This week marked a spectacular achievement by Elon Musk’s company SpaceX; a mostly successful (they lost the core booster) test of the Falcon Heavy booster and recovery system, along with an insertion burn to put the payload ( A Tesla electric roadster in cherry red) on a Mars trajectory.
Some have criticized it as “nothing more than a car commercial” (Naomi Klein) while others have said all that’s been done is to add to the space junk problem. No matter how you see it, you have to admire the achievement, something no private company has ever done before.
Josh has his take on it:
For those who don’t know the term “range anxiety”: it is the term for the most common worry about electric cars.
Meanwhile, in other more down to Earth news:
Back to Earth: Tesla’s losses grow on Model 3 delays
The day after Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk blasted his Tesla Roadster into space, his electric car company’s mounting losses brought him back to Earth again.
Tesla Inc. posted a record quarterly net loss of $675 million in the fourth quarter, up from a net loss of $121 million in the same period a year ago. The Palo Alto, California-based automaker is struggling to meet production targets for its first mass-market car, the Model 3 sedan. It’s also spending heavily on future vehicles, including a semi that’s supposed to go into production next year.
Tesla lost $1.96 billion for the full year, a record for the company and nearly three times its loss of $675 million in 2016. Tesla has never made a full-year profit since it went public in 2010.
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Amazing what they can do with a rocket powered by electricity.
Oh, wait….
+10000000000
Funny
LMAO. In addition,We aren’t ever going to blow one out a wind tunnel fully charged with solar panels. Where do these idiots thing the electricity is coming from?
shades of heavy metal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_KXgFpguE0
Yes, I experienced a brief deja-vu, until I remembered that iconic scene. Yep, it’s already been done (at least in cartoon form). But of course, that was a re-entry. And it was a corvette. Now, thinking about it, if you could hold attitude, you could totally re-enter using only *wood* as a heat-shield, as the Chinese have tested that, so re-entering a functional automobile might be a valid engineering problem.
The payload was a Tesla? what on earth is going through their minds.
A moronic idea, no doubt the brainchild of some soulless marketing clown.
Why do SpaceX find it so difficult to do what has been getting done since the 60s?
At least this one didn’t blow up I guess.
For tests, the normal payload is a concrete block of a suitable weight. It would not be usual to put a science payload on a test launch – it would not get insurance, for one thing.
So they simply picked a cheap weight that they had readily available. And yes, probably the marketing people made a proposal…
Maybe it would have been better to open the payload for free, no guarantee, to any crowdfunding group that’s willing to test it. I wonder what the people would have done with it, possibly better then a concrete block or a car…
It’s not like anyone was going to buy it anyway. About the same as a concrete block.
This wasn’t a cheap payload by any stretch of the imagination. In fact it was a very expensive publicity stunt. Huge waste of money IMO.
Well, if it was his money, then it is his money to spend. Or to “waste”.
But “waste” is in the eye of the critic. Not the owner who is spending HIS money on a “deadweight” that had to be in the rocket to test the rocket and all engines and mounts and brackets and trajectories and power levels and controls.
For that, shooting a Tesla is “way cool” .
And no more of a waste of money than a “makes the HR department feel good about SJW’s in the HR departmrnt” SuperBowl ad. That alienates many stockholders, other people in the company, and millions of potential customers.
Actually, much More effective than a SuperBowl ad for its intended audience (the employees at Tesla/SpaceX, other engineers and tech enthusiasts, and every potential customer with satellite loads), since we (and many around the world) are actually still talking about the Tesla, while nobody is watching the SuperBowl ads from last Sunday.
Without a way to recharge (presuming it went up with a fully charged battery) once it completely discharges the car will be a BRICK
So Concrete Block or Tesla Brick still the same
I wonder how close to mid-line the moments of the load have to be .
Very few rocket makers launch an active payload on the first launch of an untried rocket. Even Musk said that the test would be a success if the Heavy cleared the pad before blowing up. Usually,they launch water or concrete. The cost to harden the Tesla for launch was trivial compared to that of the rocket itself.
