cause the car to explode into little fragments.

For unsealed systems with fluids, they'd just boil away in the vacuum before desubliminating into little frozen droplets and bounce around or whatnot.

The only sealed systems with fluids in them that I can think of are tyres and brake lines. Tyres tend to sit at about 30-35 PSI, which is ~2 atmospheres. They then have to endure significant heating/cooling, dynamic pressures of spinning, etc. so an extra atmosphere wouldn't cause issue from a pressure point of view. Ditto brake lines - you stomp on them with a mechanical advantage and they never rupture.

I think you'll find the worst damage will be to the paint over time, which will fade more aggressively since it's not protected from UV sunlight any more.

edit: I forgot the batteries, which I believe are a sealed unit. They might have just dropped the battery pack from the car. Not sure what a vacuum would do to them as I don't know enough about Li-Ion battery design to comment.

CmdrKrool• 8 years ago

Elon says, albeit casually, here in the press conference at 5m36s: https://youtu.be/sytrrdOPYzA?t=5m36s

"We didn't really test any of those materials [...] it's just literally a normal car in space"

jotm9• 8 years ago

It would be pretty cool if they retrieve it later, replace the batteries... and it still works :D

astronautjones5• 8 years ago

Musk basically said "not really" in the press conference

mr_toad• 8 years ago

The metals in the are likely to sublimate significantly over the course of tens of thousands of years. Plastics and rubber might only last decades. Painted surfaces might survive longer than exposed metals.

The glass will eventually become clouded and discoloured due to radiation damage and scoring by micrometeorites. Some plastics can rapidly deteriorate in sunlight.

Erosion from micrometeoroids (dust) and larger impacts is also a factor over timescales of thousands of years.

I doubt it will last the millions of years that is suggested.

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/266548.pdf

mspokoiny• 8 years ago

Really love SpaceX - 63 tons- this is a lot

johnvega• 8 years ago

Been watching all the previous launches. This one felt like a special moment in time.

fastbeef• 8 years ago

Wow. I can’t recall the last time I got this emotional from watching something on TV. Good thing my wife is asleep, cause I’m tear-eyed over two rockets touching down at the same time...

vvanders• 8 years ago

Starman cam is currently streaming live as it circles the earth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBr2kKAHN6M

iliis• 8 years ago

live view of Starman and his car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBr2kKAHN6M

mpweiher• 8 years ago

USA Today reports the center stage landed

"The core stage, meanwhile, burned slightly longer before separating from the upper stage, performed a flip maneuver and landed on SpaceX's Of Course I Still Love You drone ship."

Not sure it's true.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/nation-now/2018/02/06/sp...

Axsuul• 8 years ago

It's impressive they got it on the first try. Their software models/simulations must have played a huge role in this, aside from other processes and engineering gotchas.

joering23• 8 years ago

Seeing two falcons landing felt to me like seeing first STS spaceship taking off all the way from Space Canaveral. Truly amazing! I cannot wait to see a version where 16 of them are landing... simultaneously! (its just a dream)

Great job Elon and team SpaceX!

matt4077• 8 years ago

Live view of Starman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBr2kKAHN6M

clon2• 8 years ago

Is there cause for concern that the payload is spinning along what looks like roughly it's normal axis. Can we assume that they equipped it with some sort of means for attitude control?

Edit: referring to the Starman live feed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBr2kKAHN6M

jacquesm15• 8 years ago

That's hilarious. Also note the 'Starman chilling out', he certainly is going to be pretty chilled.

goodcanadian• 8 years ago

Spacecraft are commonly spin stabilized in order to keep them from tumbling. The same reason that rifles spin bullets or quarterbacks throw spirals, really.

And yes, it will have attitude control in order to ensure that the three burns (two complete, interplanetary insertion to come) all happen in the correct orientation

TeMPOraL18• 8 years ago

Yup. You could actually spot attitude control firing on the Starman feed at some point.

mstank• 8 years ago

Live views of the Star Man from space -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBr2kKAHN6M

toephu23• 8 years ago

This is nothing short of amazing, but what also amazes me is the fact that 45 years ago...humans were also able to launch a payload larger than today's into orbit (Saturn V moon rocket)...that's crazy if you think about it...45 years ago?!

jacquesm15• 8 years ago

That had a whole nation funding it, and the space race was on meaning it was a prestige thing rather than a practical thing.

m3kw9• 8 years ago

What age we live in, that live video is understated

adventured5• 8 years ago

Musk just posted this live feed link of Starman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBr2kKAHN6M

perseusprime112• 8 years ago

What does this launch mean for humans? Does this mean we can send humans to Mars on the next mission? Is there step by step plan anywhere?

