SpaceX Successfully Lands Two Falcon Heavy Boosters Simultaneously After Rocket Launch [Update] (spaceflightnow.com) 446
After nearly a decade of development, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket has successfully launched from pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida today. After reaching orbit, the two side boosters simultaneously landed at Landing Zone One. We do not know the status of the central core of the rocket, which was destined to land on the "Of Course I Still Love You" drone ship roughly 8:19 minutes into the flight.
According to Space.com, the Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket to launch since NASA's Saturn V -- the iconic vessel that, with 7.5 million pounds of thrust, accomplished the definitive Apollo-era feat of putting astronauts on the moon. Elon Musk says that Falcon Heavy is "twice as powerful as any other booster operating today." As for the payload, it includes a Tesla Roadster electric car. "The Falcon Heavy will send the vehicle around the sun in an elliptical orbit that will extend farther than Mars' orbit," reports Space.com.
UPDATE: SpaceX has confirmed The Verge's reporting that the middle core of SpaceX's Heavy Rocket missed the drone ship where it was supposed to land. "The center core was only able to relight one of the three engines necessary to land, and so it hit the water at 300 miles per hour," reports The Verge. "Two engines on the drone ship were taken out when it crashed, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in a press call after the rocket launch. It's a small hiccup in an otherwise successful first flight."
According to Space.com, the Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket to launch since NASA's Saturn V -- the iconic vessel that, with 7.5 million pounds of thrust, accomplished the definitive Apollo-era feat of putting astronauts on the moon. Elon Musk says that Falcon Heavy is "twice as powerful as any other booster operating today." As for the payload, it includes a Tesla Roadster electric car. "The Falcon Heavy will send the vehicle around the sun in an elliptical orbit that will extend farther than Mars' orbit," reports Space.com.
UPDATE: SpaceX has confirmed The Verge's reporting that the middle core of SpaceX's Heavy Rocket missed the drone ship where it was supposed to land. "The center core was only able to relight one of the three engines necessary to land, and so it hit the water at 300 miles per hour," reports The Verge. "Two engines on the drone ship were taken out when it crashed, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in a press call after the rocket launch. It's a small hiccup in an otherwise successful first flight."
It went off so flawlessly (Score:5, Informative)
BeauHD should be ashamed of this shitty summary! (Score:4, Informative)
What a shitty Slashdot summary for such an important event!
Don't bother reading that shitty article. Just go to SpaceX's website directly, where there is video footage. [spacex.com] Or look at the SpaceX tweets [twitter.com].
Re:It went off so flawlessly (Score:4, Insightful)
Ed Tice exulted:
That I had to double-check that I was watching a live stream and not a CGI of what they expected to happen.
My wife and I watched the SpaceX live stream of the launch just minutes ago. The liftoff was so "nominal" - to use Launch Control's colorless term - it brought tears to my eyes.
And the simultaneous safe landing of the two external boosters (both of which have flown to space and returned previously!) made us both cry tears of joy and pride in this landmark achievment.
As a teenager, I was privileged to watch Apollo 11 lift off for our moon from the vantage of the front yard of our rental house in Satellite Beach. For me, this maiden flight of the Falcon Heavy was an event that resonated very strongly with that one: an aspirational and technological peak moment in the history of our species. The main difference here and now (aside from 48.5 years or so) is that, while the promise of Kennedy's lunar landing initiative was squandered by the petty vindictiveness of Richard Nixon's personality, the successful launch of the Falcon Heavy brings the quest that the Apollo program initiated back to life again - and puts us back, at long last, on the path toward eventual human habitation of the entire Sol system.
The true Space Age starts now ...
(Posting as AC only so as not to undo prior upmods in this thread.)
--
Check out my novel [amazon.com] ...
Re:It went off so flawlessly (Score:4, Insightful)
The true Space Age starts now ...
(Posting as AC only so as not to undo prior upmods in this thread.)
Wow, thank you, you and a few others posted my thoughts, my optimism, my hope so perfectly.
I was sitting there glued to the TV, watching it, just thinking to myself "Come on, Beautiful Machine, you can do it!"
