SpaceX Releases Animation of Planned Falcon Heavy Launch (gizmodo.com.au)

intellitech writes: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently shared a new (and, really freaking cool) animation demonstrating how the company plans to launch the maiden flight of their Falcon Heavy system later this year, which will be the most powerful rocket since the Saturn V used for the moon landings during the Apollo-era. According to Elon Musk's Instragram post, "FH is twice the thrust of the next largest rocket currently flying and ~2/3 thrust of the Saturn V moon rocket." He also reiterates that there's a "lot that can go wrong in the November launch."

Direct link to the YouTube video.

Comments

Re:Animation?

[rmdingler]

Pretty sure the Falcon 9 Heavy was supposed to have launched for real by now. Is this animation supposed to make up for the lack of the real thing?

Yes, the cartoon was supposed to be enough of a distraction, but you were too clever to fall for that... smugly sitting there changing the World in a fashion that Elon Musk can only dream about.

To be fair, I believe the launch delays began after the 06/15 CRS-7 crash. The last thing a privately held rocket company could afford is a reputation for repeated failure, so it seems prudent that they became a bit more cautious.

Re: Animation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well let's list the ways he has already changed the world then:

1) co-founded PayPal, which revolutionized online payments.
2) founded Tesla, which is the first all electric car company.
3) founded Solarcity, revolutionized solar with his solar tiles.
4) built the largest battery manufacturing plant in the world.
5) built a functioning hyperloop test facility.
6) founded SpaceX
7) helped SpaceX become the first commercial spaceflight company to contract with Federal govt. Both for ISS missions and for military flights.

So, bub, what have YOU done to match the LEAST of these?

Re:To be fair...

[hey!]

On the other hand he has pressure not to fail.

Here's the problem with rockets: they work right on the knife edge between inferno and explosion. Catastrophic failure is normal in testing new, cutting edge designs.

During the space race a lot of rockets failed. This is how the Russians got so good at it without having anything like the funding NASA had: they failed a *lot* but kept trying because they were behind the US. Once the Moon race heated up the US was able to reduce its failure rate in its very public program by spending almost inconceivable amounts of money.

So it's the old engineering tradeoff: cost/quality/schedule. Either you spend a lot of money, put up with a lot of failure, or spend lots of time. NASA in the 60s spent money; the Soviets of that era put up with failure; and on their super-heavy launch vehicle SpaceX has spent more time.

Ultimately in business there's no such thing as being your own boss. When you own the show, your customers are the boss. So what would potential customers say if SpaceX kept to schedule but had the kind of failure rate the old Soviet space program had?