InclinedPlane7• 8 years ago

This is kind of a "big deal" but on the other hand it's also just an intermediate step. The really cool thing here is that this brings another contender into the heavy lift launch market, which has traditionally been an incredibly small space, especially recently (with NRO launches dominating). More than that, it dramatically reshapes the cost structure in that market. If you want a Delta IV Heavy launch normally you're looking at spending around a billion dollars, and generally the only customers who could even have the option to use that vehicle would be the US government anyway. So, of course, that means it's been a very restrictive field.

Falcon Heavy is, on the other hand, nominally a $90 million launch cost. That's cheaper than the typical launch cost for a Falcon 9, Atlas V, or Ariane 5 class vehicle, so that's crazy cheap. A lot of that is down to the fact that 90% of the hardware cost of the Falcon Heavy stack comes from reusable rocket stages (the 3 main cores). On top of that, the Falcon Heavy side boosters are just regular Falcon 9 cores, so as SpaceX gets better at reusing Falcon 9 rockets it'll also become easier to launch Falcon Heavy rockets because there will just always be a stack of appropriate components sitting around in inventory ready to go. Meaning that the potential flight rate on Heavy launches could be quite high. The Delta IV Heavy launches maybe around once every year or every other year or so. The Falcon Heavy could potentially fly many times per year.

Together that's kind of a "big deal". It'll crack open the heavy lift market to a lot of people who previously lacked the means or the access to launch big payloads. If launching 20 tonnes to LEO is something that costs 10 figures and happens literally less often than every blue moon then you tend to only launch things like multi-billion dollar spy satellites. But if launching much more than that mass costs less than a traditional comsat launch and can happen every other month or perhaps more often if there's the demand, then you're going to get a lot of folks coming out of the woodwork to take advantage of that capability (and, as well, that'll still include NRO and US national defense folks as well, they won't miss out either).

So, what are some things that become more possible with Falcon Heavy?

* Space station components. After the Shuttle program ended there was much less capacity for launching station components, it was restricted to small bits and pieces (a docking adapter here, a small inflatable module there) and Russian components launched via Proton. With Falcon Heavy in the mix it becomes more practical to launch new space stations and new station components. So that's more of an option now.

* Deep space missions. Falcon Heavy is capable of launching reasonable payloads on interplanetary trajectories to the outer planets. So that means it could make new missions to asteroids, comets, the gas and ice giant planets (or their moons), as well as KBOs and TNOs much more cost effective. NASA, ESA, etc. could look to using Falcon Heavy for those sorts of missions in the near future. It also makes things like "ordinary" Mars rover missions cheaper, of course, and allows them to be larger and more capable.

* Space telescopes. Launching big space telescopes like Hubble and its successors will become much cheaper. So instead of having just one or two or even a handful of big top tier observatory class space telescopes we could have many of them.

* Crewed interplanetary missions. In theory you could do something like a crewed cislunar mission similar to Apollo 8 using a single Falcon Heavy launch. More realistically if you wanted to do a "proper" interplanetary mission you'd assemble something in low Earth orbit. You'd put up separate boost stages as well as the crewed spacecraft component and the return vehicle on separate flights and bring them together then set off somewhere. If you're, say, NASA and you have a paltry $2 billion or something to pull off a crewed mission to an asteroid, perhaps, then being able to buy a half-dozen Falcon Heavy flights and put up a crap-ton of payload into LEO with only a quarter of your budget is hugely advantageous.

* And, of course, all the standard stuff like spysats and big national defense payloads. This isn't such a huge deal for "the future" but it'll be a substantial revenue stream for SpaceX.

As for sending humans to Mars, SpaceX won't be using Falcon Heavy for that. They have a next generation launch architecture planned that is more or less specifically designed for mars colonization (the BFR/BFS). That system will be much larger and able to put about 150 tonnes into LEO in a single (reusable) launch. It'll be fully reusable, including the 2nd stage (the BFS). It'll use LOX/Methane instead of LOX/Kerosene because of the superior performance, significantly improved longevity of engine components (less soot and coking in piping) to enhance reusability, and compatability with a Mars exploration architecture that includes utilization of the Martian atmosphere to produce propellant for return trips (which is actually surprisingly easy). They will begin the first stages of manufacturing that rocket sometime this year but it will be a few years before it even has a test flight.

perseusprime112• 8 years ago

Thanks. You should put this up on Medium. Tons of great info that others can benefit.

runesoerensen4• 8 years ago

"Update February 6th, 5:10 PM ET: This post has been updated to reflect that the center core did not land on the autonomous ship as intended."

