totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[Ultimate Steve]

Part of me wants to say he's not being serious, but I learned to never underestimate an Elon tweet when he started The Boring Company...

They need a crash test dummy in the front seat. With a cowboy hat.

Also, this gives a new meaning to parking orbit.

EDIT: And fuzzy dice hanging from the mirror. I'll gladly give mine.

Edited December 2, 2017 by Ultimate Steve

[StupidAndy]

5 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

They need a crash test dummy in the front seat. With a cowboy hat.

with sunglasses and a leather jacket

but we need to find out what the payload is: 2008 Roadster or the 2020 Roadster that was unveiled at the Tesla Semi unveiling?

Edited December 2, 2017 by StupidAndy

[Mitchz95]

Apparently he's serious:

Quote

Musk first tweeted out the idea on Friday evening, but has since separately confirmed his plans with The Verge.

 

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/1/16726822/spacex-falcon-heavy-tesla-roadster-launch-elon-musk

[Ultimate Steve]

90% chance of incorrect speculation:

Zuma.

Zooma.

Zoomer.

Zoomer = fast.

Fast = Roadster.

Coincidence? I think so... But it would be cool if it wasn't!

[harrisjosh2711]

8 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

I believe that even if the boosters were only usable twice, it would still be a huge money-saver.

My little sister watched me make my falcon heavy video these were the words she understood best . Me- "What would we do if every time we went to the store we had to buy a new car" Her- "What! we wouldn't be going to the store very often" lol 

1 hour ago, Mitchz95 said:

Apparently he's serious:

 

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/1/16726822/spacex-falcon-heavy-tesla-roadster-launch-elon-musk

Some people are asking if he is drunk on his twitter feed.

[harrisjosh2711]

Just made this

[KSK]

Nah - drunk would be him sitting in the Tesla making vroom vroom noises all the way to Mars.

[1101]

8 hours ago, Mitchz95 said:

That's, uh, ambitious.

So, if I'm remembering Culture novels correctly, he's moved on from Use of Weapons (OCISLY, JRTI drone ships) and is now on State of the Art, wherein the lead character lands on Earth from orbit via a car rebuilt for the task, and the ship Arbitrary sends a postcard to the BBC asking for Space Oddity to be played...

[kerbiloid]

As I have read before, Tesla autopilot cruise control software contains some pieces of code for a submarine.

Spoiler

 

Can see no reason why Tesla could not pilot a rocket.

[CatastrophicFailure]

1 hour ago, 1101 said:

the lead character lands on Earth from orbit via a car rebuilt for the task, and the ship Arbitrary sends a postcard to the BBC asking for Space Oddity to be played...

Are you sure that’s not just a bit different?

if that car ever does come back it will have to be thoroughly and carefully searched for little green balls...

[1101]

10 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Are you sure that’s not just a bit different?

 

Well, it might be....

 

According to SpaceX, FH should be capable of 16.8tons to Mars, so what are they going to do with the rest of the payload?

[PB666]

6 hours ago, harrisjosh2711 said:

My little sister watched me make my falcon heavy video these were the words she understood best . Me- "What would we do if every time we went to the store we had to buy a new car" Her- "What! we wouldn't be going to the store very often" lol 

Some people are asking if he is drunk on his twitter feed.

Yeah, because powerful people never get on twitter and say ..like...shocking crazy stuff...hmmmm

 

[sevenperforce]

6 hours ago, harrisjosh2711 said:

10 hours ago, Mitchz95 said:

That's, uh, ambitious.

Some people are asking if he is drunk on his twitter feed.

I do believe he is serious.

[magnemoe]

10 hours ago, Brotoro said:

It says the destination is "Mars orbit"... not oribiting Mars. And that the car will be in deep space for billions of years. I think they just mean to fling the car out to Mars' orbit where Mars ain't.

This, main issue would be the life length of the falcon heavy upper stage. We know the falcon 9 upper stage just has power for a couple of hours. 
I assume this is a bit longer for the falcon heavy version as it will be used for deep space missions but it would not survive all the way to mars, just boil off will kill it. 
But you could put it on an interplanetary trajectory then do an radial burn after a day just so it will stay i space. 

[IncongruousGoat]

He should put a teapot in the trunk, just to settle the whole Russell's teapot thing once and for all.

[Racescort666]

10 hours ago, PB666 said:

You have to deflate the tires to 14 PSI before lift-off. And I believe the secondary battery needs to be sealed air-tight, also some ethylene glycol in the windshield wiper fluid or it will boil off. What else its got a big-ass battery, put some solar panels on it and a communication dish and antenna.

Decreasing the tire pressure is probably unnecessary because tires can take quite a lot of pressure before failing however they will probably be UV damaged to destruction rather quickly. 

Is 56 kWh a lot of battery for a satellite? Asking for a friend...

[sevenperforce]

15 minutes ago, Racescort666 said:

Decreasing the tire pressure is probably unnecessary because tires can take quite a lot of pressure before failing however they will probably be UV damaged to destruction rather quickly. 

Correct. Pressure differential is gauge; if the tire can handle 45 psi at sea level, it can handle 30 psi in space.

15 minutes ago, Racescort666 said:

Is 56 kWh a lot of battery for a satellite? Asking for a friend...

SES-8 packs an 8 kWh battery but it also has a solar array that produces 5 kW whenever it is in sunlight, so the 56 kWh of the Roadster battery could only power the SES-8 for about 11 hours before dying.

Of course, the SES-8 comsat probably has much higher power requirements than whatever our spacebound Roadster needs to do.

8 hours ago, harrisjosh2711 said:

Just made this

Actually the first-Gen roadster will fit horizontally on the payload adapter inside the fairing.

 

[Racescort666]

13 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Correct. Pressure differential is gauge; if the tire can handle 45 psi at sea level, it can handle 30 psi in space.

That's backwards: 30 psig on the ground is 45 psig in space because they're both 45 psia. Either way, the nominal inflation pressure is way less than the failure pressure of the tire. 

I'll tell my friend to upgrade his Tesla satellite to the higher capacity battery then.

Edited December 2, 2017 by Racescort666

[tater]

 

[cubinator]

So it's not actually going to orbit Mars, but rather it will orbit the Sun with a similar semi-major axis as Mars? Because you'd need a pretty hefty sun dive to catch up to Mars at this time of year, and that's something I don't think FH is up to.

Edited December 2, 2017 by cubinator

[tater]

Yeah, Mars orbital distance.

[cubinator]

7 minutes ago, tater said:

Yeah, Mars orbital distance.

I wonder if they will perform a circularization burn, maybe stick it at L5?

[tater]

16 minutes ago, cubinator said:

I wonder if they will perform a circularization burn, maybe stick it at L5?

No, unless they attach a 3d stage to the car, which they won't.

F9 stage 2 can't be idle half a year or more.

[.50calBMG]

So thats why Red Dragon was cancelled, they are replacing the dragon with a tesla. I guess that makes sense.

[sevenperforce]

I wonder if they will leave the Roadster bolted to the PAF, like they did with Ratsat on the first successful Falcon 1 launch, or if they will figure out a way to deploy it?

Falcon 9 can provide a payload with a small angula momentum before deployment using its nitrogen thrusters, for pointing and so forth. It would be cool if the Roadster was given a cable with a camera on the end and a touch of rotation, so the cable would unfurl and you'd have a camera pointing at the Roadster from some distance away as it rolled slowly through space.