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.

Comments

Re:at what price ur dignity slashdot

[Oswald McWeany]

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?

Re:I've got Karma to burn

[Oswald McWeany]

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.

Fastest Car in History. =D

[foxalopex]

Although this one will probably be adrift in space, I just realized that they could claim the title of the fastest car in history since it'll be zooming through space at speeds not possible on land. Too bad it won't be under it's own power.

Re:I've got Karma to burn

[Obfuscant]

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?

Re:I've got Karma to burn

[Headw1nd]

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.

Re:at what price ur dignity slashdot

[FrankSchwab]

>>> 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.

Elon's rocket is smaller and weaker...

[VeryFluffyBunny]

Elon's rocket thrusts 63,800 Kg into low earth orbit. Back in the 60s, NASA's Saturn V was thrusting it's massive payload of 140,000 Kg into low earth orbit. NASA had a truly magnificent thrusting machine while Elon's flaccid little fire tube is less than half as large and powerful.

Re:Elon's rocket is smaller and weaker...

[joh]

But it is much, much cheaper than the Saturn V. It's also twice as powerful than anything else flying today.

Re:"Toward", not "To"

[93 Escort Wagon]

I'm waiting for the Star Trek follow-up movie about the return of T'la to the planet Earth in 300 years.

Re:With Musk in it?

[RatherBeAnonymous]

The dummy is the autopilot. It will be vinyl and sport a smug grin. The real question is, how will they convince Julie Hagerty to go along as co-pilot to re-inflate it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:I've got Karma to burn

[mycroft16]

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.

Falcon Heavy vs Saturn V

[tgibson]

I was curios at how Musk's rocket stacked up to the rocket that sent us to the moon. From New Atlas:

the two-stage Falcon Heavy has nine Merlin 1D main engines in each of its first stage elements burning supercooled liquid oxygen and kerosene to produce 5,548,500 lb of thrust. Then the second stage takes over with its single Merlin 1D engine to punch 210,000 lb of thrust

That's remarkable when compared to the Atlas and Ariane rockets of today, but now let's look at the Saturn V. Its S-IC first stage has five Rocketdyne F1 engines that, when set loose, generate a staggering 7,610,000 lb of thrust as it burns kerosene and liquid oxygen.

Then comes the S-II second stage with its five Rocketdyne J-2 putting out 1,155,800 lb of thrust from a mix of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. But where Falcon Heavy has already used up its stages, the Saturn still has its S-IVB third stage and its single J-2 engine that can manage a respectable 225,000 lb of thrust.

Lots of other interesting information in the article such as size of payload and cost.

Re:Falcon Heavy vs Saturn V

[Kjella]

I still do not understand how NASA lost the blue prints for the Saturn V including the F1 engines. Since it used the same fuel as the Falcon engine.

It's a myth.

(This is) a claim John Lewis made in his 1996 book, Mining the Sky, that he went looking for the Saturn 5 blueprints a few years ago and concluded, incredibly, they had been "lost."

Paul Shawcross, from NASA's Office of Inspector General, came to the agency's defense in comments published on CCNet -- a scholarly electronic newsletter covering the threat of asteroids and comets. Shawcross said the Saturn 5 blueprints are held at the Marshall Space Flight Center on microfilm.

"The Federal Archives in East Point, Georgia, also has 2,900 cubic feet of Saturn documents," he said. "Rocketdyne has in its archives dozens of volumes from its Knowledge Retention Program. This effort was initiated in the late '60s to document every facet of F 1 and J 2 engine production to assist in any future restart."

Shawcross cautioned that rebuilding a Saturn 5 would require more than good blueprints.

"The problem in recreating the Saturn 5 is not finding the drawings, it is finding vendors who can supply mid-1960's vintage hardware," he wrote, "and the fact that the launch pads and vehicle assembly buildings have been converted to space shuttle use, so you have no place to launch from.

And the final reason it won't be rebuilt even if you disregard all that and cost is that it would never get a man-rating today. It'd be like trying to get a T-Ford approved by modern safety standards, it would fail spectacularly. It was good enough 100 years ago, the Saturn V was good enough 50 years ago, but it wouldn't fly today. And I don't think anyone is ready to grandfather it in...

Re:What kind of crock idea is this?

[ScentCone]

Launching a car in to space? Why? What the heck is this saying "Except" Elon Musk can be a complete "Idiot" at times.

I know! Why would we testing a rocket by using a car as a test mass when we could, instead, help all of humanity by launching some of our surplus double-quotes, which seem to turn up, like invasive mussels in the Great Lakes that don't belong there and make their users look foolish, everywhere.