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16971200/spacex-falcon-hea...

tambourine_man• 8 years ago

We are living in an 80's SciFi movie. This shots are amazing, I would never have believed:

https://imgur.com/a/fXdjj

muterad_murilax• 8 years ago

Is the Tesla car and it's space suit-wearing driver a reference to the intro from the 1981 film Heavy Metal?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWMPe3wF9jQ

vpribish3• 8 years ago

It's a pretty inescapable suspicion :)

chkte• 8 years ago

On the one hand this is super exciting, I even cried. On the other hand, it makes me feel miserable: am I wasting my life? What have I done? Meanwhile Elon is sending reusable rockets to the space.

astronautjones5• 8 years ago

You aren't!

agildehaus3• 8 years ago

You and all (7.442 billion - 1) of the rest of us buddy.

jvzr• 8 years ago

I'd count the 6 thousand employees in the same boat, as Musk's vision could not be achieved without their help

symlinkk• 8 years ago

Fuck Snapchat filters, fuck another JavaScript framework being released, fuck Google releasing another chat app, fuck the next iPhone having wireless charging.

This is innovation. This is the future. This, and Tesla, are the biggest technological breakthroughs since the iPhone.

dingo_bat2• 8 years ago

Comparing Falcon heavy to iphone is slightly insulting IMO.

dudus• 8 years ago

Can someone explain to me why are we sending a Tesla to Mars? I mean other than shits and giggles, is there any value in having it there? I assume putting stuff in the space is expensive and I wonder if that effort couldn't have gone to something more useful like a robot to look for water or whatever.

zanedb• 8 years ago

other than shits and giggles, is there any value in having it there?

Nope.

mullen• 8 years ago

This was a test flight so they could send anything they wanted, so they did.

InclinedPlane7• 8 years ago

First flight of this vehicle configuration so it's a test flight. Most other test flights would just use a concrete mass simulator. Elon thought of something more interesting.

adventured5• 8 years ago

The short answer is: no. You're talking about an entirely different mission profile, at far greater difficulty and at a radically greater cost.

You need an advanced robot, reliable, highly tested, constructed by the best rover engineers on the planet. You need to spend years designing the overall program. You need to deliver the robot safely to the surface of Mars. You need to operate the program at non-trivial cost for an extended period of time to then look for water etc.

Add a few billion dollars to the cost, basically.

marvin3• 8 years ago

This was a demonstration launch, so no paying customer. The alternatives are (1) sending a rock or (2) spending months and millions of dollars designing a spacecraft capable of doing something useful. Option 2 is out of the question, option 1 is boring :)

heathn• 8 years ago

It's not going to mars. It is in an orbit that could go to mars if that was the desire, this is just a test. A silly, awesome test.

scrumper• 8 years ago

You’d have to pay - a lot - to develop the robot (and control its mission). There was a car already lying around.

outworlder3• 8 years ago

For it to go to the mars we would have to be at the correct transfer window (or have a much higher Delta-V margin, which maybe BFR would be able to manage, but not necessarily Falcon Heavy). So it is not going to Mars.

Then, there are other costs. Cost of launch could have been absorbed by Tesla. Cost of developing a mars-capable payload would be extra. Who would pay for it, on a completely new and experimental rocket?

daveheq• 8 years ago

Did it successfully explode yet?

desertrider12• 8 years ago

Yes, in a carefully controlled way

spacexyz• 8 years ago

For future nostalgia: https://teespring.com/find-center-core

redwood2• 8 years ago

I don't get how we're seeing the views behind the car (https://cdn.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Roadste...) -- is it a green screen? special effects? something else?

tbabb2• 8 years ago

The faring (the cover that you see in that photo) detaches and falls back to Earth. The car is exposed and floating in space.

redwood2• 8 years ago

Thank you (wow) - just saw an animation and had that a ha moment...

runesoerensen4• 8 years ago

Post-launch press conference live stream: http://abcnews.go.com/live/video/special-live-3 / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KORTP545vAc

staunch• 8 years ago

Fuck yes! Thank you everyone that worked on this and thank you Elon Musk!

