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Space X is taking NASA and the Russian's to school on how to run a space program.




"CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX’s billionaire founder, Elon Musk, says that even he was surprised by how successful the first flight of his company’s Falcon Heavy rocket turned out to be, and that it boosted his confidence about building an even bigger rocket ship that could someday send settlers to Mars.

“It’s surreal to me,” Musk admitted tonight during a post-launch news conference at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, which provided the base of operations for today’s test flight.

Musk said half-jokingly that he had visions of a catastrophic failure. “I had this image of a giant explosion on the pad, a wheel bouncing down the road and a Tesla logo landing somewhere,” he told reporters. “But fortunately, that’s not what happened.”

Instead, SpaceX provided the first demonstration of what is now the world’s most powerful rocket in operation, and created a viral sensation by sending a Tesla Roadster sports car into a long, looping orbit that will go out beyond the orbit of Mars, with the driver’s seat occupied by a “Starman” mannequin wearing a standard-issue SpaceX spacesuit.

“It taught me, like, crazy things can come true,” Musk said.

On a more serious note, Musk was gratified by the performance of the Falcon Heavy’s triple-barreled booster, created by joining together a modified Falcon 9 rocket core with two previously used cores. The two flight-tested cores made synchronized landings after separating from the center core, and the center core narrowly missed executing an at-sea landing."

“I can imagine large numbers of those, just coming in and landing, taking off, landing, doing many flights per day,” he said. “I think it gives me a lot of faith for our next architecture, our interplanetary spaceship.”

Tesla Roadster in space here ... https://www.space.com/39612-spacex-starman-tesla-roadster-live-views.html


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Wait a minute.

I was wondering what those pictures of a driver in a car in outer space were.

Is this for real?

Hey, why not?

A permanent, forever advertisement for Tesla.

For ever. (or at least billions of years)


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Originally Posted By: rockyhilldawg
I was wondering what those pictures of a driver in a car in outer space were.

Is this for real?


Yeah it's for real. I watch the launch live-stream yesterday, and it was pretty cool.

Elon Musk sure does pump some much needed excitement and rock-star mentality into the space program. And it's great to see a private American company taking some huge steps here. I read somewhere that Space X has some really aggressive goals such as getting a Mars colony going as early as the next decade.

That said, I have mixed feeling about this launch in particular. We have a very real problem of Space Junk near earth, and Space X just put a big Tesla sized piece of it into Solar Orbit, which will really serve to be nothing more than a big Tesla billboard. Granted, it is in solar orbit and not Low-Earth Orbit, where the real problem is, and if it gets Americans excited about the Space Program again, then maybe it's worth it.

Still, I found it kind of ironic that Tesla/Elon Musk is all about being "Green", yet they pretty much spent a few million dollars to burn a bunch of fossil fuel and litter space. grin

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This is our first live view from space that wasn't government controlled. So if ET comes knocking, you may get to see it live.


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elonmusk

Last pic of Starman in Roadster enroute to Mars orbit and then the Asteroid Belt


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DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Elon Musk marvels at Falcon Heavy’s triumph and looks ahead to a bigger rocket

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