And yes, with the space-suit mannequin in it, it was truly a “dummy” payload.
Apparently, it was Musk’s personal roadster. He now gets to deduct its value as a business expense.
On a more serious note. I’ve not seen anybody comment on the space suit. Was the suit a mock-up or was it real? The design didn’t look familiar.
We understand (from the short description on the TV at launch) that the spacesuit IS a “real spacesuit” designed by the SpaceX company staff (not an old NASA wanna-be)- but it is not clear if it was a “hollow” suit and nominal facemask, or a full-up test suit with instrumentation actually able to hold pressure and a life within.
The 2nd test flight will have various discounted payloads, such as a light sail from the Planetary Society.
a bus load AGW believers would have been a good idea!!!
Musk bricked his Roadster in the parking lot and did not want anyone to know. It is called hiding the evidence.
Nobody ever landed boosters back on earth automatically in the sixties.
This.
I’m more impressed with this than I was with the Space Shuttle. Especially the fact that those VERY ungainly looking boosters are able to land like the old Science Fiction rockets of old!!
Shame they lost the Core booster though.
Actually, secondary boosters have been recovered to be reused for the entire (and late) space shuttle program. And these spacex boosters have a lot of dead weight for the orbital material, because they have to save fuel and carry extra control and landing mechanisms for their powered landing.These are not gliding space shuttles (and they lost the primary booster). I don´t quite grasp the milestone, the russian space shuttle supposedly could fly the entire mission on autopiltot (but alas! it never launched, so it´s more like advertising work, like this launch).
Maybe if they introduced a giant rail gun to boost rockets/items into space we could see actual technological milestones for this guy´s e-diology.
I personally think he did it now, to hide the tremendous losses(record) in Tesla and the more serious problems with his “automated” factories.
“These are not gliding space shuttles (and they lost the primary booster). I don´t quite grasp the milestone,”
Recovering the booster rockets intact, without dunking them in the ocean, is a milestone. The more reuse of the equipment they can do, means they can launch cheaper than if they had to build a new booster every time they launch.
It is quite a sight to watch the boosters land on their tails. NASA should have been doing this kind of development for years. Unfortunately, bureaucracies like NASA need a person with vision to lead, and you usually don’t get that out of a bunch of bureaucrats. But you do get that out of private companies, or else they go out of business.
The person Trump wants for NASA administrator, Mr. Bridenstein, is a big promoter of private businesses in space. It’s good to see SpaceX making such good progress. It makes Bridenstein’s arguments more effective when he pushes for private enterprise in space.
It’s a shame the main booster didn’t land intact on its barge. Did someone say the cause was it ran out of propellants before it landed?
“We” haven’t been recovering boosters, on land, since the 60’s. And the US, at least, hasn’t had this launch capability for years.
The Falcon core did not run out of fuel. It (as it were) ran out of matches to light the fuel. Which is to say, it didn’t have enough triethylaluminum/triethylborane to ignite 2 of the 3 engines..The core needed three engines to land softly. Only one of them lit.
This (pyrophoric) mixture was also used to ignite the fuel in the SR-71 and the F-1 rockets of the Saturn V. They don’t load more of it than they expect to use, because it is NOT a friendly and cooperative substance. If it gets near any oxygen, it burns. Vigorously.
Something similar happened early in the landing experiments: the core ran out of hydraulic fluid to control the paddles. This is why they call these launches and landings “tests”. They find the weak spots.Until they are fixed, you can’t really trust the system.
Were there not 9 engines in each of the three core rocket assemblies? 27 total.
Why would you restart only 3 of the 9 in the return stages of flight?
Thanks for that information, Ellen.
Mark
Wake up this morning with your panties in a bunch?
Actually, the second stage did not operate properly and the car is headed to the asteroid belt instead of Mars. The second stage also suffered a unintended disassembly when it returned to earth. (Read crashed and burned.)
The core booster did not return properly because they ran out of material to reignite the engines which, if accurate, can be addressed.