AirKickBay• 8 years ago

this is amazing. mars is next

hycaria• 8 years ago

It seems I am the only one bothered by putting useless junk into the universe. I don't even know how it's possible that they were allowed to litter space just for the sake of it. Like there's not enough human garbage rotating in orbit. Couldn't they send a small probe or something more useful than a car ?

Also human space travel is just the answer to none of our current and urgent earthly problems. I don't get why people are so unreasonably hyped about it.

dewski• 8 years ago

You have to send something to test the feasibility of reaching Mars.

corndoge• 8 years ago

Why live if not for exploration?

hamburglar• 8 years ago

That junk was already in the universe.

lwansbrough2• 8 years ago

Garbage is a human construct. From an external observer, it's just a byproduct of a natural, organic process.

njarboe2• 8 years ago

Love how the top comment on the successful first launch of the largest rocket since the Saturn V (with 1337 points at the moment) on a site called "Hacker News" devolves into a discussion about identity politics. Maybe we need some kind of variant on Godwin's Rule so that this doesn't happen so predictably.

runesoerensen4• 8 years ago

"That core booster approached the platform as planned, but it unfortunately hit the water going 300 MPH and was lost, because some of its return engines failed to light"

https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/06/spacex-landed-two-of-its-t...

meatbags• 8 years ago

Thanks for the closure - I've been refreshing twitter all morning.

I've seen the much-touted $90M price-tag for the FH launch, but does that take into account loss of the core or boosters?

Analemma_• 8 years ago

SpaceX has been keeping their launch prices pretty consistent, even when they couldn't know how many F9 stages they would actually recover. I think they've factored in testing losses into the price.

akozak• 8 years ago

I think he said in the press conference that they weren't planning to reuse the core or boosters. (But then mentioned later they wanted some of the parts? IDK)

JshWright2• 8 years ago

The $90m price is for a fully reusable FH, yes. The cores in this particular flight, however, were not intended for reuse either way.

mikejb• 8 years ago

The damage to the ASDS might be more of a problem. Depending on how badly it was damaged, it might not be available to catch other cores that could have landed otherwise

jl6• 8 years ago

Was it just lucky that the core didn’t directly impact the drone ship or was it designed to aim to the side in the event of the landing speed being too high?

giarc• 8 years ago

I read somewhere that the drone ship was damaged.

jurjenh• 8 years ago

It always comes in slightly to the side of the barge and as part of the landing burn it does a final sideways correction. I believe it was for this kind of situation - or one where the final burn doesn't even happen.

imglorp• 8 years ago

I'm kind of glad they had something fail. That means maybe they learned something new to improve the next shot.

make3• 8 years ago

most of the people I know are twisted pessimists. you're a twisted optimist

simonh2• 8 years ago

The rocket ran out of engine igniter fluid. It had enough to light the centre engine, but not the two side engines.

That seems to imply they were trying to do a 3-engine landing, which they tested recently in the 'failed to expend the rocket' incident. This might explain why they miscalculated the igniter requirement since they don't have much experience with 3-engine landings.

delaaxe• 8 years ago

But the core, middle booster, which attempted to land aboard “Of Course I Still Love You,” a drone barge that SpaceX uses as a mobile, ocean-borne landing pad stationed in the Atlantic for its flights departing from Florida, wasn’t recovered.

“Of Course I Still Love You” is the name of a spacecraft in The Culture, a series of novels that inspired Elon Musk when he was young.

elmar2• 8 years ago

'Crazy things can come true': Elon Musk discusses Falcon Heavy launch: Full presser

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

ChuckMcM2• 8 years ago

Raises some interesting secondary questions; Did the starman dummy contain telemetry? At lift off? Now? If I were SpaceX this is a good way to test your spacesuit, actually in space, if you instrument the dummy its on. Pressure sensors, temperature sensors, G sensors.

Do they turn off the camera if its about to fly by something that would rather not be seen?

paragraft• 8 years ago

Elon said in the press conference afterward it was just a mannequin in the suit, no instrumentation.