Sadly it seems like the main rocket was lost, but they'll get the kinks out. What a beautiful achievement.
It would have been nice if you'd been able to post that as yourself and keep your moderations - I have a feeling that they were as insightful as your post here.
Thanks.
Re:It went off so flawlessly (Score:5, Funny)
I do have to point out that Elon Musk missed out on another historic opportunity he could have pulled off with this launch. It they can put a Tesla Roadster in orbit around the Sun, then they could have just as easily launched a tea pot into orbit as well, thereby totally ruining the Russell's Teapot Argument as a philosophical debate point.
Then again, they would just change to some other object like Hopper's Source Code, or Hawking's Colostomy Bag, or Ada's Dildo.
Re:It went off so flawlessly (Score:4, Funny)
I do have to point out that Elon Musk missed out on another historic opportunity he could have pulled off with this launch. It they can put a Tesla Roadster in orbit around the Sun ...
Anyone else notice that in the book/film The Martian astronaut Mark Watney was launched into orbit from Mars in a "convertible" (he removed the MAV nose airlock and windows) and now Musk has launched an "astronaut" in a literal convertible into an orbit around Mars.
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Re:It went off so flawlessly (Score:5, Insightful)
The technical term is "FUCKING AWESOME!"
It was a beautiful thing. Launches have been pretty dull for many years, but this felt just like the first Shuttle launch, like something new and amazing had happened.
Re:It went off so flawlessly (Score:4, Interesting)
I talk a lot of shit about Musk, but I've got to say, that was some first-rate space-shot porn. When the two side-boosters landed, there were tears in my cynical old eyes. Salut.
The only thing that could top this is if the flat-earth guy finally gets his homemade rocket off the ground. I've got high hopes for that maniac.
Re:It went off so flawlessly (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah it was fucking awesome, and all the Elon Musk haters out there can go SUCK IT!
Seriously. This guy is just about the ONLY person in the world who has been rewarded with huge amounts of money, and has decided to audaciously pursue his positive vision for a bold and bright future for humanity. THE ONLY FUCKING PERSON. Everyone else out there is just trying to scam and suck as much money as they can out of human civilization before the lights go out. He is trying to give us a sustainable energy future, he is trying to solve our practical transportation problems, and he is trying to get us to the next stage in space travel and exploration. Virtually nobody else is doing that, and in fact they seem to be trying to do everything they can to prevent these advances.
"Fucking awesome" doesn't even scratch the surface of how fucking awesome this is.
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That I had to double-check that I was watching a live stream and not a CGI of what they expected to happen.
That side by side landing of the outer boosters was a thing of beauty.
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Wasn't that landing just awesome to watch? That is how it should be done. I can't help but think someone was just showing off at that point. Well Played.
Re:It went off so flawlessly (Score:5, Insightful)
Since they started landing rockets on barges. It has happened many, many times before on Falcon 9 landings. Turns out connectivity in the middle of the ocean is flaky. At any rate, what makes a mockery of science is shooting off your mouth with conspiracy ramblings anytime you don't understand something and haven't bothered to take a minute to look it up despite living in the 21st century with the internet in your pocket.
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The update tells the story: the communications drop was caused by the center core crashing into the barge after only of the intended three engines relit. Because the barge was unmanned, nobody knew this at the time.
Re:Not quite so flawlessly (Score:5, Interesting)
It wasn't quite live. There is obviously a long enough delay inserted that they were able to shut down the feed before the world saw the main rocket crash.
From what I've read of Elon Musk, that isn't how he operates. If the damn thing was to have just blew up on the pad, not only would the feed keep rolling, Elon Musk would out talking about how bitch'n the explosion was.
Re:Not quite so flawlessly (Score:5, Funny)
From what I've read of Elon Musk, that isn't how he operates. If the damn thing was to have just blew up on the pad, not only would the feed keep rolling, Elon Musk would out talking about how bitch'n the unscheduled rapid disassembly was.
FTFY
Re:Not quite so flawlessly (Score:4, Informative)
You actually did see it. They had a feed from the deck of the drone ship which went from clear to what looked like a steam room in a split second.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
That's what I guess you see when something hits the water at 300 mph.
