SpaceX launches Falcon Heavy successfully - biggest rocket since Saturn V

Man, I love what Musk is doing, but there is way too much 'hype' around this guy. Richard Branson did a lot of similar things. Not with rockets though. "Greater and more challenging"? I don't think so. First Atomic Bomb and the Apollo Program took way more genius than that. Let's not forget Bill Gates and Microsoft. Musk is the flavor of the month.

There are certainly a few scientists amongst the true geniuses. Most would be inventors who are pushing the envelope and not just worker bees carrying out tasks and orders.

If Musk is the flavour of the month that means he is common and there is a replacement every month basically both before and after him. I would like to see you name them?

Like him or not, (and I don't consider myself a fan) he is in pretty rarified air just below Gates, Buffet, Bezo's, and a few others. He is almost certainly in the top 5% of the business elite.

You can wave your hand and dismiss him as if nothing I guess but then I would ask...

<FookIsThatGuy>
 
Musks stated goal is to ensure the survival of the species , move away from fossil fuels (Tesla , Solar City ) and be able to get off the planet just in case(SpaceX) , Branson can't compete imo
Those are beyond big goals. Typically most would be dissuaded from having such big and, some would say generic goals but you can actually see Musk is making measurable progress on all of them.

His Tesla company, which I am still not betting will be around in 10 years or worth a fraction of what it is now, HAS changed the automobile landscape for the better. Every major manufacturer will now keep progressing Electric vehicles and the impact on carbon in the atmosphere will be significant.

Space X and the X prize reinvigorated a lethargic space program which was mostly forgotten about and certainly not prioritized. History has shown us that so much of man's advancement prior has come from the push to reach space and the technology spin offs that creates.

If his solar roof and other advancements can truly be priced at the current price of a typical roof and yet last longer, I see that being adapted by home builders everywhere. It becomes a free cut in cost of the power of the home going forward even without the Power Wall battery pack to store power. Again this could result in a huge cut in the need for fossil fuels and ensure we have advanced renewable energy generation to a point where if in the future fossil fuels are depleted or otherwise unavailable they won't be needed.

But ya, someone is going to tell us he is over rated and hasn't really done anything.

<{clintugh}>
 
I'm just waiting for space travel to take over conventional air travel. Half hour flight from LA to Spain? Where do I sign up?
 
Musks stated goal is to ensure the survival of the species , move away from fossil fuels (Tesla , Solar City ) and be able to get off the planet just in case(SpaceX) , Branson can't compete imo
those goals are pretty silly, but the man has some serious ideas. His underground highway and air travel could be revolutionary. His electric cars are innovative and shows that he can materialize these things. Self landing rocket is pretty darn amazing too. Materializing far fetched ideas is normal for the guy.
 


Watch this video with your headphones on full blast to fully appreciate the sound produced by Falcon Heavy during launch
 
those goals are pretty silly, but the man has some serious ideas. His underground highway and air travel could be revolutionary. His electric cars are innovative and shows that he can materialize these things. Self landing rocket is pretty darn amazing too. Materializing far fetched ideas is normal for the guy.
Everything is has undertaken since PayPal has been borderline nuts and all logic would say doomed to failure and yet he keeps succeeding although it was close

The first three attempts at a launch failed, if the fourth one failed he was done .

Looking forward to seeing what they do next.
 
Some of you Musk fanboys are really annoying. SpaceX was founded in 2002 so lets call it 15 years. NASA was founded in 1958 and landed men on the moon in less than 11 years at a time when the most powerful computers couldn't do what a cell phone can do today and took up entire floors of a building. NASA's first manned flight was in 1961 and the first manned orbital flight in 1962. NASA had missions that flew by Venus in 1962 and Mars in 1964. In 1971 they had a spacecraft in orbit around Mars.

The problem NASA ran into was when Congress wanted a reuseable vehicle to lower costs but it ended up increasing costs, adding lengthy delays and eventually costing lives.

No one has denied NASA's importance but you are comparing things they accomplished 60-70 years ago to now. Musk has reinvigorated space exploration and that's cool IMO.

As to being a fanboy I am actually very very far from one. Two of my best friends have preordered Tesla cars. Another one won't shut up about SpaceX and a bunch of us have looked into the merits of buying his sunroof tiles... he has interjected himself into our lives by doing unconventional things. I think he's at least genius level crazy...

He drives industries he applies his business into forward. How many people can claim that?...
 
Musks stated goal is to ensure the survival of the species, move away from fossil fuels (Tesla, Solar City) and be able to get off the planet just in case.

