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SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

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Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#231

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!

Totally agree. But where are the women?

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#232
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why would these two images not be the same then? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c&t=37m48s

Here's proof they were the same- coming in to the same pad

https://imgur.com/a/u6sLs

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#234
post #14

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

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…

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.

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#235

>> [...] 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 ?

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.

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#236
post #171

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!

Lost, or lost video feed?

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

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#237

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?

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

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#238

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 who…

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.

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#239

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

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.

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#240

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?

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.

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.

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