The car is on a wider orbit because that stage, which is not the core booster, was fired until exhaustion rather than injection. They weren’t intending to put it in a specific targeted orbit, but to test the equipment to its limit.
ShrNfr,
Thanks. My impression was that it was supposed to orbit Mars. Then in the reports it was headed for the asteroid belt. No hint that something went wrong beyond one of the three didn’t land.
Not quite ready to risk a life on a Mars shot.
But the pictures of a used Tesla (different company that SpaceX though both Musk) with a space-suited mannequin at the wheel?
A fun partial failure.
Perhaps because they are trying to do it for about a tenth of the cost?
And what, every rocket since the 1960s has performed perfectly has it? News to anybody who actually follows this stuff.
A question I have is about payload size. If the Tesla was the only weight in the vehicle, wouldn’t it be a poor test when the 64 tons isn’t in the payload? I’m pretty sure a Tesla Roadster doesn’t weigh that much. Did they have other weight for the payload to compensate?
@Mark – you have absolutely no sense of humor. Also, the Falcon 9 can put a heavy payload to orbit for $60 million. The Falcon Heavy can put three times as much weight up there, I believe, for $90 million. These figures are a fraction of what it cost our government to launch large payloads. The Dragon 2 capsule will be man-rated this year barring accidents, and will be taking Americans back to the space station a half-dozen at a time and returning them. All of this was developed in-house without government funding. Achievements to celebrate. It’s good to see Musk has something to smile about. Space X is his only venture making money.
“…developed … without government funding…”
That is very unlikely since this is a Musk company, after all.
There is a report telling that SpaceX offered NASA and USAF the opportunity for a “free ride” on Falcon Heavy maiden launch, but they declined. So using his own roadster was done after he couldn’t find anyone willing to bet on first flight of a new rocket.
“We” haven’t been recovering boosters, on land, since the 60’s. And the US, at least, hasn’t had this launch capability for years.
Sorry, this is a duplicate out of order.
Did you just hear about this, have you been living in a cave? Leaving your mark in the universe is very cool, and the car has a special laser disc with a digital archive, that documents humanity, should someone find it in the future. I think it is much better than sending up dead weight.
Does anyone know if this was a fully loaded auto or simply a shell less batteries/motors/drive train etc?
As an ex-Boeing engineer – and McDonnell Douglas before the merger – I can assure you this was a great success. I am stunned by 1) how much payload they lofted, and 2) that they recovered two of three cores. At McDonnell Douglas, I worked on Delta, Delta II, and Delta Clipper, an experimental rocket meant to demonstrate the ability to land boosters. It never made it to space – not sure it ever made it past 10’000 ft. IT blew up on its last test flight when one of four legs failed to extend.
On Delta III, we did launch our first vehicle with a customer payload. We were confident that because we were merely building off of a proven rocket system (Delta II was about 98% successful) that there was low risk. That mission failed spectacularly, as did at least one or two subsequent missions. We at McDonD had serious mud on our face. Heads rolled. While we launched a few more D-III boosters – some with concrete payloads, the D-III was doomed. I think we built a total of 8.
I’m not a fun of Musk or his Teslas. But I’m am very impressed with his rockets. I’m also impressed with his backbone. On Delta (including II, III, and IV), a large expense was all the Government “expert” agencies running around verifying that everything we did met with their expectations. On team was Air Force for military missions, the other was NASA for commercial and other non-military missions. Musk doesn’t ( or at least didn’t) accept that interference, and has been able to manage costs. Just letting Government look at your books is expensive, especially sine they demand frequent presentations, and segregated, large office spaces that dwarf those of actual engineering, including all the IT and special communications services and security.
I remember way back when the old Hewlett Packard was asked to bid on some Government projects. Part of that bid was mandatory Government access to all their financials, to ensure they didn’t make excess profit. HP refused, merely sending them a catalog of the equipment they supplied. They were told they could order from the catalog. HP stated they couldn’t afford to have a small army of Government reps sticking their nose into every element of their company. A big fight ensued, which HP won. They were treated like any other customer. If you don’t like their terms, go somewhere else.
