SpaceX Rocket

[Jakob]

I'm fairly certain that they have ships nearby with people observing the landing. I know that they usually get people onboard the landing barge fairly quickly to weld it down.

For values of 'nearby' that provide a reasonable degree of protection from being accidentally bombed from space, so they probably can't tell much more than "it went boom" until they've waited for the fire to die down and decided it's safe to approach and recover the wreckage / data loggers.

Close enough that they can visually tell if if it landed or not.

Edit: I just had this confirmed (3rd hand source). They do have visual line of sight to the landing barge.

[Kim]

I've heard a rumour on the internets (someone else's 3rd hand source) that it soft-landed on the edge of the barge and toppled (apparently there's a bit of landing leg visible in the last frame of video that was uplinked).  We'll see, but that sounds like a likely failure mode.

Meanwhile, I've been watching the sunrise reflected in the Tesla's windscreen, with lightning storms on earth visible in the background.  This is what happens when extremely well resourced engineers accidentally do art.

[Jaded]

From the Beeb

The third booster was due to settle on a drone ship stationed several hundred kilometres out at sea. Unfortunately, it had insufficient propellant left to slow the descent, missed the target vessel and was destroyed as it hit the water at some 500km/h.
By then, the upper-stage of the Falcon Heavy, with its Tesla cargo, was heading on a trajectory that would hopefully take it towards Mars' orbit.
That required the engine on the upper-stage to fire on three separate occasions, with the third and final ignition only occurring after a long cruise phase - something which was confirmed some six hours after the launch.

[pcolbeck]

I like the fact that the Tesla has a copy of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy in the glove box.

[mattc]

I like the fact that the Tesla has a copy of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy in the glove box.

Is that the edition with - or without - the Ford Prefect revisions?

[Cudzoziemiec]

Live feed from the car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBr2kKAHN6M

Rather eerie.

[rogerzilla]

As the tail of the Space Shuttle passed the top of the gantry it was doing 125mph.  That's a heck of a shove from a standing start.

It looks slow because it takes so long for it to move through its own length.  Our visual system isn't calibrated for fast-moving objects bigger than those found in nature, which realistically means a horse.

[ian]

It was quite interesting watching the speedometer climb. 0-60 in not very much time at all.

[matthew]

From the Beeb

The third booster was due to settle on a drone ship stationed several hundred kilometres out at sea. Unfortunately, it had insufficient propellant left to slow the descent, missed the target vessel and was destroyed as it hit the water at some 500km/h.
By then, the upper-stage of the Falcon Heavy, with its Tesla cargo, was heading on a trajectory that would hopefully take it towards Mars' orbit.
That required the engine on the upper-stage to fire on three separate occasions, with the third and final ignition only occurring after a long cruise phase - something which was confirmed some six hours after the launch.

Just before the live stream cut to the landing of the booster rockets when it was a four way split the upper left view of the main core returning appears to get splattered with liquid. This may explain the insufficient available propellant.

[Kim]

I think the Beeb are oversimplifying.  At the press conference Elon suggested the issue was a lack of TEA-TEB pyrophoric igniter^[1], rather than propellant itself.  There was plenty of fuel/oxidiser, but they couldn't re-light more than one engine.

Sounds like one of those simple to fix mistakes, like running out of hydraulic fluid on the early attempts at droneship landing.


_{[1] This is as good a time as any to mention that Ignition is being reissued.}

[hulver]

I like the fact that the Tesla has a copy of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy in the glove box.

Imagine if somebody had slipped Elon a few million quid to have their body stuffed in a spacesuit and strapped into the car.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

What's its carbon footprint?  Just askin'..

[LEE]

I think the Beeb are oversimplifying.  At the press conference Elon suggested the issue was a lack of TEA

Tsk tsk...Would never happen in a Yorkshire Space Program

[Kim]

What's its carbon footprint?  Just askin'..

It's burning RP1 (kerosene), so in terms of fuel burnt it's going to be fairly terrible.  On the other hand, re-usability will save the impact of building a new rocket each time, which is a welcome innovation.

