OT: Falcon heavy rocket launch

[Andy Burns]

Plus he's pretty adept at tapping federal and state subsidies, grants and tax-breaks ...

[Martin Brown]

Sounds like a slightly garbled version of TEB used to ignite amongst other things the Blackbird SR-71 ramjet engines.

Actually SpaceX gets a mention as using it on the Falcoln 9

[T i m]

Ah, quite possibly. ;-)

Thanks for that.

Interesting, thanks.

Maybe many years of being a CB'er, Radio Amateur and telephone / IT Support Guy I have learned to 'listen for' such details.

It vas very interesting to me to learn *why* the centre core had failed to be recovered and the fact that it wasn't able to slow sufficient because it wasn't able to ignite the 3 required rockets makes perfect sense.

It was very likely then that it either *couldn't* properly navigate to the drone landing barge or was programmed not to (try to) land on the barge under such failure situations (to minimise risk of damage to the barge etc).

It could have been that he fact it missed the barge by ~100m was simply good luck! ;-)

I'm not sure if all (three) retro rockets would share the same fuel supply in which case it would confirm it to be an ignition not fuel issue as the one rocket did ignite and burn (but wasn't sufficient of course). ;-(

I join Elon in being amazed by the whole recoverability of the cores (more so than the fairing's and nose-cone etc), seeing a rocket land tail on was only something they did in science fiction ... till now. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Geoff Clare]

They have now posted a corrected version of the webcast with video from both side boosters. (It also has some extra footage of the car tagged on the end.)

[Vortex13]

I believe the "Govsat" launch last week had a 3 engine test landing, at sea which was successful, though without a barge so the core was lost.

Stage separation on that was about 8000 kmh.

[T i m]

Interesting, thanks. Elon said he was hoping for a new 'space race' so it looks like it's on. ;-)

Mad speeds eh. I was watching the speedo go up at launch and whist it started off quite modestly, it really picked up after that!

Silly question for you ... why don't you see any stars in any of the shots from the Roadster? Is it that it's too bright in general, even though it looked pitch black in the background?

Cheers, T i m

[Vortex13]

I wonder if it's simply an optical thing. The cameras are focussed on the vehicle, rather than infinity.

[Vortex13]

Much better. Shame the video feeds weren't correct last night.

So the vehicle will be in space for millions of years.

Huge temperature extremes from close to 0K to 400K maybe. Lots of radiation.

I wonder how long before the tyres turn to dust. They aren't going to last forever.

[T i m]

That looks a bit better, thanks for that Geoff. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

Yeah, possibly ... I'm sure someone will come along with the definitive answer. ;-)

I just thought that once clear of our atmosphere the place would be full of stars, especially the brighter ones?

Cheers, T i m

[whisky-dave]

Could be they just aren;t bright enough for teh given exposure time. The same was said about photos taken on the moon.

And if you look at the cameras on the ISS on one of those smartphone apps, (which I do most nights) you can't see any stars either.

[Huge]

What a stupid piece of vandalism *that* is. They could have launched something useful.

[newshound]

So he's a great businessman; but he must be pretty smart about all sorts of technology to have identified and developed all the different opportunities. And good at spotting bullshit.

[newshound]

True, but it also makes sense if you want to corner the lucrative launch market.

[Chris Hogg]

They deliberately didn't do that, because they didn't know whether it would be a successful launch. They didn't want to risk a squillion pound satellite being incinerated in a massive kerosene-LOX fireball.

[Martin Brown]

You might just about see Venus on a video feed if it happened to be in the field of view but it would be right on the limits of detection and only slightly above the noise floor. Its too close to the sun now.

You can see Venus with the naked eye in daylight from the Earth if you know exactly where to look in the sky - stand in the shadow of a building to get a bit of help. The hard bit is tricking your eye to focus at infinity when staring at an apparently featureless blue sky.

If you use any optical aid you *MUST* stand in the shade. You cannot afford to look at the sun through binoculars if you value your sight.

Your best chance of seeing it with the naked eye in daytime this year is in mid to late summer when it is magnitude -4 (substantially brighter than Sirius) and more than 40 degrees away from the sun. See:

Its a lot easier if you have someone who knows where to look.

[T i m]

Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing.

Who is going to risk millions on a viable commercial payload (again) ... until it proved itself (which was the point of the mission).

Or would you rather they did what they normally do a test launch with a lump of concrete?

And if launching a car into space gets people interested in the whole space thing, or even to just raise the profile of the SpaceX project then it *is* doing something useful.

However: 'Musk, who wants to colonise Mars, said the approach was "kind of silly and fun, but I think that silly and fun things are important".

Only to some it seems ...

Cheers, T i m

[Martin Brown]

Looks to me like they had a bit of grot on the lens of the feed that they didn't show live and someone put the sharper image feed in both. The feed from the core also goes bad shortly after its re-entry burn - presumably since something ended up on the lens.

[Vortex13]

I think it's fantastic publicity. The alternative lump of steel or concrete would just not cut it and I certainly would not risk my expensive satellite in such an experiment.

A TV advertising slot in the Superbowl about 4 megadollars. Throwing away a Tesla and a few cameras is small potatoes.

The other commercial launch providers should be quaking in their boots.

[whisky-dave]

Yep :-?

but whenever I've seen it it's always been in the Sky :-D