I wasn’t there, but a lot of the old-timers related building the first boosters for the Air Force. AF was unhappy that Army had a lead, and gave the Douglas Company carte blanche to build a system quickly. There were several spectacular failures before that first successful booster was demonstrated. With that success, AF installed all their usual financial check systems. They were not going to be taken to the cleaners. Booster number 2 cost almost 10 times as much as that first successful booster, but AF was happy because they could prove they weren’t being cheated.
Government help is expensive – incredibly expensive. Your company may not pay all of that expense directly, but it is still part of the cost to the customer.
Cue Reagan: “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
Thanks for that interesting history lesson, kaliforniakook.
We are getting closer to “cheap” access to space than ever before, thanks to innovators like Musk and others.
Tesla must be one of the few companies recording their success by how much they lose every quarter.
Uber, Twitter, Theranos, Lyft, Netflix, Blue Apron…
A certain part of the market is “aspirational”; if you don’t like it, don’t contribute to it.
“aspirational” LOL! How true, how true! And you may get funded by some idiot or the government, but you can’t buy a cup of Starbucks with a pocket full of aspirations. That is not to say that Musk is an idiot. He is laughing all the way to the bank.
Or be happy that some investment fund is happy to subsidise things you want to use.
Yeah, but they make it up in volume.
It was a test which mostly worked well. That they used a TESLA to be part of the test payload to demonstrate the ability of the boosters to lift is great propaganda for a company that doesn’t seem to be able to make money building cars. As to the claim that the car will be there for millions if not billions of years, well time will tell. Maybe we will get a ticket from the Vogons for fouling up their right of way?
They might read Musk some poetry instead.
The claim it will be there for billions of years—fake news or science is dead, not sure which.
The battery dies after 6 hours, so no more music from the Tesla. Watch out for those Musk batteries……
Also, the car is expected to be destroyed within a year due to degradation while passing through the Van Allen belt. But, yeah, there will be many parts of a Tesla in space for millions of years. It wasn’t built to withstand that environment. Satellites are a whole different tech from boosters.
Amazing coincidence on the timing of those 2 stories….
The date of the [earnings] report last year was Feb. 22, and until 6 weeks or so ago it was expected that this year’s report would be in the same time frame.
Landing the twin boosters synchronously was pretty cool, no matter what else you think about the Falcon Heavy test launch.
Best video of it I’ve seen
Impressive.
That’s great! But from that distance you can’t really tell if they landed or exploded! Ha!
Definitely Landed
Agreed. It was so perfect it looked like CGI.
The CGI video is when they both touchdown simultaneously; fake looking smoke cloud.
[?? .mod]
see additional video above
Like when coming out of 55 Broad and seeing the clouds and debris and interrupted paperwork wafting down from the WTC .
Some intelligent life forms will tractor beam the roadster into their ship, analyze it and conclude, “There’s no way this battery has a 620 mile range as claimed. No wonder he got rid of it.”
Tesla’s Newest Promises Break the Laws of Batteries
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-24/tesla-s-newest-promises-break-the-laws-of-batteries
Is that a problem? Then entire Elon Musk comedy show is based on nonsense, but rich government and investors often buy nonsense. (That’s the explanation for the red roadster—cartoon company, cartoon payload, cartoon image.)
I see many people (outside WUWT) complaining about the Elon Musk’s silly stunt of launching a car in space.
I see relatively few people (outside WUWT) complaining about the silly fiscal stunt of selling pollution rights, which may not even be counted as a subsidy-tax (depending on which side you are) by some people.
That bothers me.
Pity if it is on a trajectory to Mars that they didn’t go the whole hog and plan to parachute it down so that the lucky astronauts who eventually get to visit the red planet could use it for getting around. Wonder how many decades it would take solar panels on Mars to recharge the batteries?
It would be much better if Musk spent his money on rockets, judging from the results, than electric cars for the elitist rich.
