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

[nuffsaid]

Elon Musk's Space Tesla Isn't Going to Mars. It's Going Somewhere More Important.

Nothing will convince me. The rocket was awesome and well done about bloody time we had some decent traction on a space program, I saw the Moon landings live, it was bloody ages after that until the Space Shuttle and that was canned with no replacement, dreadful, after all I was promised. I want my holiday on the Moon!!!

 

[NoXion]

More value in putting something with some immediate scientific return.

This was an engineering test, to establish the functionality of the design. This means there is a non-trivial risk of failure on launch. That's not the sort of mission you want to send a bunch of expensive scientific equipment on.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I thought NASA built the Space Shuttle, wasn't that NASA, that was hardware, hardware that was very quickly too dangerous to use.

Boeing built the space shuttle, the orbiter anyway.

 

[cybershot]

So make one that has some scientific value.....not a flipping car....a car in space...it's bonkers!

It’s not bonkers because you’re talking about it. That’s the whole point of putting something so many people can connect to as the payload. Plus it’s a load of pr for Tesla.

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

I thought NASA built the Space Shuttle, wasn't that NASA, that was hardware, hardware that was very quickly too dangerous to use.

NASA doesn't really have a manufacturing capability - their role was to spec out the requirements. It was the usual suspects who actually built the things - Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Rockwell etc. Aerospace companies/arms manufacturers.

 

[nuffsaid]

Was more the pressure to absorb to military satellite program

Ah, yes, now we're getting there....Somewhere near Rumsfeld's 2Trillion dollar hole he couldn't account for, that's more like it.

 

[mauvais]

You lot know that the car is a Lotus, right? It was built in a shed in Norfolk before the Californians meddled with it.

 

[2hats]

It was also about demonstrating the upper stage coast, multiple relight and burn times of this configuration for certain military customers.

 

[nuffsaid]

NASA doesn't really have a manufacturing capability - their role was to spec out the requirements. It was the usual suspects who actually built the things - Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Rockwell etc. Aerospace companies/arms manufacturers.

Aha, indeed, so why don't NASA get a look in on what those guys are up to these days.

 

[2hats]

Boeing built the space shuttle, the orbiter anyway.

Rockwell International (Boeing acquired Rockwell’s aerospace and defense divisions in 1996/97).

 

[nuffsaid]

It’s not bonkers because you’re talking about it. That’s the whole point of putting something so many people can connect to as the payload. Plus it’s a load of pr for Tesla.

Science before PR for goodness sake! what has the world become. Idiocracy.

 

[cybershot]

Anyhoot I think we have 4 pages of the same arguments re the car! Those that get it, get it, those that don’t. Don’t.

 

[Spymaster]

Science before PR for goodness sake! what has the world become.

What on earth are you on about?

Edit> Actually, don't worry about it. What Cybershot said ^^^^

 

[joustmaster]

Aha, indeed, so why don't NASA get a look in on what those guys are up to these days.

NASA are too slow and are really expensive, for some reason.

 

[nuffsaid]

What on earth are you on about?

Edit> Actually, don't worry about it. What Cybershot said ^^^^

Surely we should be using space for science.....not PR.

 

[NoXion]

Science before PR for goodness sake! what has the world become. Idiocracy.

Actually, IQs have been rising. While it doesn't necessarily prove that we're getting smarter, it would seem to be a point against the notion we're getting dumber.

 

[nuffsaid]

Actually, IQs have been rising. While it doesn't necessarily prove that we're getting smarter, it would seem to be a point against the notion we're getting dumber.

And yet we put a car into space.

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

Surely we should be using space for science.....not PR.

The Apollo programme was largely PR.

 

[Spymaster]

And yet we put a car into space.

 

[gosub]

This was an engineering test, to establish the functionality of the design. This means there is a non-trivial risk of failure on launch. That's not the sort of mission you want to send a bunch of expensive scientific equipment on.

But they did... It's got a booster its streaming several channels of video and it's testing the mid orbits switches between here and Mars... Could have gone for a more traditional design but this one helps capture kids imagination.


I'd hope the non plussed are just taking the piss but after the farora over the asteroid landing man's shirt who can tell.

 

[NoXion]

And yet we put a car into space.

So? It's been explained why that's a trivial issue in terms of having useless junk flying around. Space is already full of it.

 

[NoXion]

But they did... It's got a booster its streaming several channels of video and it's testing the mid orbits switches between here and Mars... Could have gone for a more traditional design but this one helps capture kids imagination.


I'd hope the non plussed are just taking the piss but after the farora over the asteroid landing man's shirt who can tell.

I don't see what that has to do with it?

 

[NoXion]

NASA are too slow and are really expensive, for some reason.

NASA got their funding cut heavily in the 70s and had to scale back their ambitions after Apollo.

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

God bless whoever made this



Ach, doesn't play when embedded

 

[mauvais]

All of you 'oh waa waa why have they sent a car' bleaters are missing the big picture.

Like how after a few years they might get it back, send it for MOT, and the DVLA IT department will collectively shit their trews trying endlessly to enlarge the mileage column on their database.

 

[Crispy]

NASA are too slow and are really expensive, for some reason.

NASA is pork for senators with aerospace jobs in their district. It is ossified by bureacracy and a paralysing fear of change (in the name of safety). They should stick to research and discovery, and stay the hell out of actual spaceflight.

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

NASA got their funding cut heavily in the 70s and had to scale back their ambitions after Apollo.

If they could have maintained funding at 4% of federal spending- and obviously there's a billion reasons why that was never going to happen - I wonder what would have happened.

 

[editor]

What for?

How do you like your sat nav?

 

[editor]

So will have to be factored in for every mission to Mars now...

I think you may be underestimating the absolute fucking enormity of space a bit.

 

[gosub]

If they could have maintained funding at 4% of federal spending- and obviously there's a billion reasons why that was never going to happen - I wonder what would have happened.

Looking at the state of infrastructure in the States.. Cold War was a closer run thing than they made out we'd probably be drinking more vodka.


Voyage by Stephen Baxter which was on R4extra is quite good: Kennedy doesn't die... So the US goes to Mars