Mind boggling: SpaceX Falcon Heavy

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Unbeleeeeeeeevable. Look here starting about 35 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYmNu4JvMiI
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Elly, HiFlyer, anita.yk, AJNorth

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I watched the launch on TV.  WOW

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anita.yk

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We’re about 200 miles south and couldn’t see the launch visually because of some clouds, but it went off extremely well. It was especially cool to see the two side boosters fly back and land simultaneously.

-Noel

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AJNorth

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I love the “Don’t Panic” from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on the dash lol.

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Elly, woody

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Obviously a most impressive enterprise, but do we know the answer to the all-important question? Did the Falcon Heavy receive the January updates to its computer system ;)?

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Elly, AJNorth, MrBrian, flackcatcher

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Perhaps it’s running one of the LTS Linux distros… .

 

 

The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.

– Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson

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Bill C.

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And imagine! An immigrant from Africa. Cape Town that is.

Musk for President.

 

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Inspiring! Musk and his team have received well deserved kudos from engineers and scientists from all over the world, including NASA.

– This is the right way to display might – pay attention kiddies!

Honoring Nikola Tesla with an electric car as the payload, was a nice touch.

“The spread of civilisation may be likened to a fire; first, a feeble spark, next a flickering flame, then a mighty blaze, ever increasing in speed and power.”

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Noel Carboni, Bill C.

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http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/07/elon-musk-spacex-launch-utterly-depressing

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Best news ever! From the retreat from space, a visionary makes progress. A victory for scientific exploration.

I have to admit, it was deja vu all over again for me. As an elementary school student I watched every launch of the Mercury 7 astronauts and many of the Gemini and Apollo missions that followed, culminating with the moon landing.

I watched this yesterday, and the videos in Woody’s post were exceptional all over again. I hope this fuels a renewed interest in sciences all though the educational systems.

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Noel Carboni

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Good news everyone!

(1) It did not blew up on takeoff, taking out a very expensive and hard to replace launchpad with it.

(2) Two of the three reusable boosters made it back safely and landed, with each coming to rest standing upright on four legs, on their respective landing pads, which was truly a sight to behold. The third misfired during the retro maneuver on final approach, and is now at the bottom of the ocean, way down below where the floating landing pad is (was?) situated.

(3) The final stage of the stack went through whatever maneuvers the Military had asked for, and now it is on its way to the Asteroid Belt, past the orbit of Mars, with a car and a dummy for symbolic payload. Expected to be in an elongated orbit around the Sun for millions of years — or until the tourists come along and start pecking at it for souvenirs.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

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The Tesla in space reminds me strongly of the opening sequence to the 1981 animated movie “Heavy Metal” where the astronaut is in orbit then re-enters in a 1959 Corvette.

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Cascadian

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ryegrass wrote:

… the opening sequence to the 1981 animated movie “Heavy Metal” …

I had the same reaction and nearly posted so earlier, but feared I was an outlier. I had this flashback from the first time the stunt was described to me with the space-suited-up dummy at the wheel. Abiding love for David Bowie, yeah, but thought they should have used the Heavy Metal soundtrack.

I watched the launch with a few others. Made the mistake of describing this scene while we were waiting for the reusables to land. I had used the term re-entry without describing burn up, because of course in the animation it did not. The astronaut landed and walked in the front door like coming home from work. Later a nice woman asked me why we didn’t see the car burn up on re-entry. I suddenly realized the stress I had caused, in someone who was recalling other bad launch experiences within her own memory. Glad she said something, so I could reassure her that Starman would indeed be floating for a very long time.

Also loved the ‘Don’t Panic’, understand there is a towel in the glove box too, just in case.

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ryegrass

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Hi Paul,

I wasn’t sure anyone else here had seen the movie. I saw it for the first time about a month ago after I caught a clip of it in a YouTube collection of SF movies. I was surprised because I didn’t remember seeing it or ads for it in the 1980’s, perhaps because it had to have been rated R, or X at the time.  So it was very fresh in my mind, and almost eerie to think that Elon Musk was able to bring an almost fanciful and fantastic concept like this to life.

Randy

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Cascadian

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