How on Earth is a company making these losses still even in business?
How do they stay in business?
Government subsidies help hugely. Further, bankers are generally very happy to lend to companies if they believe that governments will bail them out if insolvency threatens.
it was never intended to hit Mars, the orbit the car is now on is an oval shape with the sun at one focus and the outer limit of the orbit “relatively” close to mars.
it will never hit mars. also, thanks to it being unprotected from the solar wind, it will be taking abuse while it’s traveling.
It’s three card monte on a grand scale.
Whatever you may think of Elon Musk and his love of tax credits and subsidies it would be a very dull and dismal world if people like him did not exist. Good for him.
Imagine a world populated by Naomi Klein clones……….
Hear, Hear! You have to give Elon Musk the credit he deserves, at least for his rocket abilities. Good on him for proving private enterprise can also compete to orbit, once Gov’t did the heavy lifting the last 50 years in making the tech possible. Let private enterprise now compete to lob stuff up into orbit at the cheapest price possible. (No complaining about subsidies since far less than NASA) Now my mag lev rail gun has a chance to shoot ice bullets and aluminum ingots into space from my secret mountain hideaway.
However, I do wish he would take my free advice and put a dedicated micro Turbine/ICE type generator in his electric car and reduce the same expensive battery weight so as it had unlimited range with no range anxiety. This obsession with Pure EV, all battery is not healthy and will lead to ruin. Plus his car would be cheaper and available to the masses while still running 90% of all miles on battery alone and alleviate the up front headache of installing all the electrical infrastructure for charging all pure EV. Hybrid of some sort is the only thing that makes sense presently except maybe for a very small short range runabout town car of some sort.
Hybrid of some sort is the only thing that makes sense presently except maybe for a very small short range runabout town car of some sort.
Exactly what I would like to have.
He’s not a private company. Maybe by technical definition, but his government support is astronomical. And his company NEVER profits.
Isnt that basically the chevy volt? large battery, small ICE for range extension.
The only electric that makes sense if the Chevy Volt, with a gas generator. It would be better if diesel, but not allowed by EPA and California.
https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2017/09/19/one-electric-car-makes-sense/
Because California controls the auto market!
https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2018/02/06/california-boss-us/
yes indeed!
he has changed space flight from a government controlled set of projects to the wide west, giddyup boys.
the good thing is, we won’t be here to complain anyway.
And you can bet those Noamis would excommunicate each other, and starve to death (talking and writing won’t help them grow or even find food)
Yes, Klein was disparaging about it, joining in with the bizarre people calling for space exploration to be done by “states, communities and united peoples”.
Klein ist klein.
I guess a corporation does not count as “united people”, for some reason…
At least P.T. Barnum used his own money to put on his shows.
You are so right, Mr. Ward! I think his cars are silly, but launching one in lieu of a chunk of concrete was genius! And Funny!
I read someplace that the Tesla will never make it to Mars, the cosmic radiation will cause it to disintegrate. That’s probable if it has a plastic body.
Built in obsolescence, no doubt
I bet the battery was junk when Elon tossed it.
Anything organic (plastic, rubber, etc) will decay from radiation, but the metal should survive a long time. Not billions of yrs tho…
Natural destruction of man’s handiwork on a cosmic scale. now there will be particles of man-made petro-chemicals drifting about in the heliosphere, spoiling its pristine paradigm. I would have thought that they would send it spiraling into the sun so it gets properly disposed of.
“Some have criticized it as “nothing more than a car commercial” (Naomi Klein)”…
So, does Elon get to deduct part of this as a Tesla business expense? Of course, if your company is losing $1.96 billion a year, I guess you don’t pay any taxes anyhow.
Uh, guys, Tesla is one company, SpaceX is another. Tesla gets the subsidies, SpaceX gets paid for deliverying payloads.
Like the guy, or not, Musk “has got it goin’ on” and will be an icon of history, even if his world goes bust.