Ok, that sounds a little creepy. "Survival of the species" - ok, this guy is either off his medication or he needs to get on some kind of medication. That's 'crazy' talk. He is going to save the human race by moving a colony to Mars? Ok, that is some really good 'weed' talking. Maybe even some LSD. What is it with these guys, they make their first $1,000,000,000 and all of a sudden they think they are god? See, this is where his reputation starts to go downhill. Maybe he needs to get laid or something. Musk needs to be careful with these 'pie-in-the-sky' ideas. He can burn through that $20,000,000,000 fortune really fast. How about feeding the poor and medical research.
 
Musk may be smart, but not as smart as people are hyping him up to be. He is a businessman by trade. He knows how to make money. Through the wealth that he generates, he invests in 'hobbies' that he likes. He is more Richard Brandon than Wernher von Braun.

They're in entirely different categories, nevermind brackets.

Von Braun was not only one of the greatest minds and visionaries in all of recorded human history but easily one of the most significant figures of the 20th Century and equally indispensable at different periods to both the Third Reich and post-war American hegemon during global conflicts on the scale and level of World War II and Cold War. Just think about that for a second, to be so god damn relevant that it could almost make Albert Einstein blush.

I'm not really bothered about the USSR's admittedly impressive list of 'first's in space' because the Space Age did not start with the USA nor USSR, but in Germany during the 1940s with rockets engineered by Von Braun himself. The V-2 was the first man-made object to cross beyond the Earth's atmosphere as well as photograph it from outer space. The foundation of Soviet rocket program was dependent on V-2 technology and Sergei Korolev's initial R1/R2 rockets were just larger copycats with heavy assistance from engineers they had taken out of Germany as part of their own post-war spoils.

Not only that, but it's worth noting that Wernher von Braun was initially working for the Department of Defense upon immigration to the United States, he wasn't even transferred to NASA until after the Soviet Union had already successfully launched the first satellite and animal into low Earth orbit. Korolev was most definitely brilliant in his own right and would design his own insanely dependable launch vehicles, but a man-rated SHLLV rocket to the moon was and is still is on a completely different level and he was simply no match for WvB.



If all that weren't enough, he's also quite easily the most important and influential popularizer of space exploration in history with everything from numerous features he wrote in Colliers Magazine to his friendship with the ATG English science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke which in turn inspired creative talents on the caliber of Stanley Kubrick, Pink Floyd, David Bowie and Elton John among others, with works that have become timeless artistic contributions to Western Culture on the whole. Not to mention he also founded the National Space Institute which was the first non-profit space exploration advocacy group of its kind, later merged with the L5 Society and still going.

Look familiar?

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vonbraun_early_wheel_concept.jpg


Interestingly enough when von Braun wrote a novel published in 1949 about a mega-works 1980s space exploration project to colonize Mars which discovered that the planet was already inhabited by an advanced civilization, the leader of the Martian government was given the name Elon.

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The Saturn V was bigger, but the BFR (Big Fucking Rocket - that's actually the name) will surpass even the Saturn V if it gets built (seems realistic now).

Some of these payloads are subject to change, but here’s an estimate of how much each rocket can carry to space.

Saturn V - 310,000 lbs (33 elephants)
Falcon Heavy - 119,000 lbs (12.5 elephants)
SLS - 286,000 lbs (30 elephants)
BFR - 330,000 lbs (34 elephants)
New Glenn Rocket - 99,210 lbs (10 elephants)

The Falcon Heavy will be the first rocket since Saturn V capable of sending humans to the Moon, though it won’t be quite as powerful. Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket will compete with SpaceX for commercial satellite launches.

http://www.businessinsider.com/spac...p-saturn-falcon-nasa-blue-origin-2017-12?IR=T

When and why did we start sending elephants into space?
 
Ok, that sounds a little creepy. "Survival of the species" - ok, this guy is either off his medication or he needs to get on some kind of medication. That's 'crazy' talk. He is going to save the human race by moving a colony to Mars? Ok, that is some really good 'weed' talking. Maybe even some LSD. What is it with these guys, they make their first $1,000,000,000 and all of a sudden they think they are god? See, this is where his reputation starts to go downhill. Maybe he needs to get laid or something. Musk needs to be careful with these 'pie-in-the-sky' ideas. He can burn through that $20,000,000,000 fortune really fast. How about feeding the poor and medical research.
It's actually very logical and gives a window into how he thinks , eventually the sun will burn out or something will hit earth causing a mass extinction , it's inevitable , that would be the end of us unless we are multiplanetary .

It is unusual and I believe exceptional to think on that kind of a time scale .

Telling him what to do with his money or to get laid is just silly.
 
I already posted this, #55. 125 days total on a mission to-and-from Mars. Information is on the bottom left section of picture.

'Project Orion' was worked on under a contract by the United States Air Force (USAF) at the 'General Atomics' company from 1958 to 1965. Project models for Orion soon matched and exceeded the grand space dreams of the era due to its novel method of propulsion.

