He went big…

Gotta give Musk credit, he went big, and damn near everything worked…

Falcon X heavy went off without any major problems day before yesterday, after some pad delays due to wind vectors. Two out of three rockets were recovered on land, and the third didn’t quite make it back to the sea platform (Apparently a mis-timed mis-fire on the reentry burn).

But, the piece de resistance was the ‘payload’… Most test fires have a chunk of concrete up top, no harm no foul if it doesn’t work…

Musk took it to a new level, with his payload. Apparently his personal Tesla convertible, loaded with a mannequin (in a working space suit), casually posed in the driver’s seat. Among other things, there was a copy of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and a towel in the trunk, and a model of the roadster with passenger, glued to the dashboard.

Oh yeah, and the car was ‘live’ in that it had 12 hours of battery life, and cameras to send pictures back, while it played David Bowie’s “Life on Mars”!

This is the last ‘selfie’ if you will before the battery died.

You can get more details from HERE at Space.com…

So kudos to Mr. Musk. You did it with style and it almost worked… You missed Mars, but it’s still going to be a helluva ride! Congratulations to you and your teams that put the rocket together, proving once again that we CAN get back to space!

Comments

He went big… — 18 Comments

  1. Hey Old NFO;

    He should have also used the “Heavy Metal” soundtrack with his music list. Still heckofa sendoff.

    • Not only the soundtrack from Heavy Metal, but remember the posed suit in a convertible car so much replicates the open sequence of the movie. Other than the original ‘Vette being white, not red like Musk’s Roadster.
      But very well played Mr. Musk, well played!

  2. And who among us wouldn’t have liked to somehow be behind the wheel, if that were possible? Seriously cool, right there.

    • last 5 mins of Space Cowboys…I haven’t smiled that hard since the election. Go Musk!

  3. His car factory still can’t ramp up to the 5,000 cars a week that he promised. Not only that, he can’t even make a quarter of that number a week.

    They are now promising to reach the goal by the end of Q2 2018.

    Maybe he should concentrate on that instead of launching scrap iron into space.

    • I expect the problem is that his factory is in the wrong location. It may have been a nice facility, but that doesn’t compensate for the inherent problems of this area. There is a reason it was vacant. Toyota was able to make it work for a while, but they finally bailed. It’s in CA, and Silicon Valley. That’s two strikes, at least.

      Neighbor was working there a year or so ago. Putting in 60+hours a week. Good labor for that sort of work is hard to find around here. If EM had built a plant in TX, he’d have been golden. I’m assuming there were huge tax advantages/rebates/etc, to setting up in CA. EM doesn’t strike me as a fool, but it’s normally stupid to set up a business in this state.

  4. Maybe the next time we see it, there will be someone I’ve the passenger seat!

  5. > before the battery died

    Apparently they stripped the (heavy) battery pack out of the car before launching it. Othewise, I would expect it would be happily transmitting for years.

    Still, an awesome achievement overall… and a big upraised finger to the useless bureaucrats infesting the remains of NASA.

  6. We can only hope he doesn’t scratch the paint job on a Vogon constructor fleet vessel.

    Go big, or … never mind. Just go big!

  7. A whole bunch of my Boeing buddies from Sea Launch are working there now.

    Well done, SpaceX!

  8. WoW,Shades of “Heavy Metal”.
    The earth IS round you flat landers.