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It wasn't quite live. There is obviously a long enough delay inserted that they were able to shut down the feed before the world saw the main rocket crash. I wouldn't call that part catastrophic. I don't intend to rain on the parade, because all in all this is a brilliant achievement, but losing the main vehicle isn't the small blip that SpaceX said it was either. Two of the three engines failed. That's significant in and of itself. Losing the main vehicle because of that isn't a minor event. Still, it represents mission success, which is the main thing. And it's nice to see something outside of government with that kind of heavy lift ability.
Hmm... As on previous occasions, the vibrations travelling through the air just before the Falcon lands, disrupts the transmission by affecting the aerial. However, this time, the Falcon hit hard.
I guess you must a Trump supporter???
Way to go guys... First attempt! (Score:2)
It's like they know what they are doing or something over there at Space-X.. Time to make some money!
Re:Way to go guys... First attempt! (Score:5, Funny)
They certainly do know where their towels are...
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Yes, anyone can see that. But do they understand it?
I'd like to know if sales of the HHGTTG (all versions) will increase because of this.
Launch/Booster Landing Video /Great Accomplishment (Score:5, Insightful)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Quite amazing to watch the two boosters land simultaneously (at 37:58).
I guess Mr. Musk was sandbagging a bit when he said he would be happy if the pad wasn't destroyed.
Everyone at SpaceX must be very proud, and rightly so.
Core stage? (Score:3)
As I write this, still no word as to whether or not the core stage landed on the drone ship successfully.
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It was pretty obvious when they killed the webcast so quickly.
https://twitter.com/chillichee... [twitter.com]
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The feed drops out on every barge landing, and the quote is a bit ambiguous, but it seems that this time it's dead, yeah.
Re:Core stage? (Score:5, Informative)
Confirmed at the news conference [youtube.com]. Not enough fuel left on the central core; only one of the three engines managed to relight, and the stage hit the water at 300mph. However, SpaceX not only didn't plan not to use the central core again, but doesn't plan to use the side boosters either; they're not Block 5, and SpaceX only plans to re-launch Block 5 from now on. That said, the side boosters appear to be in good shape.
The main concern right now is on the upper stage. They've never had a stage dwell so long in such a high radiation flux. It should re-light, but they won't know until they try.
Re:Core stage? (Score:5, Informative)
Slight correction: the core ran out of ignition fluid (a mix of triethylborane and triethylaluminum, ignites on contact with LOX (or most anything, really)), not fuel. A similar setup was used for both the Saturn V's F-1 engines, and the SR-71's J58 engines.
And a status update: the second stage re-lit just fine, and in fact exceeded expectations - the aphelion of the orbit is well past Mars, just shy of Ceres in fact.
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It landed in the water.
Re:Launch/Booster Landing Video /Great Accomplishm (Score:5, Insightful)
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Very much so. I wish I could have been there, but just watching it on TV was awe inspiring. I'm now really curious what the battery/solar setup on the payload is. Obviously Musk does both, and with dragon has the space experience. I'm wondering if we're going to get video from Spaceman in his Tesla for just a little while, or if he's got it set up to broadcast for the next decade.
Knowing Musk, it's the latter.
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Very exciting, though I couldn't help but notice that the supposedly different booster feeds were actually one duplicated feed. If you watch carefully at the buildings and roads you can see that they both show an identical landing on the bottom-right-most "X-only" pad, while the ground-level cam clearly shows the nearer one landing in the X-in-circle pad. You can even see circle-pad destined booster's flame at the top of both feeds.
I assume somebody goofed with the feeds, and didn't notice in all the exci
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Yup, I noticed that too when watching it live (even when they were saying they're different). I then re-watched it this morning and I noticed that they fixed the video so the bottom panels show different feeds.
They also fixed the fairing separation - I didn't see it happen live, just heard the music and the cheers, but now you see it how it happened.
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Nope. Watch the video again, they both seem to be focusing on one pad, as you say, but in the last few seconds the other pad comes into view on one of the feeds.
