Elon Musk???????

What the heck is Elon Musk up to? The man is using a heavy lift rocket to send his sports car into orbit around Mars and the Sun. Is he that pedantic and filthy rich that he can waste a rocket payload to get his car spacebound.
Yes, yes it's a PRO exercise to promote his heavy lift rocket but come on people the man wants sectioning.

a reply to: crayzeed

Well...since he has so much confidence in his rocket to state that if it doesn't destroy the launch pad he'd call it a success, would you want him launching your multi-million dollar satellite on the inaugural flight?!?!?

a reply to: crayzeed

The man is using a heavy lift rocket to send his sports car into orbit around Mars and the Sun.

More junk being sent into space.

a reply to: BomSquad
That's a bit of false dichotomy. It could be a complete success now but fail the next three times.
Either you have complete faith in your vehicle or there will be no faith later. If the rocket is that dodgy "cross your fingers and hope it works" then it hadn't ought to be on the launch pad in the first place.

a reply to: crayzeed

Nothing false about it. You have a completely untried configuration. I don't know of any company willing to bet millions of dollars on an untried and untested launch configuration when there are proven launch capabilities available elsewhere.

That's like asking someone, "We'd like you to try this great way of going coast to coast. We've never actually done it, but we've done things similar. We are confident it will work, but there is a chance you could be killed. On the other hand, you can just fly American Airlines and you'll get there in about the same amount of time, safe and sound."

Which would you pick?

a reply to: alldaylong
If it wasn't a joke it would be serious. Mr Musk reckons his sportster will orbit for about a million years. That's a million years.
Now imagine in 200 years time a very expensive Star Trek type vehicle flying through space, colliding with it, killing everyone.
You can just imagine the enquiry, "was it an asteroid strike"? "No sir, it was an old fashioned red sports car".
"Which total F#### idiot put a sports car into space".

originally posted by: crayzeed
a reply to: alldaylong
If it wasn't a joke it would be serious. Mr Musk reckons his sportster will orbit for about a million years. That's a million years.
Now imagine in 200 years time a very expensive Star Trek type vehicle flying through space, colliding with it, killing everyone.
You can just imagine the enquiry, "was it an asteroid strike"? "No sir, it was an old fashioned red sports car".
"Which total F#### idiot put a sports car into space".

a reply to: crayzeed

So what?

If I was a gajillionaire with my own space rocket company and my own car company I'd be launching all kinds of ridiculous stuff into space.

I'd buy the dallas cowboys and launch the whole franchise into the sun.

Maybe California too.

I think it something different and pretty cool, compared to the usual sterile boring routine missions pursued by others. Can't wait for todays launch will be standing outback in the north 40 patiently waiting...

originally posted by: crayzeed
a reply to: BomSquad
That's a bit of false dichotomy. It could be a complete success now but fail the next three times.
Either you have complete faith in your vehicle or there will be no faith later. If the rocket is that dodgy "cross your fingers and hope it works" then it hadn't ought to be on the launch pad in the first place.

No, it's not a complete dichotomy. I am sure you mean well just clueless as to how engineering process works. This is the first launch of a new rocket. Nobody would ever send something of signification value into space with a vehicle that is largely intended as a data gathering test.

The car is to get people interested in things other than the Kardashians as it will be playing Space oddity etc.

There are also cameras etc..

originally posted by: crayzeed
a reply to: alldaylong
If it wasn't a joke it would be serious. Mr Musk reckons his sportster will orbit for about a million years. That's a million years.
Now imagine in 200 years time a very expensive Star Trek type vehicle flying through space, colliding with it, killing everyone.
You can just imagine the enquiry, "was it an asteroid strike"? "No sir, it was an old fashioned red sports car".
"Which total F#### idiot put a sports car into space".

If in 200 years time an expensive Star Trek type vehicle that could fly through space and couldn't detect objects in its path then I'd say that was a waste of money in itself. If it gets destroyed by a car then it could be destroyed by an asteroid or rock that wasn't detected. I'm guessing you have something against Musk judging by your thread and you wanted to rant about it. Ridiculous

originally posted by: crayzeed
What the heck is Elon Musk up to? The man is using a heavy lift rocket to send his sports car into orbit around Mars and the Sun. Is he that pedantic and filthy rich that he can waste a rocket payload to get his car spacebound.
Yes, yes it's a PRO exercise to promote his heavy lift rocket but come on people the man wants sectioning.

Most of the time tests like this use weights or cinder blocks to simulate the weight of a payload...A nice red roadster is a lot cooler.

originally posted by: GuidedKill

originally posted by: crayzeed
What the heck is Elon Musk up to? The man is using a heavy lift rocket to send his sports car into orbit around Mars and the Sun. Is he that pedantic and filthy rich that he can waste a rocket payload to get his car spacebound.
Yes, yes it's a PRO exercise to promote his heavy lift rocket but come on people the man wants sectioning.

Most of the time tests like this use weights or cinder blocks to simulate the weight of a payload...A nice red roadster is a lot cooler.

Yes. This.

To prove a heavy-lift launch vehicle could actually do heavy lifting, the test needs to at least include a dummy payload. So Musk figures his dummy payload could be something attention-getting (why not?), so that dummy payload is a car.

I'm fine with this.

a reply to: crayzeed

Think about this: No one would risk a multi million / billion dollar payload on the maiden flight of an untested system. To be a useful engineering test the configuration would need some nominal payload. It could be bricks, or toy poodles of baloney sandwiches. Whatever it was would add a minute risk to some space vehicle in the future. Now, Elon is pretty damn smart, and for the price of a used car, he will be getting a hage payback in marketing value, and probably a hefty tax write off for this launch being an advertising stunt. If it all works, I can assure you we will have some stunning video of a red tesla sports car on the way to mars with David Bowie crooning to ground control! Priceless!!! I can't wait.

Doesn't sound very green to me.

Soon! I bet it blows up. 100ATS$

originally posted by: Peeple
Soon! I bet it blows up. 100ATS$

Elon Musk hiself warned "ther'es a good chance it will blow up", but I think he likes to say "good chance" because of the additional attention the launch might receive by the people wanting to see something blow up.

SpaceX is launching its most powerful rocket ever this week — here's how to watch live

The launch is now set for 3:05 EST today (20:05 UTC). The launch window today remains open until 4:30 pm EST (21:30 UTC).

www.spacex.com...

around mars AND the sun?

I had no idea...

a reply to: crayzeed

YAY, our government subsidizing Space-X by 4.5 billion dollars! If I had 4.5B, I wouldn't really care what anybody thought either.

He could have done something better, like lift a bunch of solar panels into space to create a solar power station. But hey, shiny car and thick, heavy, powerful, manly rockets must be eating KJU up on the inside!

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

It worked.
Plus deep down I still think it's stupid. The car and.... what was the song?