Flemlord• 8 years ago

Congratulations to everybody involved! One of my earliest memories is watching the Challenger launch in my school auditorium. I'm glad my daughters can have the same experience with a much more inspiring conclusion.

hnnsj• 8 years ago

This makes me excited to be human again. I need to do something more meaningful with my life.

dingo_bat2• 8 years ago

It's such a shame that so many people with Elon kind of money aren't doing anything to transform us into a spacefaring species. Why doesn't apple have a mars program? What the fuck are people doing with all the money?

Awesome work by spacex. They are peerless, except if you want to count massive superpower governments as peers.

joering23• 8 years ago

It's such a shame that so many people with Elon kind of money aren't doing anything to transform us into a spacefaring species.

"Elon kind of money?"

Heard of government subsidies?

https://ideapod.com/elon-musks-business-empire-fueled-4-9-bi...

Edit: not taking sides and adding my subjective point to the article; just merely stating fact that Mr. Musk projects are in large part government-funded.

ricardobeat• 8 years ago

Pardon my French, but that’s a load of bullshit in this context. SpaceX is privately funded and only receives money from the government from the launch contracts it sells.

That amount is for Tesla and SolarCity combined. To put things into perspective, GM received a $50B bailout, Ford got almost $6B for “energy-efficient” cars, as did Nissan with $1.6B.

Finally, almost all of those are loans, tax credits and incentives, not money 'out of pocket'. The goal is always to generate more wealth than was “spent”.

xrayzerone3• 8 years ago

Literally everything Lockheed, Raytheon, ULA, and every other company with a building along the Dulles Corridor is government funded. Not a single one would have private funds as SpaceX did to develop capabilities not specifically requested in a government RFP. TLDR: You have no idea how the government works and why SpaceX is different - GTFO.

Balero• 8 years ago

Apple is a publicly traded company which makes consumer electronics. The have investors to pay a dividend back to. It would be a dumb move to switch target to the space sector, which requires a much different company and talent pool. Frankly it would probably be easier, and more sensible to start a company from scratch.

If you wonder why all of the shareholders of Apple aren't plowing their money into spaceflight, well it's probably because they're a retirement fund, or just aren't rich.

Other people invest in making this world a better place, see Bill Gates, or other worthwhile causes, of which spaceflight is just one.

lwansbrough2• 8 years ago

I think I'd consider Blue Origin a peer.

jcranmer• 8 years ago

Because they're too busy trying to save millions of people in third-world countries to care about first-world problems.

Less snarkily, the pitch of Elon Musk is surprisingly selfish--he's basically doing this as much so he can get to Mars as anyone can. By contrast, people like Rockefeller and Carnegie in the past are largely responsible for endowing public culture in the form of museums, concert halls, public libraries and the like, and the modern day equivalents like Gates and Buffett are attempting to eradicate malaria from the world.

Nevertheless, you should reserve ire for those who have the ability to do philanthropy and fail to engage in it in any form as opposed to those whose philanthropy isn't in the areas you'd prefer.

xrayzerone3• 8 years ago

This is a joke right?

nickik2• 8 years ago

Elon does not have so much money. SpaceX was buissness he started and he put all his money into it. He has only become really rich since.

cookiecaper2• 8 years ago

Space is exciting, but we have plenty of earthbound problems that deserve attention too (and which need to be solved to enable/improve things like the FH launch).

Not everyone can be Elon Musk, nor should they try. There is much to do with our feet on the ground.

indescions_2018• 8 years ago

Congrats! To everyone at SpaceX Mission Control, NASA, and the 45th Space Wing. You are inspiring the next generation of astronauts and explorers!

At approx t-minus four minutes and counting. Elon Musk tweeted the "Holy Mouse Click" had returned "true". That moment when control is transferred to the onboard modules. And the Autonomous Flight Safety System takes control.

Its truly awesome to see that silky smooth burn. that perfect parabolic arc. And think upon the twenty-seven Merlin engines all firing in synchrony. Equipped with an intelligent decision making capability. And what the implications might be for future human spaceflight.

Here is an ancient link. But back around the mid-noughties. NASA published some details on the architecture of an AFSS:

An Autonomous Flight Safety System

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/200800...

Considering the Falcon Heavy includes reusable side boosters and central shaft. The complexity multiplies. As an example, take a peek at an implementation for expendable missions. that still use ground or satellite tracking and control.

Range Safety Algorithm Software Module for an Autonomous Flight Safety System

https://software.nasa.gov/software/GSC-15594-1

Darpa contributed tool for low level verification of onboard AFSS software.

