The Roadster was in use by Musk for years. They didn't build it for the occasion
That was the new Tesla that just was announced. I assume he hasn't been driving it for years.
You're mistaken; it's one of the original-style Tesla roadsters, not the newly announced model. You can see an image of the payload here [0], and of the new model here [1].
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
Okay, in my opinion it's a waste of resources because if it is at all, it is very bad art. (It took no discernment or taste to do; it's an empty, ostentatious gesture. Precious little discernment or taste in the predictable Adams reference, too.) (Disclaimer: I like Douglas Adams.)
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.
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 So you might want to re-evaluate what you think a rocket scientist "looks like", because your notion is outdated.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 a…
> 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...
Someone asked me to be a reference, I said no, they still put me as a reference anyway. I was not happy. Didn't badmouth him, but I also didn't say anything good about him. And when asked if I would hire him where I worked, I said no.
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…
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.
That sounds like a personal problem.
This is an amazing achievement and a huge PR win for space!
I'm pretty sure that there was plenty of fuel margin. If it did come in too hot, there must have been some other reason. My first thought is that the extra 'stuff' on the outside of the center booster required to connect the outside boosters might have caused some problems during re-entry.
That or simply timing issues. The center core should be faster than F9 is when it's coming in for landing, so if the compensation for that wasn't worked out quite right (possibly due to extra weight in addition to the velocity difference) that'd pretty quickly get it coming in too hot. After all, it's only a few second difference between 'nominal' and 'way too hot' with the suicide-burn style landings.
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.
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 a…
On the other hand, there are indeed many scientists/engineers who look/act "nerdy" or don't have the suaveness of people we typically see on TV. I think what GP is saying is that typically companies will put forward people who are good-looking and charismatic for PR, so it's nice to see someone different and unpolished be center-stage in the public eye.
Even mannerisms may be a bias we should try to fight.
Point is, it's not fair to assume that _any_ bias was being shown. I don't think anyone believes that "PR person" or "paid actor" is a bad profession. You're assuming the parent was biased against something, and I'm suggesting that the parent discovered some mannerisms were not as indicative of a specific profession as they thought, and said so.
It's not an assumption, it's in the parent comment itself:
> The other hosts are great, but if you told me they were hired actors or PR people I'd believe it.
