Live! Falcon Heavy, world's most powerful rocket, maiden flight

[2hats]

If you can’t get enough of it, more details on recent N-body ensemble analysis of the Tesla which suggests it (or the remains thereof) could continue to orbit the Sun for something of the order of ten million years. There will be numerous encounters with Earth with one likely in 2091 with the object passing less than a Moon distance away. There would appear to be around a 6% chance of the Tesla impacting Earth within the first million years, growing to 10% within 3 million years (with a 3% chance of impact with Venus and virtually no chance of impact with Mars).

Paper:

The random walk of cars and their collision probabilities with planets

On February 6th, 2018 SpaceX launched a Tesla Roadster on a Mars crossing orbit. We perform N-body simulations to determine the fate of the object over the next several million years, under the relevant perturbations acting on the orbit. The orbital evolution is initially dominated by close encounters with the Earth. The first close encounter with the Earth will occur in 2091. The repeated encounters lead to a random walk that eventually causes close encounters with other terrestrial planets and the Sun. Long-term integrations become highly sensitive to the initial conditions after several such close encounters. By running a large ensemble of simulations with slightly perturbed initial conditions, we estimate the probability of a collision with Earth and Venus over the next one million years to be 6% and 2.5%, respectively. We estimate the dynamical lifetime of the Tesla to be a few tens of millions of years.

arXiv:1802.04718v1

 

[ska invita]

Any warranty will have long run out by then!

I
know a garage that would still give it an MOT Pass

 

[coley]

Autonomous cars still have steering wheels:

While it was meant as a joke, the idea of automonous driving is to do away with the driver (and their wheel)

On a more serious note, do all these people cheering on 'AI' and automonous vehicles give a thought to the job losses involved?
Doesn't matter if your Uber ride and your dominoes delivery is a few quid cheaper if you have lost your job to the self same technology.

 

[coley]

I
know a garage that would still give it an MOT Pass

Don't we all -

 

[coley]

Who knows, those aliens could be as gullible as the Muskophiles who post here

Aye, though his fan base can be a bit tedious, his achievements are pretty incredible, are they not?

 

[NoXion]

While it was meant as a joke, the idea of automonous driving is to do away with the driver (and their wheel)

On a more serious note, do all these people cheering on 'AI' and automonous vehicles give a thought to the job losses involved?
Doesn't matter if your Uber ride and your dominoes delivery is a few quid cheaper if you have lost your job to the self same technology.

Well, some claim there will be new jobs. But there are plenty of articles about it on the internet if you look.

 

[Cid]

I only just got round to watching this, but had to mention that, as soon as there were alt. and speed indicators, my brain just went into Kerbal mode.

On a side note the whole thing is kind of horrific. Not the tech, or even the somewhat cliched Bowie stuff... But the corporate aspect.

While it was meant as a joke, the idea of automonous driving is to do away with the driver (and their wheel)

On a more serious note, do all these people cheering on 'AI' and automonous vehicles give a thought to the job losses involved?
Doesn't matter if your Uber ride and your dominoes delivery is a few quid cheaper if you have lost your job to the self same technology.

It matters if your journey is thousands of times safer, or you have a far more efficient (and therefore far less polluting) transport system too though. Some lose, some gain... The problem isn't the technology, it's capitalism (including Musk of course). Like I don't want to live in a country that uses coal for power (I am for a year - China - and the pollution is fucking awful), but I don't want to live in a country where that change fucked over hundreds of thousands (or obviously far more depending on how you look at the whole thing).

 

[coley]

Well, some claim there will be new jobs. But there are plenty of articles about it on the internet if you look.

Sorry, but I have read quite a few of these 'puff pieces'

"There is a collective dialogue that should be engaged now so we can create meaningful, fulfilling, and productive opportunities for all"
FFS

 

[NoXion]

Sorry, but I have read quite a few of these 'puff pieces'

"There is a collective dialogue that should be engaged now so we can create meaningful, fulfilling, and productive opportunities for all"
FFS

I'm not saying I believe any claims that there won't be job losses. But the notion that nobody's talking about them is nonsense.

