Slashdot Mirror
SpaceX Has Received Permission From the US Government To Launch Elon Musk's Car Toward Mars (businessinsider.com)
SpaceX this week is preparing to launch Falcon Heavy, the biggest rocket in the company's history, for the first time. From a report: The 230-foot-tall three-booster launcher is scheduled to blast off Tuesday between 1:30 and 4:30 p.m. ET. SpaceX says Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket in the world. SpaceX's founder, Elon Musk, wanted this test launch to happen as early as 2013, though he recently said it could end in an explosion. Instead of putting a standard "mass simulator" or dummy payload atop Falcon Heavy, Musk -- who once launched a wheel of cheese into orbit -- will put his personal 2008 midnight-cherry-red Tesla Roadster on top of the monster rocket. In an Instagram post over the weekend, Musk also revealed that the car would carry a dummy driver, which Musk is calling "Starman," wearing a SpaceX space suit. "Test flights of new rockets usually contain mass simulators in the form of concrete or steel blocks. That seemed extremely boring," Musk said in an Instagram post in December, adding that the company "decided to send something unusual, something that made us feel." However, all rocket payloads need a permit from the Federal Aviation Administration to launch, and Musk's sleek electric car is no exception. The FAA granted SpaceX that permission on Friday in a staunchly formal notice, which Keith Cowing posted on NASA Watch.
Elon Musk is a very popular figure on sites like reddit that "like" technology and science but have very little understanding of it. Every week he says something that either shows what a "down to earth" guy he is, some doomsday prophecy, or announces some pipe dream technology that will never be worked on, and the masses start reposting his every word.
He (or rather his PR team) is very good at creating that "image" and keeping himself popular on reddit, but he's terrible at the thing an enterpreneur is supposed to excel at - generating profits.
He's popularizing science and technology. That's a good thing right? Even if you think yourself superior to him technologically, don't you appreciate that he is making science and tech "cool" to the mainstream?
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
So I'm gonna bitch about the super rich. There's no shortage of useful things to send up on a rocket, but we're gonna waste a launch on a dumb stunt by a rich guy. I'm an American, so I don't even have guaranteed health care let alone a robust social safety net, so maybe I'd be a little less bitter if I did. But this sort of nonsense reminds me of the pyramids, the opera houses and other excesses of the ultra wealthy. It's not a good sign to see stuff like this starting to make a comeback.
The dumb stunt is intended to do exactly what it is doing. Make news.
If journalists didn't report that he was sending a car up there, he'd probably send a lump of rock up there instead as a payload test weight. Making news = bringing in more sponsorship money. Yeah, probably more useful things to launch, but the more money that comes in the more he develops the rockets.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
There's no shortage of useful things to send up on a rocket, but we're gonna waste a launch on a dumb stunt by a rich guy.
The important thing to remember about test launches is that they are test launches, and as the summary points out, are more likely to end up in explosions. "Useful things" have inherent value, and they cost someone money to put together. An explosion would therefore cost someone something of real value.
Elon Musk's car, however, has only sentimental value, and mostly (if not completely) to him. Blow it up for a publicity stunt? Roger that. Blow up a satellite that cost someone a million dollars and 12 months of work to put together? Well, let's not.
What I like about the terminology is "mass simulator". You put a "mass simulator" into a test rocket because it has mass. Exactly what mass is it simulating? If it is only simulating mass, then is it real?
They aren't "wasting a launch", they are testing a rocket. You don't send up a useful payload in a test launch, because it might fail, and useful payloads cost orders of magnitudes more than a $50K used car. Not only that, useful payloads have specific launch requirements, not just "up" or whatever gets you the best launch test data.
i.e. this is just a very minor publicity stunt, there are more important things to get angry about.
>>> he's terrible at the thing an enterpreneur is supposed to excel at - generating profits.
Let's see. Typing 'Entrepreneur' into Google, I get a definition: "a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so."
Well, that pretty much sums up Elon Musk.
And the worms ate into his brain.
There is literally nothing more useful that you would want to launch on the maiden flight of a completely unproven rocket design. Most companies and governments send slabs of concrete or steel plates. They just need x amount of weight in the fairing. But why just launch concrete when you can have some fun with it and have the same effect? SpaceX gets its fake payload mass, free publicity is gained, people get to have good laugh and fun and dream a bit. I'm not seeing a problem here.
None of these things would have any use where that rocket is going. It's not going to orbit Mars, it's going to fly by and then orbit Sun in perpetuity.