One team member, the famous Freeman J. Dyson of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, envisioned a ship with a total mass of 400,000 metric tons (881,849,049 pounds) of which three-quarters of that weight would consist of 300,000 one-megaton H-bombs weighing 1,000 kilograms (2,205 pounds) each. The rest of the weight would be split between the payload and ship structure and the ablation shield. Detonating the bombs every three seconds (until the supply ran out in ten days under this scenario) would keep the acceleration at a comfortable 1 g, or gravity. The plans for Orion were anything but timid. Manned Mars missions using this vessel would have been sent in 1965.

Musk can get the 'blueprints' from NASA. The 'nuclear' part could be maintained under the Department of Energy or the U.S. Air Force.

General Atomics Orion/Saturn V spaceship concept. (Click to enlarge):
B5HlKyU.jpg


Link: http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/space-flight-history/project-orion-nuclear-bomb-rocket/
 
...that would be the end of us unless we are multiplanetary. It is unusual and I believe exceptional to think on that kind of a time scale.

Yeah, but do you know the time frame that would involve? That's just for humans landing in Mars. Than what? Have you, or Musk, thought of the logistics of a human colony in Mars? Oxygen, water, food, electricity, etc. Maybe it would be easier to build a human colony in space. Like the Von Braun space station from 1952 mentioned above by @V-2. But as you mentioned, I think life on Earth will end with an asteroid hit. It needs to be 50 miles in diameter or larger for it to work. There are plenty of them floating in space. It will happen before the sun runs out of fuel or we get swallowed by a 'black-hole'. Why does the human species need to exist forever? We are certainly not alone in this big universe. We may also be saved by another species (alien).
 
I already posted this, #55. 125 days total on a mission to-and-from Mars. Information is on the bottom left section of picture.

'Project Orion' was worked on under a contract by the United States Air Force (USAF) at the 'General Atomics' company from 1958 to 1965. Project models for Orion soon matched and exceeded the grand space dreams of the era due to its novel method of propulsion.

One team member, the famous Freeman J. Dyson of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, envisioned a ship with a total mass of 400,000 metric tons (881,849,049 pounds) of which three-quarters of that weight would consist of 300,000 one-megaton H-bombs weighing 1,000 kilograms (2,205 pounds) each. The rest of the weight would be split between the payload and ship structure and the ablation shield. Detonating the bombs every three seconds (until the supply ran out in ten days under this scenario) would keep the acceleration at a comfortable 1 g, or gravity. The plans for Orion were anything but timid. Manned Mars missions using this vessel would have been sent in 1965.

Musk can get the 'blueprints' from NASA. The 'nuclear' part could be maintained under the Department of Energy or the U.S. Air Force.

General Atomics Orion/Saturn V spaceship concept. (Click to enlarge):
B5HlKyU.jpg


Link: http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/space-flight-history/project-orion-nuclear-bomb-rocket/

Propulsion by exploding miniature atomic bombs... gguuhhh...

It appears more of a study and proof of concept rather than actual schematics and drawing plans...
 
Man, I love what Musk is doing, but there is way too much 'hype' around this guy. Richard Branson did a lot of similar things. Not with rockets though. "Greater and more challenging"? I don't think so. First Atomic Bomb and the Apollo Program took way more genius than that. Let's not forget Bill Gates and Microsoft. Musk is the flavor of the month.

I don't think you can compare what Branson is doing with what Musk is doing at SpaceX with regard to active involvement in the technical aspects of rocket development, or actual accomplishments in Aerospace. Musk is literally a self-taught rocket scientist*. As for Bill Gates, I don't think there is anyone who would argue that software development is as difficult as building rockets.

*http://www.businessinsider.com/how-elon-musk-learned-rocket-science-for-spacex-2014-10
 
Musks stated goal is to ensure the survival of the species , move away from fossil fuels (Tesla , Solar City ) and be able to get off the planet just in case(SpaceX) , Branson can't compete imo
Very respectable goals indeed.
 
I don't think you can compare what Branson is doing with what Musk is doing at SpaceX with regard to active involvement in the technical aspects of rocket development, or actual accomplishments in Aerospace. Musk is literally a self-taught rocket scientist*. As for Bill Gates, I don't think there is anyone who would argue that software development is as difficult as building rockets.

*http://www.businessinsider.com/how-elon-musk-learned-rocket-science-for-spacex-2014-10

That's the thing about him. I don't follow him but the more I read about him the more he proves to everyone he is a genius.

I was in Australia for vacation and he is highly regarded there. He recently built the largest battery to help deliver power to NSW to ease the blackouts and increased cost they've been experiencing. The contract was to build it in 100 days upon signature and he even made a bet with the Australian government that if it was not operational within the 100 days he would pay for it. He (meaning his company of course) got it done in 63 days. A bit showy and definitely done for dramatic and self adivertising effect but people are talking about him.

I didn't know he did this until my cousins there brought him up in a convo..
 
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