OMG! The stupid is unbearable ;-( No private company whose entire business model is based on subsidisation – for (Snip) sake! Being great at getting rich on public money makes one a mountebank! It’s called – and rightly so – crony capitalism. Look at where every penny came from and you’ll see that it is out of ‘your’ own pocket.
The rockets used by NASA were all designed and built by private companies.
Public v private is about funding and if it isn’t, what other distinction are you referring to?
Really – with whose money (hint, yours and mine).
Mark, seems like working for Raytheon or McDonnell-Douglas, etc meant you were probably working on a govt contract job back then. The difference I see is that Space-x has removed the NASA snag of multiple contractors having to cooperate under the auspices of a bureaucratic agency. They have much more control over the entire process from what I see and way more spirit as an organization.
Well…no actually. NASA uses Russian (State funded) engines currently!
How are the sanctions going? (now that France’s reputation and appeal in Russia has been ruined by these sanctions)
My father and his father before him were bankers*. It drives me to despair how ignorant and completely deluded – we all are now – about very, very, simple math ;-(
*Not meant as an appeal to authority but rather as a statement of knowledge! Both were military officers, my grandfather was Brigadier in charge of finances for the allied forces in Japan after WWII, for example!
Scott, I understand that it was our money, but I would support 80% of climate change money be diverted to this private sector contractor who can encompass and manage the ‘whole ball of wax’ and avoid the bureaucratic black holes caused by dealing with multiple contractors. Now there is just one bid for the whole package instead of trying to coordinate all the low-bid contractors into a working team.
I would liken NASA’s methods to the state U where I worked trying to be its own general contractor on construction projects. They were always more costly per sq ft than the projects that the capital development board let to general contractors. That was probably also because they were spending year-end money at the college, though.
==>Pop
What you say is probably true as it goes, however, NASA’s biggest supplier is now SpaceX! There was only one payload to orbit contractor previously and the reason for the creation of this new duopoly is that NASA had been forced to use Russian engines… Look it up – there is lots more to this 😉
Meanwhile down in New Zealand an English man has successfully launched a test rocket- Electron- made by 3d printing.
You have to laugh-
“Rutherford is the first to incorporate battery power in its engine”
https://www.popsci.com/rocket-labs-got-3d-printed-battery-powered-rocket-engine
The hope is to launch one a week putting small satellites into orbit.
At 5 million dollars a pop pretty good value.
richard
February 9, 2018 at 6:22 am
Amazingly this very small USA/NZ company (Rocket Lab) managed to get to orbit on their second try, launch some small satellites including the “Humanity Star” which is now visible worldwide. See:
https://www.rocketlabusa.com/news/updates/rocket-lab-successfully-reaches-orbit-and-deploys-payloads-january-21-2018/
for some videos of the launch and payload deployment.
BTW, it’s only the engine fuel pumps that are battery operated…great saving in weight and gain in reliability for the 9 Rutherford engines in the first stage.
N. Tesla ended his days as a charity case boarded at a hotel in NYC at no charge. He did great things but spun out of control on later ideas that did not work and JP Morgan cut off the final flow of funds.
We owe this genius Tesla a great debt of gratitude. I wish people wouldn’t sully his name.
Agreed! Sometimes pure Genius comes with a price.
Tesla was a great genius, but like many geniuses he couldn’t accept that some of his theories might be wrong.
No matter how brilliant you are, you have to look at the data with eyes wide open, at let it lead you where it will, even if that’s not were you wanted to go.
We owe Tesla about the same as we owe Mr Betamax.
Morgan cut off the funds before Tesla could succeed or fail. The reason was that if he could produce power from the ‘ether’, Morgan would not be able to market it and make his cut. He was reported to have said something like “If I can’t put a meter on it, it’s not going to happen”.
Had he been gifted with foresight, he might have realized the potential for manufacture of devices alone would assure him and his progeny of wealth, but it appears that greed and megalomania might have clouded his judgement. Tesla, instead of passing on his knowledge in a single deposition, reportedly distributed pieces of it to major world powers in hopes of a reassembly sometime in the future when the world powers act in concert to do so.