They're really close, but they are different.
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They've fixed the video, it was definitely the same feed when broadcast live.
What a time to be alive! (Score:5, Insightful)
many things are shitty nowadays - islamic fundamentalism, dying off of coral reefs, melting of permafrost, plastic pollution in the oceans, spreading of idiocracy.... one bright, very bright spot is Space X and a community of people (of which I am a member) that fervently follows the space programs, our steps into the new frontier.
I feel lucky that there are other people like me, and I can interact with them through the Internet (mostly on reddit).
Re:What a time to be alive! (Score:5, Funny)
Indeed. It's a massive expenditure of energy, but at least it's not for high frequency trading or bitcoins!
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It's a massive expenditure of energy, but at least it's not for high frequency trading or bitcoins!
Good point.
Re:What a time to be alive! (Score:5, Interesting)
Brilliant idea:
Elon put a thumbdrive containing 100,000 bitcoins in the glovebox of the car. Anyone that can build a rocket to get them can keep them.
Oh by the way, can you stop at Mars and found a colony while you are there?
MuskCoin (Score:3)
You just gave me the idea for a new Crypto. Heres my whitepaper. MuskCoin can only be mined by launching a spaceship. One MuskCoin is 90 million dollars. I have already premined 0.5 MuskCoin as my fee for this Whitepaper
Let's not blow this out of proportion (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure, what they've done isn't exactly easy, but it's not as groundbreaking as you make it out to be. This is an incremental improvement on 1960s-era technologies. The hardest work underlying this technology was done before 1970. That earlier work was truly groundbreaking, and even more impressive because so much of it predated practical digital computing. They aren't 'stepping into a new frontier'. That was done decades ago by our grandparents, or even our great grandparents on some cases. The most innovati
Re:Let's not blow this out of proportion (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's be fair though - that first step into a new frontier was followed almost immediately by near-total retreat. This time the most important part of the engineering has been put front and center: the economics. We've just watched the most powerful rocket to fly in more than thirty years (by a factor of more than two) send an appreciable payload on an interplanetary trajectory, while landing all three first-stage boosters back on Earth (well, two of three, still waiting for confirmation on the core).
Yeah, it's only the fourth most powerful rocket ever launched, and is more than a factor of two behind the Saturn V, the most powerful ever launched. But it landed again, and can (presumably) fly again, bringing the cost down to a fraction of anything flown before.
This time when we go to space, we'll have a fair shot at staying there. And that is groundbreaking, in the farmer tilling his field sense. Going up turned out to be the easy part - coming down again in one piece, that's what will unlock space beyond Earth orbit as more than a research novelty.
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Larger payload isn't the ultimate metric (Score:5, Insightful)
Falcon Heavy has a much smaller payload capacity than Saturn V.
Good thing they can send 2 or 3 for less money.
As Airbus is learning quite painfully, larger payload isn't the ultimate metric.
The Saturn V was an amazing thing for its day. But needs and the optimal equipment changes. In the era of a few big missions, that Saturn V made sense. But now we are in the era of lots of small to medium sized missions, the Falcon Heavy makes more sense.
Reusable launch systems aren't new. Nothing about it is particularly remarkable.
Except the boosters that fly themselves back to the launch site and land on their tail. That, until Space X, was sci fi movie stuff.
Re: Let's not blow this out of proportion (Score:4, Informative)
Space Shuttle booster recovery was about recovering scrap metal. It's not remotely comparable to recovering something that you could (if you wanted to) refuel and send back upward in 10 minutes.
The re-usability of the Dragon spacecraft, on the other hand, is much less novel.
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Re:What a time to be alive! (Score:4, Insightful)
What ever is going on these days. Don't Panic!
The best news I've read in years (Score:5, Insightful)
Undoubtedly the coolest technology test in history. Epic. Well done SpaceX! You've just inspired kids again like NASA did in the 60's.
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Undoubtedly the coolest technology test in history. Epic.
Well, coolest technology test since the first launch of a Saturn-V, anyway.
Well done SpaceX! You've just inspired kids again like NASA did in the 60's.
Agreed.
