Falcon Heavy - SpaceX Launches the First Privately Funded Rocket Powerful Enough To Carry a Payload outside of Earth's Orbit

[DonRocks]

Just a little over five-hours ago, SpaceX - whose CEO is Elon Musk - launched their Falcon Heavy rocket. It is carrying Musk's cherry-red Tesla, which was playing David Bowie's "Space Oddity" on the radio during the launch. In the driver's seat is a fake astronaut, named "Starman." 

Yes, as I type, there is a cherry-red Tesla flying through space, possibly still playing "Space Oddity," with "Starman" sitting behind the wheel, and it's heading towards Mars (maybe they should have named him Ziggy?)

Ten years ago, I made a call on a payphone.

Two years ago, I was working on my desktop.

The world has surely changed more in the past twenty years, than during any twenty-year span in history - even including times of war.

"Elon Musk Launches Tesla Roadster into Space on Path for Mars with New Rocket" by Benjamin Raven on mlive.com

"Watch Live Views of SpaceX's Starman Riding a Roadster in Space!" by Hanneke Weitering on space.com

"Commentary: SpaceX Launch Opens New Frontier in Space Commerce" by Peter Apps on reuters.com

I guess if you're a little-boy billionaire, you can either revolutionize the world, or you can become President. I didn't say that. 

[NolaCaine]

I watched many shuttle launches yet was blown away by yesterday's launch. 

Rocket boosters are now recyclable. Watch two land in a beautiful space ballet here:  

 

[NolaCaine]

How hard is it to land a rocket on a drone ship (which is a fancy word for a barge with no souls on it):

 

[Al Dente]

I forgot where I parked my car.

[DonRocks]

1 hour ago, NolaCaine said:

Rocket boosters are now recyclable.

This is beautiful, but it may be one of those "nice things in theory," as the amount of fuel burned isn't recyclable. Yes, it's better than the status quo was, and I don't mean to rain on the landing party; I'm not sure we'll ever have "low-pollution rockets." Watch the movie "Gravity" and bone up on Kessler Syndrome (I had forgotten the name of it - it's actually a distant cousin of ROFLID) - that's pretty scary stuff, and I'm pretty sure one day it will happen.

52 minutes ago, NolaCaine said:

It would actually be kind-of funny if we air-dropped 10,000 copies of this video on North Korea. 

[TedE]

This whole launch was one of those science-fiction-comes-to-life events (at least for me).  The pace of advancement here has meant that we scarcely get to become accustomed to the last engineering marvel before the next "Holy sh*t, they're going to do what?!" one comes along.   The first successful landing attempts on the drone ship were less than two years ago.  There are some pretty good amateur videos showing a wider angle view on the booster recovery yesterday.  There is still part of my brain that wants to see them as video of a dual rocket launch played in reverse.  It's still that unbelievable at some fundamental level.

Fuel use and the subsequent pollution is never gong to be solved on the hardware engineering side; it's going to be solved on the chemistry side.  The engines are about as efficient as they are going to get with the fuel formulations in use (all of it really nasty stuff).  The point of the (failed) landing attempt a few weeks ago was to test a much higher burn rate (3 engines vs. 1) for a much shorter time so the boosters can come in "hotter".  It ends up using less overall fuel than a slower single engine burn to slow down.  Of course, environmental concerns have nothing to do with it: every pound of fuel you can remove from the launch cycle is another pound of payload you can put into orbit.

The stated goal for the Falcon9 boosters is to be deployed, recovered, and made ready for re-use in a single 24 hour window.  They want to get to the point where they can launch twice in the same day using the same hardware.

Holy sh*t, they're going to do what now?!?!?

[DonRocks]

4 hours ago, TedE said:

There are some pretty good amateur videos showing a wider angle view on the booster recovery yesterday.  There is still part of my brain that wants to see them as video of a dual rocket launch played in reverse.  It's still that unbelievable at some fundamental level.

We should probably split this aspect into its own thread - we could call it, "Tipping: Let's Get Rid of It"