The story behind choosing the Falcon Heavy payload. Note that the Lithium Ion battery pack and drivetrain were removed from the Roadster before launch, so no worries about plugging in.
http://www.motortrend.com/news/like-rocket-story-behind-spacexs-plan-launch-tesla-roadster-space/
You are such a kill-joy.
At least there’s not as much “space pollution”. I’d still have preferred it incinerated as it approached Sol. It would be really fun to watch using the SOHO coronal cameras.
Speaking of battery and drive train, that shaved considerable weight from the payload. Did the Dummy in the spacesuit make up for that, or would my ’95 Dodge pickup have burned up on re-entry?
I doubt the government would have allowed the Tesla batteries to be onboard, because if there had been an explosion their toxic (?) ingreidents would have contaminated nearby land.
The Spacex adventures should be roundly admired. Good old American industry Can-do ingenuity and success is simply not possible anywhere else on earth and I venture to say never will be. The mere couple of dozen months it took a car company with an idea to attain world lead capability in space technology is astounding. Entire countries – North Korea, Iran, China… took decades with the technology handed to them holus bolus, and still cant quite get it right. Its not the brains. It’s the system that is open to optimum freedom to use your brains.
Elsewhere, one is far too too circumscribed to even have such an “impossible” thought enter the mind in the first place. Were I a leader of one of the three countries mentioned, I would be struck dumb and in a deep depression by the realization of the enormity of the flea- elephant contrast between my country and the USA and would immediately declare no contest and get my inner circle together to figure a negotiated path out of totally fruitless conflict and see if I could trade being a nuisance for some of the magic. This power even gave us our oil industry and are, on top of it all, generous and forgiving to a fault. Heck, this mega power could get an automobile company to put a car through my palace window as a warning! Or land it in my parking lot between the Mercedes and the Rolls and between the yellow lines as a friendly, more terrifying demonstration.
This should also send terminal depressive shivers through the EU/UN neomarxbrothers (and their lefty American admirerers) when they contemplate how puny and pathetic they and their Liliputian plans are. This is why America is hated by so many. Good job Mr. Musk.
Gary Pearce: I’m a Canadian and I couldn’t agree more. You have to hand it to the Americans when it comes to the audacity to try anything and make a success of most of their efforts. The rest of the world just seems to sit by and criticize from the peanut gallery.
Im Canadian too.
“Its not the brains. It’s the system”
Well you may be onto something.
I do not want to minimize the achievement – now with Spacex or with many other industries, however one of the enablers is the dollar & the international monetary system. No other country can print money out of thin air in the amount the US can, due to the dollar dominance – which allows also giant companies ‘to print’ through debt their industries for decades.
I wonder in what other country would Tesla be a viable company with its cash burning system?
As said, I do not want to minimize the impressive technological achievement, just wondering that one needs a bit more then only can-do ingenuity.
Lars. you dont get it. They made the money too and a free enterprise system. Nobody gave America anything and they gave the world a modern technological society
Gary,
Well said.
Get Spacex to land a bright red, white, and blue Tesla with a big bow at the front door of North Korea’s Kim Jong-un as a peace offering. Provide instructions as to how to charge the batteries.
Do the same with Iran.
A true offering for peace. What’s not to like.
Agree w/you Gary Pearse. Seems like the electric car efforts aren’t going well, but the SpaceX effort is a stunning success. How many successful satellite launches and booster recoveries have there been now? Alot! SpaceX has even successfully launched & recovered previously launched boosters. AFA this Falcon Heavy demo, seems to me mostly a success. Musk himself might have some flawed ideas, but the SpaceX people are on the ball.
I suspect the Tesla staff lacks the sense of purpose that the Space-X staff possesses.
I think Elon’s best idea is to optimise transport tunnels under cities.
Folks, Tesla is one company, SpaceX is another. The subsidies go to Tesla.
You are a hard man to impress RE.