SeaHorn: A fully automated analysis framework for LLVM-based languages

http://seahorn.github.io/

And of course, once your computers make it into space. They will need a place to store all the mountains of data generated ;)

SpaceBelt: space-based cloud storage network

http://spacebelt.com/

jacquesm15• 8 years ago

That's going to be one very hard to overtake Tesla.

mcv6• 8 years ago

My son has been very interested in fast cars lately, so this morning I asked him what the fastest car was, and corrected him. Then we watched the launch together.

yowlingcat• 8 years ago

Like a lot of other folks on here and probably in history, as a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. It's hard to put into words the feelings I experienced while watching the video, and especially the landing. For all the things going on in the world (and even in my own career writing line of business software) that make me nothing but exasperated, these moments rekindle my hope and all that sense of wonderment I used to feel every moment and every day. I'm excited to see what comes next.

aresant• 8 years ago

Check 25:30 for one of the most surreal moments I've ever witnessed - they blow the top, start playing Space Man, and send the Tesla into orbit - > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8wxV-lUsZg&t=25m30s

rl3• 8 years ago

Official photos from today's mission:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/spacex/

abledon2• 8 years ago

A Q & A is going on right now with Elon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KORTP545vAc

ddp• 8 years ago

A wonderful inspiring art project, well done!

BurningFrog• 8 years ago

What's your opinion:

Were the two falcons landing at the same moment synchronized to look good for the cameras, or was it just how it happened because they travelled together?

sah2ed2• 8 years ago

This flight profile clearly shows they were scheduled to travel and land together.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/960915618865274880

runesoerensen4• 8 years ago

"Third burn successful. Exceeded Mars orbit and kept going to the Asteroid Belt."

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/961083704230674438

sehugg• 8 years ago

Note that he never said "accidentally" :)

TeMPOraL18• 8 years ago

Damnit Elon!

But I guess that's one way of saying he had ∆v to spare...

astronautjones5• 8 years ago

"ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space"

Animats• 8 years ago

It's so Kerbal Space Program. First Space-X built the Falcon 1, with one Merlin engine. Then the Falcon 9, with 9 Merlin engines in a circle with one in the center. Then the Falcon Heavy, with three Falcon 9 boosters side by side. Next maybe a bigger Falcon Heavy, with five Falcon 9 boosters in an X pattern.

TeMPOraL18• 8 years ago

Yup. Sad they abandoned asparagus staging (AKA. fuel crossfeed), though. That would be Full Kerbal.

le-mark• 8 years ago

In the press conference after FH launch, Musk mentioned a "Super" heavy with four side boosters, yowza!

everdev• 8 years ago

Way to make space fun again :)

Love that pic of the dummy astronaut in the Tesla looking back at Earth.

j45• 8 years ago

Starman in a convertible made me smile like a little boy. Hope it lives on as b-roll

dis-sys• 8 years ago

Leaders of the Chinese/Russian/European space programs should learn something from such launches. The message is loud and clear - your junks are no longer economically feasible for space missions.

snissn• 8 years ago

Can someone confirm if the tesla roadster is heading to Mars?

drakonka• 8 years ago

That was beautiful to watch, especially the landing of the side boosters.

zouhair• 8 years ago

Devil's advocate, here.

Am I the only one that find it quite disturbing that a private corporation taking over more public space?

In the long run this stuff will bite humanity at large in the butt.

fsloth• 8 years ago

In what way are they 'taking over', and what space?

I would claim they are expanding the market and generally that is beneficial for all stakeholders.

We are not discussing a finite resource like forests, here.

AnsisMalins• 8 years ago

I find it exciting how well on track we are for the cyberpunk dystopia.

nikanj• 8 years ago

I would prefer the government doing this, instead of SpaceX. But I prefer SpaceX doing it, instead of nobody doing it.

albertgoeswoof• 8 years ago

What public space? The public and global governments aren’t interested in space exploration and haven’t invested heavily since the Cold War.

Suggest spending taxes on this to the average joe and they’ll grumble “sort out the problems on earth first” or similar instead

bdamm• 8 years ago

Similarly to air or water, I see no problems with companies building the ships that ply the medium. Do you find it odd that Boeing and Airbus make most of the airplanes that you fly on? Government sets regulation where it can and allows the market to operate within those regulations.

