The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

chris_m

Pyxis wrote: »

Just watched some of the take-off clips.
I couldn't believe how those side boosters landed! Wow!
And stayed upright!
And perfectly together!
I felt like doing this......:dance:
Pastures, you must watch it; it wasn't science, it was ballet! :T

It's damned clever, isn't it, like a real-world Thunderbirds - or Blofeld's base in You Only Live Twice.

But that's the point of making controlled landings - much less work required to refurbish them for reuse than the Space Shuttle boosters which ditched in the ocean.

I think I read that, because of the reusability, the Falcon Heavy can loft about twice the payload of the next biggest rocket but at only about 1/3 of the price.

GDB2222

LydiaJ wrote: »

On a different subject ... This is specially for GDB:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O11_Ma20Rk

Thanks so much for that. It definitely upset me that somebody was hurting and I wasn't allowed to do anything about it. Clearly, listening was not sufficient.

I thought that he was going to get hurt by that nail when they leaned forward to kiss!

GDB2222

Falcon Heavy has a maximum payload potential of 26.7 tonnes to geostationary orbit, but only 8 tonnes if the rockets are reused. So, they can carry three times as much if they don't bother with reusability. I'm surprised that the reusability of what amounts to an empty tin can justifies having to do three times as many launches.

Quite a few other rockets can beat that 8 tonnes, but without reusability. For example, Ariane is 11 tonnes. Delta IV Heavy is 14 tonnes.

PasturesNew

GDB2222 wrote: »

Falcon Heavy has a maximum payload potential of 26.7 tonnes to geostationary orbit, but only 8 tonnes if the rockets are reused. So, they can carry three times as much if they don't bother with reusability. I'm surprised that the reusability of what amounts to an empty tin can, justifies having to do three times as many launches.

Quite a few other rockets can beat that 8 tonnes, but without reusability. For example, Ariane is 11 tonnes. Delta IV Heavy is 14 tonnes.

I am in the camp of "I don't care what it does, or what they're up to, I won't be going on it ever ....." so it goes into the bin of "not really interested enough to follow this stuff".

I am only interested in things I can have/do/achieve and "odd things, peculiar things and unusual things" when I can spot a headline and think "that's odd" and waste 2 minutes of my life reading about it.

I will never see any of these rockets. I will never go on one. Zero interest.

If the ultimate aim was to say "Look, you can go from 10 miles up the road from your house, to Australia, in a flight time of 1 hour, for £50, for a day trip" - I might spend 10 minutes reading about it .... but I'd never go as I'd be too scared

chris_m

GDB2222 wrote: »

Falcon Heavy has a maximum payload potential of 26.7 tonnes to geostationary orbit, but only 8 tonnes if the rockets are reused. So, they can carry three times as much if they don't bother with reusability. I'm surprised that the reusability of what amounts to an empty tin can justifies having to do three times as many launches.

I guess it gives more flexibility - big payload but no reusability, small payload with full reusability or something in between with some reusability. I think heavy lofts to geostationary orbit only involve loss of the central core, which continues burning after the the side boosters have split off to be returned and reused.

Also, the boosters (and possibly the central core) may have previously used in a Falcon 9 launch so lack of reusability in a Falcon heavy launch doesn't mean that there hasn't been any. Both the side boosters in yesterday's test had previously been used

Anyway, not all missions are to put things into geostationary orbit. The massive payload to low earth orbit capability offers the option to loft several heavy satellites in one operation.

vivatifosi

If anyone is interested, I highly recommend the Elon Musk biography, by Ashlee Vance. It talks a lot about his way of thinking and how SpaceX came into being against the odds, plus lots on his other ventures... PayPal, Solar City and Tesla, though it doesn't go into as much detail on Hyperloop.

It's amazing really. Who's a frontrunner in the disruption of payment systems? Elon Musk. Who's at the forefront of pushing the movement towards electric cars And working to push the boundaries of battery power? Elon Musk. Who's leading the push towards the privatisation of space? Who wants to colonise Mars? Who wants to radically alter mass ground level transportation? Who wants to use rockets to quickly transport people from one side of the planet to the other? Who speaks out about the unfettered rise of the cyborg?

Goodness only knows what his dreams must look like if this is what he gets up to when he's awake. Plus he's brainy and very easy on the eye... other than the fact he's allegedly very focused and difficult if he doesn't get his own way (probably an essential characteristic to achieving what he has) hopefuuly justifies why I find him fascinating. There don't seem to be as many true visionaries as there were in the past, but he definitely fits the bill.

chris_m

PasturesNew wrote: »

I am in the camp of "I don't care what it does, or what they're up to, I won't be going on it ever ....." so it goes into the bin of "not really interested enough to follow this stuff".