Elon Musk promised to put the car in orbit around Mars. Instead it is now orbiting in the asteroid belt. That didn’t seem to bother Musk’s claims about success. It was either a Tesla roadster or a bunch of concrete blocks. His Tesla Motors company will likely charge Spacex $250,000 for the car.
Musk is absolutely the cheapest liar on the planet.
It is most certainly not in the asteroid belt, and will never be.The asteroid belt is 329 Million – 480 Million miles from the sun.
The car has not even exited the earth-moon system yet
The Falcon heavy gave it enough extra delta V to make it to 158 Million miles from the sun (by mid-late November) at aphelion (furthest point of orbit) which makes it highly elliptical.
It will never make it to the asteroid belt and wont actually orbit mars either.
“It will pass within about 69 million miles of Mars on June 8 and cross the red planet’s orbit in July before reaching its farthest distance from the sun — about 158 million miles — on Nov. 19.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/starman-tesla-roadster-orbit-spacex-falcon-heavy/
It has exited the Earth-Moon system, having achieved escape velocity. It will come back near the Earth’s orbit radius periodically, but the Earth will not generally be there when it does.
The article I read said it would be in an elliptical orbit between Earth and Mars.
I’ve never seen anything that claimed it would be in the asteroid belt.
Comet Tesla?
Comets emanate from the Oort cloud, I think.
The Tesla would need several gravity assists and an ion engine of considerable size to reach the Oort cloud in a few years.
“Musk is absolutely the cheapest liar on the planet.” Not sure if that is an insult or a compliment, but I think he was aiming for the asteroid belt since that is where the real money is. Getting to the asteroid belt takes a whole lot more energy than just getting to Mars, so he hit this one out of the park, so to speak. Good on Elon Musk and the good ole USA for letting in a South African Immigrant via Canada, (his mother is a Canuck) and letting him aim for the stars. Only in the USA would this be possible…
First, he never said the car would orbit Mars. It’s not really clear what he’s trying to convey. Here’s the line from his tweet:
There is an international treaty set up to keep other planets from being “contaminated” by Terran lifeforms. Since SpaceX had neither the time nor inclination to “sanitize” the roadster the objective was shifted. Even Musk has to pay attention to the FAA.
How much government money did Elon get for this?
None. Unlike his ventures into electric cars and batteries, his SpaceX company gets no government funding. He has customers lined up around the block. This one will actually be profitable.
I despise him for taking billions in taxpayer money to fund his Tesla projects, but I admire him for SpaceX.
They had not one but three separate boosters firing with sufficient control and power to get into orbit. Then another burn to get to escape velocity and then some to get beyond mars, and then got two of the boosters to land up right a thousand yards apart, decelerating just seconds from the ground. The amount of power and control that all requires just boggles the mind I think the engineers who pulled it off deserve our congratulations and some major recognition!
They have succeeded in landing the main booster before, however from what I’ve read, the wind at the landing site exceeded design specs and they lost the main booster.
Does Space-X get all kinds of government hand-outs and tax breaks like Tesla does?
No.
Elon ripped off the Heavy Metal movie opening:
+1 (or more if you like; I can’t count past 1). A Chevy Corvette Roadster is way cooler than a Tesla. Meanwhile the Elonophiles lap it up – “Elon is such a GENIUS!”
He will be the first private enterprise to fly by MARS though
It is a Lotus chassis, so it is still cool.
I kept expecting the connection to be made, but it seemed it never was in the articles I read.
Just imagine the results if someone would put this amount of engineering into “New Nuclear” such as Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, or “LiFTeRs”! Hope springs eternal ….
Maybe if he wasnt distracted by putting cars in space he could focus on making cars and a profit. The last time I saw a similar distraction….BP wind followed shortly by BP Deepwater Horizon.
Here’s the ball, keep your eye on it.
That wasn’t a Car, No batteries!!! It was a Brick
Nicolai Tesla was the genius who invented the AC generator, wich Westinghouse put i production.
Elon Musk is just a genius scammer.
Is he paying the Tesla family for his abuse of the family name ?