Re:The best news I've read in years (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't see two parts of a Saturn V come in under rocket power for a simultaneous landing.
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Looks like pretty much the shuttle and Space-X launchers for now, unless you;re going to count the Buran. Since Space-X has shown the way, other people are following.
The shuttle dropped its solid fuel boosters in the water, and they were pretty much rebuilt. The orbiter glided to a landing. The whole system was really expensive for launching stuff.
The Falcon Heavy landed the two boosters on land, coming down on their tails, exactly like rockets were depicted when I was young. The core, apparently,
Re:The best news I've read in years (Score:5, Funny)
I was jumping up and down while my 7 year old kid was rolling his eyes and trying desperately to watch Pokemon on the cell phone.
Re:The best news I've read in years (Score:5, Insightful)
I called in "sick" and was trying not to spill my beer. :)
I'm currently watching live video of the earth reflected off of Musk's personal Tesla Roadster. (SpaceX channel on youtube.)
That's going to get pushed into a heliocentric orbit in 5 hrs, which will bring it close to Mars' orbit.
This is pretty much the most mind-blowing thing that I've seen in a very, very long time. It's the goofball version of the first moon landing, since it involves a dummy in a car with the radio playing and "Don't Panic" displayed on the dashboard. But that doesn't really detract from what was done here. Still no confirmation of the center booster, but they landed at least 2 out of the three, and sent a payload into an orbit that could easily be a Mars supply run. And all far, far cheaper than NASA or anyone else could do it.
On the first try.
I can't imagine what the next decade is going to bring us.
did the core land OK? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Yes. Perfect platform on water landing.
Fucking A, that was awesome!
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Unless the GP or a friend works in SpaceX, they're just guessing. No confirmation on any of the official channels yet.
Although given the last what....half dozen? Dozen landings on the drone ship, probably landed OK.
News coming in that it did not. (Score:3)
According to twitter posts, it seems that it did not. 2 out of 3 is not bad ;) Also, they had to have something not go perfect in order to learn from the test flight :)
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Re:News coming in that it did not. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:News coming in that it did not. (Score:4, Funny)
I'm French! How do you think I got this outrageous accent?
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Did the core of stage 1 land successfully?
Watching the public video feed of the barge, it appears that they cut it after a bunch of smoke @T+8:52, so I'm guessing no...
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This is a company which has released compilation video of their rocket explosions (mostly failed landings.)
Great Launch, ULA probably panicking (Score:4, Insightful)
I have to admit I was watching it live and it looked like everything went smoothly as can be. I'm guessing SpaceX probably simulated everything for the launch but as they say sometimes you have to try it out in real-life to see if it really works! I imagine the United Launch Alliance might be panicking now as SpaceX is well on their way of making "Heavy" launches significantly cheaper as former heavy launches were all done by them with a significantly more expensive rocket.
Re:Great Launch, ULA probably panicking (Score:4, Insightful)
ULA's competition is what produces excellence in private-sector space operations, just as it does everywhere else in the economy. But now we are about to find out the biggest advantage of private space programs by far: the ability to take risks that no government program could contemplate.
Though NASA is crammed with technical talent, and does very well at science missions, the flat-earth lobby will not let it take the risks with human crews that we need to move beyond LEO. That will be a job for entrepreneurs.
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> Otherwise, stop screwing around in port, and go out to open space.
Why? There's very nearly literally *nothing* in space, it's just the void you have to cross to get anywhere. Asteroids are one obvious goal, lots of probably-fairly-concentrated raw materials, but mostly a pretty serious energy gradient to cross between.
The moon though is much closer, and offers limited gravity which would make early experiments in habitat construction a lot more convenient, as well as getting useful data on the health
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Yes and no. The upper stage for the Delta IV heavy is much more performant than the Falcon 9 second stage. While the F9 can throw more weight to LEO, it's less clear when it comes to direct geostationary insertion.