The BFR will be designed around liquid methane propellant instead, because that's practical to make on Mars from carbon dioxide and water.  Elon makes the valid point that if you can make fuel from carbon dioxide, water and solar power on Mars, you could potentially do the same thing on Earth.  So the BFR wouldn't be tied to fossil fuels in the long term.

On that basis I'm half expecting economically viable synthetic gas to be another commercial spinoff of Elon's Mars obsession.  Assuming of course that Special Circumstances don't catch up with him first. 

[Jakob]

  Assuming of course that Special Circumstances don't catch up with him first. 

Heh. Just catching up on the Culture series again after a long (10+ years break).

[nicknack]

When I was little (-ish, about 55 years ago) all rockets (in stories) landed like those 2 boosters. It's taken this long to actually see it become real. Absolutely fuckin' brilliant!

[Sergeant Pluck]

I’m a bit dubious about the launching a car into space bit. It’s a continuation of the sort of behaviour that has got us into the position of probably needing a new planet to live on sooner than ideal.

*party pooper*

[nicknack]

I’m a bit dubious about the launching a car into space bit. It’s a continuation of the sort of behaviour that has got us into the position of probably needing a new planet to live on sooner than ideal.

*party pooper*

Nah. It's just a lot more interesting (and, I hope, inspiring to young folk) than the lump of concrete that NASA used to use.

[ian]

Shooting a lot more cars into space would solve many parking problems. I'm all for it. Let's not ask the owners first, though. I say we start with Audis and Range Rovers.

[pcolbeck]

I’m a bit dubious about the launching a car into space bit. It’s a continuation of the sort of behaviour that has got us into the position of probably needing a new planet to live on sooner than ideal.

*party pooper*

They need to use something as a payload test. They sometimes have used actual satellites but that gets a bit expensive if the rocket goes bang rather than zoom. They could have used a lump of concrete or similar but a Tesla was a bit more whimsical. One of the smaller SpaceX rockets used a wheel of cheese as a test payload for some reason I cant recall. It's bit difficult to despoil space anyway as its already full of hard radiation and bits of rubbish left over from the formation of the solar system whizzing around everywhere. The worst you can do is become a navigational hazard and the Tesla is being sent way way out not left in orbit.

[Kim]

Shooting a lot more cars into space would solve many parking problems. I'm all for it. Let's not ask the owners first, though. I say we start with Audis and Range Rovers.

Dangerous precedent.  "No ossifer, it landed there on a vertical-landing orbital booster.  I didn't drive on the pavement."

[Kim]

I’m a bit dubious about the launching a car into space bit. It’s a continuation of the sort of behaviour that has got us into the position of probably needing a new planet to live on sooner than ideal.

*party pooper*

They need to use something as a payload test. They sometimes have used actual satellites but that gets a bit expensive if the rocket goes bang rather than zoom. They could have used a lump of concrete or similar but a Tesla was a bit more whimsical. One of the smaller SpaceX rockets used a wheel of cheese as a test payload for some reason I cant recall. It's bit difficult to despoil space anyway as its already full of hard radiation and bits of rubbish left over from the formation of the solar system whizzing around everywhere. The worst you can do is become a navigational hazard and the Tesla is being sent way way out not left in orbit.

And at this point, it's a navigational hazard that's interesting enough that one day someone might actually bother to recover it and put it in a museum.  On Mars.

It seems wasteful that they didn't fill it with student cubesats, or strap an engineering model of Beagle 2 to the front of the Tesla or something, but that only seems like a missed opportunity because it didn't blow up.  Otherwise it would have been wasted effort.

[Aunt Maud]

Could it be the corpse of David Bowie at the wheel ?

[Kim]

Could it be the corpse of David Bowie at the wheel ?

I was kind of hoping for a mannequin full of sensors, to give the space suit a test^[1].  But if they did that, they're keeping quiet about it.


_{[1] A fairly extreme one, given that it's not actually designed for EVA.}

[Aunt Maud]

Maybe I should get out a bit more.