 

[gosub]

Where is Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster with Starman?

 

[coley]

I'm not saying I believe any claims that there won't be job losses. But the notion that nobody's talking about them is nonsense.

Fair enough, some people are talking about the prospect of job losses,
But my quote, ending in FFS, says it all.

Yes, people are aware their may be 'job losses' but as those job losses won't affect the 'chattering classes, metropolitan elites, media/entertainment, political types......the subject gets very little informed debate.

Until the disaffected start voting for the likes of the Tangerine twat, and start leaning heavily towards Neo fascist regimes, France, (Le pen, got nauseatingly close) Austria, Checoslvacia, Poland, Hungary.
Italys upcoming elections should prove to be interesting.

I'm an avid follower of the move towards a cleaner, more responsible attitude to environmental concerns, but it will all be undone if the likes of The Tangerine Twat, the Koch bros and assorted big oil concerns can convince Joe Soap that his/her job has been lost due to the green movement, rather than is the true case, automation in the workplace.

 

[alex_]

It matters if your journey is thousands of times safer, or you have a far more efficient (and therefore far less polluting) transport system too though. Some lose, some gain... The problem isn't the technology, it's capitalism (including Musk of course). Like I don't want to live in a country that uses coal for power (I am for a year - China - and the pollution is fucking awful), but I don't want to live in a country where that change fucked over hundreds of thousands (or obviously far more depending on how you look at the whole thing).

Automated self driving cars should be a lot cheaper, no human driver so cheaper, the car will be able to run 24x7 because no human driver therefore the cost of the car will be spread over more journeys so cheaper, lower risk (?) so cheaper insurance, I’m sure there is more.

Alex

 

[2hats]

Spotted yesterday, using a 50cm reflector based in Chile, at almost magnitude +20 some 3.7 million km away…

A shot of this object will set the distance record for visual observation of an interplanetary payload (this currently sets the bar, but someone is likely to break that in the coming days).

 

[friedaweed]

Does anyone else think of this guy when they misread this thread title?

 

[2hats]

The roadster plus upper stage should be readily distinguishable from true NEO asteroids as an artificial object during future passes in the vicinity of the Earth - it clearly stands apart in photometric colour-colour plots (difference measures in various filter combinations):

(Above a plot of a function of green and red and near-IR against a near-IR difference measure).

 

[Crispy]

Falcon Heavy flies again tonight! This time with a paying customer. Unlike the test launch which used "old" boosters, this flight will use the "Block 5" version which is 10% more powerful. They'll try and catch all three cores, which will then be refurbished and flown again in June. Live webcast will be here:



Liftoff just after 23:30 our time, but the pre-match coverage should be worth a watch too.

 

[Crispy]

Oof. Launch delayed till 1am. Window closes at 0130.

 

[Limejuice]

Elon, you tease.

As I understand it, the launch is re-scheduled for 23.30-ish (BST) Thursday.

 

[Crispy]

High level wind shear is the reason. Winds up there are weird - you can go from perfectly still air to 40mph winds in an instant. Not a good recipe for stable flight.

 

[Crispy]

The weather Is perfect and fueling has started. T minus 32m.

Webcast not started yet

 

[editor]

Well the video has started. Took me a while to work out where the music was coming from on my PC!

 

[Crispy]

Liquid oxygen loading now underway. Expect a launch bang on time. T-20m

 

[Crispy]

The old service tower looks well spiffy now

 

[joustmaster]

It's a mighty looking monster isn't it?

 

[Crispy]

Cheers!

 

[Limejuice]

Looks like it's going to be a good launch.

Fingers crossed.

 

[joustmaster]

View attachment 167393

Cheers!

Sheep seems excited to watch it

 

[editor]

*exciting!

 

[editor]

Look at the size of that fucker!

 

[editor]

Yes!