The other issue is that the F9/FH fairing is pretty close to being too small to actually use the FH's entire throw weight. The only way it could really actually launch the 60 tons or whatever would be if it was solid metal. A customer wanting to launch such a large load would alos have to pay for
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Even without center core landing this is amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if the center core turned out to not land correctly, this is still absolutely amazing. The simultaneous landing of both the side boosters was literally awe-inspiring. SpaceX had initially said they might stagger their landings by a little in case one went wrong, but it looks like they had the hubris to land them both literally at the same time. And lesson there is hubris is fucking awesome, and those obnoxious Greek gods can go suck it.
More seriously, this is going to have a massive impact on the heavy end of the launch market. Even without reuse, it looks like Falcon Heavy is going to be cheaper for almost all big payloads than any of the other heavy launchers, especially Ariane 5 and Delta Heavy. The only issue right now limiting its use are twofold: First, it has a relatively small fairing, so it is possible that some payloads will have volume issues- but that will be rare, and making a new fairing is something SpaceX may do if a customer is interested in it. Second, the Falcon Heavy is for pretty obvious reasons not man-rated. That may change in the future, and the current plan right now is to just man-rate the Falcon 9, but if the Falcon Heavy does get man-rated then there will be almost no market for anything else. If Grey Dragon or others can go on a Falcon Heavy it will be a very different situation. And of course, the Falcon Heavy doesn't have the same lift capability as the SLS, but the SLS still hasn't flown yet, and will cost literally a billion dollars or so a launch.
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The simultaneous landing of both the side boosters was literally awe-inspiring.
Oh man, you said it. I lost it somewhere between the lift-off and that awesome visual of both boosers landing simultaneously.
A tiny, little, shy but manly tear rolling down them old cheecks.
OK, maybe not that manly. I don't care.
Even without reuse, it looks like Falcon Heavy is going to be cheaper for almost all big payloads than any of the other heavy launchers, especially Ariane 5 and Delta Heavy.
I agree, but reusing the boosters would be more than just icing on the cake.
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Yup. It takes a lot for me to cry, but watching that was, well, goddamit, one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. This is the beginning of the Second Space Age. You've got to give Musk credit. He may seem like a money-burning madman, but maybe that's what it takes.
Re:Even without center core landing this is amazin (Score:5, Insightful)
He may seem like a money-burning madman, but maybe that's what it takes.
I see little madness in burning money this way. What better can a man do with lots of money? Get a nice car, maybe two, get a beautiful villa... a yacht, a place to spend the winter... and then? Another villa? Two more, three more? After a certain point, magabucks are just a number on your bank account, and purely pointless.
What Elon is doing with his money is awe-inspiring, electrifying, actually transcendent. One of the best damn thing you can do with your life before kicking the bucket.
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Re:Even without center core landing this is amazin (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Even without center core landing this is amazin (Score:4, Insightful)
FH is as safe as F9
How do you figure that? FH is basically three F9s strung together. Whatever the chance of a catastrophic failure is on a F9 launch, FH will be basically 3 times that.
does not seem so.. (Score:2, Informative)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B_tWbjFIGI&feature=youtu.be&t=2299
Heavy Metal (Score:2)
Looks like the centre core was lost (Score:5, Informative)
Here is a tweet [twitter.com] with a view of monitors showing smoke clearing from the drone ship deck with no rocket aboard. It seems it missed the ship. Not too surprising as the centre core is a new machine that has never flown before. Also, the re-entry profile was likely one of the hottest ones they have tried.
Awe inspiring (Score:5, Insightful)
What a pleasure it was to see rockets land like God and Robert A. Heinlein intended!
Live view of starman streaming (Score:2)
They are streaming a live view of the star man here [youtube.com] It is rolling a bit...I believe this called a BBQ roll, to prevent the car from getting too hot in the sun.
Sticking out my thumb (Score:5, Funny)
I noticed the words "Don't Panic" displayed in large, friendly letters on the Tesla's console.
Let me make sure I have a firm grip on my towel.
Re:Sticking out my thumb (Score:5, Informative)
This Starman is well prepared for whatever might come.
*THIS* is what makes America great (Score:5, Interesting)
After several years of our so-called "leaders" casting their eyes down, looking to the past, and pitting one against another in a zero-sum game, it is exhilarating to see what happened today.
