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The first few launches of a new vehicle are risky. Even some of the most mature launch platforms still fail 2-10% of the time after hundreds of launches, but a
by mapt 9y ago
The first few launches of a new vehicle are risky. Even some of the most mature launch platforms still fail 2-10% of the time after hundreds of launches, but a new platform needs a period to discover all the failure modes that they didn't hypothesize. Usually for the very first proving launch, commercial customers don't want to send anything, and insurers refuse to touch them.
So launch providers typically send a block of concrete, or something similar, and call it a 'Mass Simulator', to prove that the launch vehicle can function with a load that heavy.
Elon Musk literally thought 'Hey, the Tesla Roadster I've been driving would be a cool thing to send into space as a mass simulator.' And so he did. With a mannequin inside a production Tesla spacesuit. Blaring David Bowie the whole way. Aiming roughly at Mars and burning until the propellant runs out.
Starman will be in heliocentric orbit indefinitely.
- dhimes 9y agoUntil it comes back, crashes into Earth and sends mankind the way of the dinosaurs...
- PerryCox 9y agoIt doesn't have enough mass to do anything like that. It'll burn up in the atmosphere if it does come back to Earth. Currently projections of it coming back to Earth in the next million years are at 6%.[1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk's_Tesla_Roadster#Future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk's_Tesla_Roadster#Fut...
- oh_sigh 9y agoStarman has no more kinetic energy than was put into it by the rockets, so it crashing back on to earth would cause a smaller explosion than what would have happened if the rocket just blew up on the launch pad.
- M_Bakhtiari 9y agoWhat about gravity assists, harvesting kinetic energy from other planets? It would make for a good supervillain story, intentionally ramming the Earth with a gravity assisted projectile, but a terrible weapon system. Any conflict likely being already over by the time it does its tour of the solar system and arrives back, so it's probably better to just use the rocket fuel to build a conventional bomb. Or better yet, use nukes.
- dhimes 9y agoYes, oh_sigh misses a little but mine was just a humorous comment anyway so no sense going down the rabbit hole here lol.
- JustSomeNobody 9y agoHopefully they took the opportunity to put some sensors in the space suit also. I'm not sure what data they could provide without there being a real person[0] in there, but surely something. [0] Sorry Starman.
- andygates 9y agoIn the post-launch press conference: nope. Specifically, although it was one of the vacuum-qualified test items, to be a useful flight test they'd have had to set the car up with life support piping into the suit. That's outside the scope of a mass simulator.
- sveit 9y agoAccording to Elon Musk[0](32:30), no. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mCGbguCw2U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mCGbguCw2U
- swyx 9y agook and more stupid questions please: - the proving launch mass is only the mass of a Tesla? i mean thats great but i would have expected a much bigger mass for a fully functional satellite. but then again I dont know anything about satellites. how big are those? its definitely not space shuttle big. is the Falcon Heavy able to carry something as big as the space shuttle? - i thought starman was orbiting mars. how does orbital decay look for something small like starman since it really can just get pulled in or out by basically any nearby planet?
- CapitalistCartr 9y agoOrbit is an eccentric one around the Sun. Perigee (innermost point of orbit) is about Earth's orbit, apogee (outermost point) was hoped for at least Mars' orbit, ended up out in the asteroid belt well past Mars.
- pas 9y ago> i mean thats great but i would have expected a much bigger mass for a fully functional satellite. Iridium sats are 700kg each, GEOsats are also less than that. The upcoming James Webb Space Telescope's launch/payload mass is 6 200 kg. The Falcon Heavy can push 1 400 000 kg, and 16 800 kg of that can be payload. To Mars.
- gvb 9y agoAccording to google, the Tesla roadster is 1235 kg. I don't know whether weight was added (probably) or removed (very likely the stock batteries were removed) in preparation for its launch. Update: According to Wikipedia, launch weight was 1,200 kg Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk's_Tesla_Roadster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk's_Tesla_Roadster
- JshWright 9y agoGeostationary satellites are way more than 700kg. Most are >5,000kg.
- adventured 9y ago
- Teever 9y ago> Elon Musk literally thought 'Hey, the Tesla Roadster I've been driving would be a cool thing to send into space as a mass simulator.' No, the PR team that he hires to make everyone think that he's so cool and with it thought "Hey wouldn't this be a great opportunity for synergy between two distinct brands that are owned by the same guy that's paying us to make him look cool?"
- Faaak 9y agoIf that is so, so what ?
- dmreedy 9y agoI'm always reminded of a quote from 1776 "It doesn't matter. I won't be in the history books anyway, only you. Franklin did this and Franklin did that and Franklin did some other damn thing. Franklin smote the ground and out sprang George Washington, fully grown and on his horse. Franklin then electrified him with his miraculous lightning rod and the three of them - Franklin, Washington, and the horse - conducted the entire revolution by themselves."
- mapmap 9y agoIs that from a film or a book?
- adventured 9y agoMusk offered NASA the opportunity to put something meaningful on the test launch. They declined because they view the Falcon Heavy as a competitor. According to the former Deputy Administrator of NASA, Lori Garver. "SpaceX offered NASA the opportunity to get a free ride on this first launch. But the space agency viewed commercial development of this rocket as "competition" and refused their offer. Instead, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk put his own Tesla Roadster onboard, turning the event into a brilliant cross-marketing event." http://thehill.com/opinion/technology/372994-spacex-could-save-nasa-and-the-future-of-space-exploration http://thehill.com/opinion/technology/372994-spacex-could-sa...
- cheeko1234 9y agoWoah, didn't know this. I'd be very interested in finding out the source of their quote. Who at NASA would ever say that?
- adventured 9y agoI would expect that the former Deputy Administrator of NASA would know people all up and down the current chain of command at NASA. Garver appears to still be active in that world. It makes sense as well, considering NASA's massive investment in the SLS program; they've put billions of dollars into it so far. She has pretty serious credentials to be saying it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lori_Garver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lori_Garver
- bryananderson 9y agoI’m on the same page as Garver on space policy, but I suspect she is wrong about NASA’s (and the Air Force’s) motivation for declining. Anything that NASA wants to launch into space is an extremely expensive, one-of-a-kind science instrument that a team has spent years of their time on. It would be highly imprudent to launch something like that on a test mission. No one does that. The usual payload for a first flight is a concrete block or other mass simulator. NASA and the Air Force made the right call in saying no. And Elon made the right call in turning this into a phenomenally inspiring event instead of a boring launch of a concrete block.
- ams6110 9y agoShould have launched a '59 Corvette, playing "Radar Rider"
- mulmen 9y agoMy vote is for any Oldsmobile Starfire. The company that marketed their engines as rockets deserves some representation in space.
- nerfhammer 9y ago> production Tesla spacesuit nitpick: SpaceX != Tesla.
- greglindahl 9y agoAlthough SpaceX does hire Tesla to do their design work. The design center is literally next door to the rocket factory.
- kfrzcode 9y agoAlso a towel, and copies of Foundation by Isaac Asimov and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams