sevenperforce Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 8 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said: Looks like that new “simulation” is out. Heard rumblings of a press conference, too. Almost within 24 hours now! Hmm, this has the car being deployed from the PAF. I wonder if that was artistic license. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaceception Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 So... It IS doing a Mars flyby before settling in for a 'billion year orbit' around the Sun? Or is it just hyping it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DAL59 Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 Just now, Spaceception said: So... It IS doing a Mars flyby before settling in for a 'billion year orbit' around the Sun? Or is it just hyping it? Well, it will probably flyby Mars at some point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cubinator Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 Just now, Spaceception said: So... It IS doing a Mars flyby before settling in for a 'billion year orbit' around the Sun? Or is it just hyping it? I don't know, by now the planets are probably pretty close to a decent Hohmann transfer... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenperforce Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 8 minutes ago, cubinator said: I don't know, by now the planets are probably pretty close to a decent Hohmann transfer... A teensy nudge from Martian gravity could raise the periapsis pretty high. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 Like @sevenperforce said, I think there’s a lot of artistic license in the vid (and reused footage ). The car’s not going anywhere near Mars, we all know how hard it is to hit another planet even with a perfect window, and more over, there’s the regulatory aspect from potential contamination if it did (remember, it’ll most likely be completely uncontrolled and incommunicado at that point). From the pix of the payload adapter, it seems unlikely, sadly, that the car will separate at all. It is just a glorified mass simulator, after all. They’re not gonna dump a whole lot of effort into developing one-off Tesla decouplers. Myself, I would really love to know what modifications they’ve done to the car for this, maybe that press conference will say. I can pretty much guarantee that’s not a glass windshield, probably lexan or some such. Wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of it is just the shell of a real Tesla body over a custom dummy frame. Also, while I’m rambling, this: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cubinator Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 The webcast has been corrected to 10:30 AM PST, which is the window we have been expecting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DAL59 Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaff Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 I love hot spaceman’s arm is hanging out the window! Brilliant Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenperforce Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 18 minutes ago, Jaff said: I love hot spaceman’s arm is hanging out the window! Brilliant He will be a hot spaceman indeed after spending a few days in the sun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 They corrected the timing on the webcast. Now it's showing what it should, not 1:30 PST. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cubinator Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 I can wait 20 hours and 52 minutes, but not more than that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technical Ben Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 I can just imagine the flight clearance paperwork for this one. In the office for air clearance and rocket/space launch permits: "Oh, Dave, remember that guy who launched that Cheese wheel into space?" "Yes Fred, what does he want to send *this* time?" "His car!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shpaget Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 So, does this make Tesla Roadster the most powerful car ever built? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 (edited) 7 minutes ago, Shpaget said: So, does this make Tesla Roadster the most powerful car ever built? Nah, just the most powerful car delivery truck. couple of intereting tweets, here. As many suspected, looks like the FH trip around the moon might be off the table. And quite the little boast here: That would be... interesting... I’m extremely curious to see how the economics of everything starts to play out like later this year once Block 5 and its promised easy reuse is well established. Wonder if they might start earmarking their old Block boosters as disposable FH boosters... All signs continue to say everything is GO for tomorrow. Edited February 5, 2018 by CatastrophicFailure Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenperforce Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 6 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said: And quite the little boast here: That would be... interesting... I’m extremely curious to see how the economics of everything starts to play out like later this year once Block 5 and its promised easy reuse is well established. Wonder if they might start earmarking their old Block boosters as disposable FH boosters... All signs continue to say everything is GO for tomorrow. Boosters of any Block can be modified into Falcon Heavy side boosters, but they cannot be modified into Falcon Heavy cores. I wonder if we will ever see a FH launch expend end-of-life boosters for the side boosters, but still recover the core. I suppose that if you burn the side boosters to depletion, you should be able to reserve a good bit of braking/boostback propellant in your core and potentially outperform a side-booster-recovery-but-expendable-core launch. Unrelated, I pulled together some delicious performance numbers for FH expendable: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 5 minutes ago, sevenperforce said: Unrelated, I pulled together some delicious performance numbers for FH expendable: Interesting, so... stick some landing legs on a Falcon upper stage and assume no boiloff, and it could land 9 tonnes on the moon? Hmm. I wonder how many of those Moon Express landers they could fit in the fairing. Unleash a swarm upon the moon! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenperforce Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 15 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said: Interesting, so... stick some landing legs on a Falcon upper stage and assume no boiloff, and it could land 9 tonnes on the moon? Hmm. I wonder how many of those Moon Express landers they could fit in the fairing. Unleash a swarm upon the moon! Bingo. Though throttling the MVac for landing in 0.16 gees is a bit iffy. Better to strip down a Dragon 2 and put the payload in the trunk. Burn the MVac to depletion for zero velocity at 100 m altitude, separate, and use the SuperDracos to hover-land and drop the payload wherever you want it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cubinator Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 15 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said: Interesting, so... stick some landing legs on a Falcon upper stage and assume no boiloff, and it could land 9 tonnes on the moon? Hmm. I wonder how many of those Moon Express landers they could fit in the fairing. Unleash a swarm upon the moon! So maybe if you did part/most of the braking burn with the S2 you could get a modified Dragon 2 based lander on the thing...I would sign up for that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KSK Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 (edited) 43 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said: Nah, just the most powerful car delivery truck. couple of intereting tweets, here. As many suspected, looks like the FH trip around the moon might be off the table. And quite the little boast here: Easy, tiger. Let's get the first one over the Karman line in the preplanned number of pieces first. Then it might be time to dig out those old 'taking over the Solar System' plans and dust them off a little, hmmm? Besides, in the long run, if you're the only heavy lift game in town then you failed. Because it means there's no demand for more. And that most likely means that we ain't gonna be a multiplanetary species. Edited February 5, 2018 by KSK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenperforce Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 2 minutes ago, cubinator said: So maybe if you did part/most of the braking burn with the S2 you could get a modified Dragon 2 based lander on the thing...I would sign up for that. Lander, easily. Ascent is where it gets tricky. If you could build a drop-in propulsion assist unit that would mate directly to the payload adapter in the Dragon 2 trunk, with a good 1.9 km/s of dV, you could use the S2 for your crasher-stage suicide burn, detach, and use the SuperDracos for a feather-light landing. Then use the SuperDracos for liftoff before firing up the propulsion assist package to push back up into orbit. Using the SuperDracos for landing and liftoff avoids the risk of debris impingement on your ascent engines, and also allows you to use lighter, smaller, lower-thrust ascent engines. Alternately, you could have a third-party provider build a up-and-down lunar lander of virtually any design, so long as it massed under 16.7 tonnes and could fit in a 5-meter fairing. Falcon Heavy provides the TLI and the LOI insertion, and it could rendezvous in lunar orbit with Orion (or a Dragon 2) for a lunar surface mission. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 Meanwhile, SLS is still... Interesting... Apollo LM was right around 16 tonnes... Any back-of-the-envelope calculation on what kinda LOX boiloff there would be en route? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 I think I said that would never happen in this thread somewhere. Not that I think it will, but still, the mere fact that they have considered it deserves me munching a little crow, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 4 minutes ago, tater said: I think I said that would never happen in this thread somewhere. Not that I think it will, but still, the mere fact that they have considered it deserves me munching a little crow, Sure, and it would be just as “easy” as the original FH... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cubinator Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 11 minutes ago, sevenperforce said: Lander, easily. Ascent is where it gets tricky. Of course. It's still promising. Maybe if we could get at some of those ice reservoirs it could do it in one shot...The mere fact that we're making these speculations about a real rocket that's sitting on the pad right now is very exciting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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