America is greatest when we look for hard - some might say impossible - challenges and go for it.
And all this because of an immigrant.
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Just because I remember men on the moon doesn't mean I'm over 50.
I've just been 24 for over 24 years . . .
Anyway, if you compare the cost/ton of this to Saturn V, in inflation adjusted dollars, fraction of GDP, or other reasonable terms, it would be *much* cheaper to reach the moon with these.
You send pieces and fuel to orbit on multiple launches, and then send up astronauts.
hawk
Where's the Kaboom? (Score:5, Funny)
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I wouldn't assume conspiracy. Elon is the sort who'd just let the feed roll. He's been quite open about how "space is hard" and honest and forthcoming when things go wrong. Whatever took out the video feed was accidental.
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Why would it suspiciously be cut short? Elon Musk actively celebrates the learned experiences of failure when rockets blow up. He was even joking around yesterday that if the entire mission was a failure with the entire thing exploding (the entire heavy, not just the central booster), that it would still be an awesome experience.
Re: Core Landing Did Not Look Good (Score:5, Insightful)
That's part of Musk and his team's brilliance. They understand that failure is as good a teacher, sometimes even a better teacher, than success. Those earlier rocket engineers blew up a lot of hardware in the quest for space. You cannot be afraid to take chances.
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Yeah, I recall him saying that he'd consider the test flight a success if they just managed to get far enough away to avoid damaging the launch pad.
Re: Core Landing Did Not Look Good (Score:5, Informative)
In the press conference today he said he's hoping that the cameras on the drone ship turn out to be intact, he expects there to be some good explosion footage on them ;) I love how it always gets posted.
One interesting thing from the press conference: of all of the parts of the rocket, he's most pleased to get the titanium grid fins on the boosters back. The central core didn't have the new grid fins, but the boosters did - and they're very expensive, and currently a production bottleneck for them.
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The range has to be clear of all boats, so an external feed would require a second drone ship tailing the first... a difficult proposition, but not impossible. Probably not worth it, since it has nothing but entertainment value.
Re:Nice job/booster question (Score:5, Informative)
It is hard to make a rocket nozzle that works well in the atmosphere and in space.
Yes! This is one of the reasons for staging. The first stage engines are optimized for atmospheric use and the upper stage for vacuum or near vacuum conditions. In the case of the Falcon Heavy, the first stage uses 27 Merlin 1D engines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine_family)#Merlin_1D [wikipedia.org], and the upper stage uses a single vacuum optimized Merlin 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine_family)#Merlin_1D_Vacuum [wikipedia.org]. This isn't the only reason for staging (all that extra mass from carrying extra storage tanks for empty fuel and oxygen is another big one) but it is a major one.
With that many engines to steer, I wonder if there is some way to use the extra degrees of freedom to shape the plume to get a bit more thrust?
I don't have a source for this off-hand, but given my understanding my guess is going to be no. Almost all the things that happen to alter the thrust profile occur in the engine itself or immediately outside the engine. Anything you would do that could have any chance at this would end up having to have multiple outer engines pointing somewhat inwards which would mean you'd have some thrust canceling out from the outer engines. Anything you could gain by somehow altering the profile of the inner engines wouldn't be remotely worth losing thrust that way. If more containment would give more thrust in some range, you'd just build your engine with a longer nozzle.
Re:Nice job/booster question (Score:4, Insightful)
With that many engines to steer, I wonder if there is some way to use the extra degrees of freedom to shape the plume to get a bit more thrust?
I don't have a source for this off-hand, but given my understanding my guess is going to be no. Almost all the things that happen to alter the thrust profile occur in the engine itself or immediately outside the engine. Anything you would do that could have any chance at this would end up having to have multiple outer engines pointing somewhat inwards which would mean you'd have some thrust canceling out from the outer engines. Anything you could gain by somehow altering the profile of the inner engines wouldn't be remotely worth losing thrust that way. If more containment would give more thrust in some range, you'd just build your engine with a longer nozzle.
The way you adjust the plume is to have a higher expansion on the engines operating in vacuum. On the normal pressure engines, you expand the plume to atmosperic pressure, but on a vacuum engine, that's not a limit.