You can bet that when and if a lunar, astroid, or any other colony burgeons beyond a sizable hotel that a local government will form and begin to assert its own regulations, not unlike towns of the American west or trading posts operating underneath a larger national trading company. Under what form that occurs has yet to be seen.

golergka• 8 years ago

Quite the opposite - I'm really happy that now it's individuals taking over what used to be government monopoly.

Stratoscope2• 8 years ago

For another way to look at it, consider how quickly commercial airline travel became available after the Wright Brothers' first flight.

Compare that with how long it's been since Yuri Gagarin's first flight, and we're just now getting to where we can imagine passenger flights to space in the next few years.

Of course aviation may be easier than spaceflight, but I think a large part of the difference is that aviation was developed by companies trying to make a buck, while spaceflight until recently was dominated by governments who were in it for political purposes.

Myself, I'll take the faster progress you get from the profit motive.

I truly believe that if spaceflight had developed under private enterprise like aviation did, you and I would have been able to buy tickets years ago.

nickik2• 8 years ago

I will never understand this sort of idea?

Did you think the future as a space fairing civilization would be all run by one government agency?

Do you think NASA would fly tourist to moon and the mars?

That seems absurd to me. We don't have government building cars, or airplanes, or trains or anything like that. Why should rockets be built by government?

If government wants to do something in space, they have a wealth of private options.

jotm9• 8 years ago

It doesn't seem worse than private companies literally owning people's lives (and having the audacity to call it not slavery). But it seems this is where we're headed, some sort of dystopia ruled by wealthy people.

As for space launches - well, the US Gov did a "great job" at saving what they learned from building the Saturn V, can't imagine them being better at space exploration, either.

Besides, all of the planes and ships are built by private companies, and it's worked OK-ish so far.

HenryBemis• 8 years ago

You had me at "towell"!

chx3• 8 years ago

In 2016, Ford spent 2.34 billion U.S. dollars on advertising in U.S. media. Total Tesla ad budget: 0. Total investment in SpaceX: 1.6 billion U.S. dollars.

josefresco2• 8 years ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/7vt7ru/tesla_spends_0...

chx3• 8 years ago

That includes things like launch parties. They don't do traditional advertising.

sytelus• 8 years ago

Given the excitement, I have to wonder what it would have been like to watch Saturn V takeoff. It still remains the largest most powerful (and most expensive) rocket ever built. Hats off to the previous generation.

TeMPOraL18• 8 years ago

We'll see when ESA or SpaceX decides to launch a Moon mission. HN should still be around then.

lostplesed• 8 years ago

cool

stouset5• 8 years ago

I feel like I must be crazy, but did anyone else notice that the two videos from the pair of boosters seemed like they were cloned from the viewpoint of a single booster?

I don't mean they look similar. I mean they look like they came from the same video feed. When completing the touchdown, they both seem to land at the same pad -- you can see the flame of the other booster and the pad the other booster is landing at in both videos, except they aren't rotated 180 degrees from one-another because the rest of the landscape is identical. Also, watch the moment when the boosters do their initial burn to slow down from freefall. The flames in both videos look virtually identical.

Here's a few samples: https://imgur.com/a/Xpbu8

Did they acknowledge that the videos weren't actually taken from both rockets during the stream and I just missed it? Or is there some other explanation?

RALaBarge• 8 years ago

No.

stouset5• 8 years ago

It would be helpful if you explained what part of my comment you’re replying to.

gizmo• 8 years ago

Yeah, they accidentally used the same stream twice. Easy mistake to make.

stouset5• 8 years ago

Ah! That explains it.

michielr• 8 years ago

They acknowledged it and uploaded a newer video where this is fixed.

marvin3• 8 years ago

Yes, the feed displayed two videos of the same core. Not sure if this was explicitly acknowledged, but supposedly they fixed the error in the archived feed.

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/7vg63x/rspacex_falc...

collinmanderson3• 8 years ago

It's fixed now: https://youtu.be/bCc16uozHVE?t=1443

sir-alien• 8 years ago

“ For Sale. Tesla Roadstar, cherry red. One owner. Covered 92 million miles. Buyer to collect. ”

simosx• 8 years ago

" Quick. May fade to white. "

yujeng• 8 years ago

Wonderful feat, SpaceX! Congratulations!

But I have this one observation on watching the launch, and landing and I hope someone can explain the discrepancy to me:

How come the two boosters when they stick-landed have different colors than when they were launched - so soon? I mean, they were all real shinny white when blasting upwards from the launch pad. Are those the same ones that stick-landed to perfectly?

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

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