But it's not about whether you, or anyone, will ever go up in one, or want to - very, very few people will get the opportunity to do that, whether they have the desire to or not.

However, most of what they put up into orbit benefits every one of us, you included, some of it directly and personally, more of it indirectly - things such as;
Communications and television - ever watched something like, say, the Olympics in another country? Chances are at least some of that coverage was bounced off a satellite.
Weather forecasting - a lot of forecasting now uses data coming from satellites.
Internet tools - where do you think, for one example, Google Maps satellite images originate?
Climate and geographical studies - lots of the data for those comes from satellites.

All those satellites have to be put up there somehow and it's a very expensive business. Anything that can reduce those costs, like cheap (well, relatively cheap) reusable heavy lift rockets instead of expensive use 'em and throw 'em away smaller types has to be a good thing for all of us.

michaels

vivatifosi wrote: »

If anyone is interested, I highly recommend the Elon Musk biography, by Ashlee Vance. It talks a lot about his way of thinking and how SpaceX came into being against the odds, plus lots on his other ventures... PayPal, Solar City and Tesla, though it doesn't go into as much detail on Hyperloop.

It's amazing really. Who's a frontrunner in the disruption of payment systems? Elon Musk. Who's at the forefront of pushing the movement towards electric cars And working to push the boundaries of battery power? Elon Musk. Who's leading the push towards the privatisation of space? Who wants to colonise Mars? Who wants to radically alter mass ground level transportation? Who wants to use rockets to quickly transport people from one side of the planet to the other? Who speaks out about the unfettered rise of the cyborg?

Goodness only knows what his dreams must look like if this is what he gets up to when he's awake. Plus he's brainy and very easy on the eye... other than the fact he's allegedly very focused and difficult if he doesn't get his own way (probably an essential characteristic to achieving what he has) hopefuuly justifies why I find him fascinating. There don't seem to be as many true visionaries as there were in the past, but he definitely fits the bill.

Of course he does think he is Tony Stark (Ironman)

Pyxis

PasturesNew wrote: »

I am in the camp of "I don't care what it does, or what they're up to, I won't be going on it ever ....." so it goes into the bin of "not really interested enough to follow this stuff".

I am only interested in things I can have/do/achieve and "odd things, peculiar things and unusual things" when I can spot a headline and think "that's odd" and waste 2 minutes of my life reading about it.

I will never see any of these rockets. I will never go on one. Zero interest.

If the ultimate aim was to say "Look, you can go from 10 miles up the road from your house, to Australia, in a flight time of 1 hour, for £50, for a day trip" - I might spend 10 minutes reading about it .... but I'd never go as I'd be too scared

ooh blimey, I would! Like a shot!
If I was offered the chance of a trip into space, even if it was 'only' to a low-level orbit, I'd bite their hand off.

Even the current thing you can do if you've got spare hundreds of thousands for a trip in a very, very high-flying military aircraft thing would be good.

vivatifosi wrote: »

If anyone is interested, I highly recommend the Elon Musk biography, by Ashlee Vance. It talks a lot about his way of thinking and how SpaceX came into being against the odds, plus lots on his other ventures... PayPal, Solar City and Tesla, though it doesn't go into as much detail on Hyperloop.

It's amazing really. Who's a frontrunner in the disruption of payment systems? Elon Musk. Who's at the forefront of pushing the movement towards electric cars And working to push the boundaries of battery power? Elon Musk. Who's leading the push towards the privatisation of space? Who wants to colonise Mars? Who wants to radically alter mass ground level transportation? Who wants to use rockets to quickly transport people from one side of the planet to the other? Who speaks out about the unfettered rise of the cyborg?

Goodness only knows what his dreams must look like if this is what he gets up to when he's awake. Plus he's brainy and very easy on the eye... other than the fact he's allegedly very focused and difficult if he doesn't get his own way (probably an essential characteristic to achieving what he has) hopefuuly justifies why I find him fascinating. There don't seem to be as many true visionaries as there were in the past, but he definitely fits the bill.

:T
Funnily enough, although I've googled him before, I really feel I'd like to know more about him! So I'll get his biog. Thanks.

People with weird brains plus amazing intelligence fascinate me!

I was thinking on another thread that if Canadians can still be knighted, he should get a knighthood.


Has he ever got together with Richard Branson for anything?

vivatifosi

michaels wrote: »

Of course he does think henis Tony Stark (Ironman)

I thought that the latest Ironman iteration was based on him rather than vice versa, but I bet there's a bit of him that we don't know about working on exoskeletons with superpowers.