For an engine that operates in atmosphere, and then continues to operate in vacuum, you can somewhat compromise-- overexpand some, but not enough to lose performance at lift-off. That's what the original Atlas boosters did: all three engines fire on take-off, but the two outboard engines were dropped and the center engine continues to orbit. The center engine had a higher expansion, so it would perform better in vacuum, at the cost of some performance loss at take-off.
Alternately, you can have an extendable nozzle.
Re:Nice job/booster question (Score:5, Informative)
Not at all - all the first-stage boosters use atmosphere-optimized engines that also work pretty well in space. But you'll notice that the single second-stage engine has a much larger bell, almost as large as those from the 9 first-stage engines combined - that's to optimize it for vacuum, which gives it a nice efficiency boost.
Basically, when designing the engine you have to pick the ambient pressure to optimize for - at that pressure it will burn as powerfully efficiently as possible, with effectiveness dropping as pressure changes in either direction - typically first stage engines are optimized for high power somewhere in the mid-to-high atmosphere, where they spend most of their time, while second stages are optimized for efficiency in full vacuum, since they don't need the raw power for liftoff, or to ever deal with an atmosphere.
I would assume there's also other optimizations that can be done to reduce efficiency falloff as pressure changes, but they almost certainly come at the expense of lower peak performance, so it's a balancing game.
As for trying to shape the first-stage plume by vectoring the engines - it might be possible, but is unlikely to show any gains. You need to keep two things in mind:
1: Any vectoring will, by necessity, be trading forward thrust for lateral vectoring effect
2: By the time the plume leaves the bell, it's basically stopped pushing the rocket forward - the rocket isn't actually propelled by the gasses shooting out the back - it's propelled by those by those rapidly-expanding gasses bouncing off the engine and bell as they expand. Once they leave the engine bell they no longer have any effect on the rocket at all (except possibly indirectly through fluid-dynamics effects on the surrounding atmosphere.
Combine the two, and you'd have to pull off some pretty impressive fluid-dynamic miracles to even manage to break even. And even assuming you somehow managed that, it would almost certainly become impossible as you exceeded the speed of sound (aka the speed at which atmospheric disruptions can propagate)
Here's a good photo of what's basically going on - the bell is designed to contain the engine exhaust until it falls to ambient pressure and stops expanding, at which point no more work can be extracted from it. Too big, and the atmospheric pressure pushes the plume away from the bell, and you lose thrust to turbulence losses and wasted mass worth of useless bell. Too small, and the gas is still expanding when it leaves the bell, and you're throwing away all the work that could have still been done. Obviously in a vacuum that gas is going to keep expanding essentially forever, but the more it expands, the less remaining work it can do, and the faster the size (and mass) of a containing bell will increase. So at some point the diminishing returns just aren't worth pursuing any further.
https://i.stack.imgur.com/cJ4e... [imgur.com]
Re: (Score:2)
But what about other stupid forms of argument such as ad hominem?
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Nope, you're right - I suspect somebody goofed on the feeds. The ground-cam clearly shows the near rocket landing on the bigger pad with the X inside a black circle, while the supposedly-different booster feeds show both landing on the same X-only pad (look at the buildings and roads in the last seconds to confirm it's actually the same pad)
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
And the more corporate egotists we have in space now, the better off we are. It means competition, new ideas and assumption of risk.
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Lol, Musk just tweeted [twitter.com] that the third burn was "successful", except that they missed mars and ended up with a giant elliptical orbit that goes way into the asteroid belt. Not quite to Ceres, but close.
Not sure I'd call that sort of burn successful, but if the goal was "get way far from earth uncontrollably", I guess that works.
Another poster noted that in a news conference Musk said that they only had 12 hrs of battery on board to transmit with. That seems a little odd to me, as Musk does high-tech battery
Re: (Score:3)
Not sure I'd call that sort of burn successful, but if the goal was "get way far from earth uncontrollably", I guess that works.
I would imagine that the goal would be full burn for all of the fuel so they'd have an idea of what max performance would be.