NPR The First Men To Have The Whole World In Their Sights article plus 5 minute podcast with interesting interviews with astronaut and Major General (ret) Michael CollinsMichael Collins and author Christopher Potter

Looks like they may be dragging the floating F9 core (1032.2, the core that would not die) to the Bahamas to a floating dry dock, to get it out of the water, onto a barge, and then back to Florida. safe it once it is upright, drain the dangerous stuff out.

Lots of snooping via AIS on the reddit thread...

Falcon heavy on for 1:30EST tUesday. Go go Falcon Heavy!

Bets if Wired was correct? They will stagger the landings or come in like Miss Piggy in her dreams? (Syncronized if you remember you muppet movies, and the synch swimming part).

@geoffc Is that when the launch window opens?

Starman in Red Roadster

@Edlothiad Musk tweeted that as the launcg time. So yes, probably opening of the window. While SpaceX can recycle and try again, with the sub cooled prop and ox it is harder to use a long window as once the propellant gets too warm it is a scrub.

So they aim for opening of the window, and perhaps one more try in short order, usually.

Hmm okay, so I need to really try and be round at least 30 or so minutes before then, ideally

So if you look at your latest image, it differs from the ones a week or three ago, where we first saw the ROadster about to be encapsulated. There is now the very obvious framework on the front, Starman, which is probably one of tehir spacesuits, and something handing off the tail. Also the PLA is now covered in foil/mylar.

Interesting.

The thing at the front seems to have a little camera mounted on top, as well as one off to the side of the left hand door. There's also a little roadster on the dash.

I wish it was a Top Gear variant "All we know is... He's called The Stig!"

It does look like the SpaceX space suit. They may just be testing it in orbit. Clever.

T-26:35

It isn't too early to start counting down to the FH launch, is it?

It is unrealistic, I expect a scrub or two, but I like it!

Try this page, if you do not wish to do the work.

spacexstats.xyz

I'm going to be in a planning meeting at work, I'm hoping we can take a few minutes off to watch the launch.

I'm really interested what they say about the Roadster in the pre-launch commentary.

Give the testing that they have done, I give it at least a 50% chance of launching tomorrow.

I think all the WDR's and the successful Static fire help a TON.

I still expect issues, and agree with you.

If they can keep the engines firing for 12 seconds, will it clear the tower enough to not destroy it?

Might be a fun question to ask...

Good question. 5.1 million lbs thrust, 3.something million lbs mass. So how far will it accelerate in 12 seconds. From intuition I do think it will be clear of the pad.

Want a fun sight? Someone is collecting all the satellites photos from the Tesla Gigafactory in Nevada, to try and track changes/construction.

buildingtesla.com/timelapse.php

We live in a bizarre world.

PS: I am loving this bizarre world!

Yeah, probably.

Also, it will have an upward velocity at 12 seconds.

It seems to me that incident happened about 12 seconds after engine ignition.

@PearsonArtPhoto Worth mentionin that a completely fueled, solid upper stage fell back on the pad to burn. Yes, a second stage full of RP1 falling would be bad as well,but the solid burns different and is harder to put out.

Antares that is.

The difference between the two seemed pretty small, so...

I think it is more about how they burn... Assume the stage bursts as it falls, you egt a bit of a fuel air bomb effect. (Bad). So a bad shock wave. But as it falls it disperses, so any fire would be distributed about the site, the higher it is, the wider the dispersion.

Now a solid either starts burning as it falls, or hit the ground burning and I think it blew up into chunks at some point. (Probably on ground contact and burning). Then you have a concentrated fuel/oxidizer source in a tight area.

instagram.com/p/Be0uBGXAoY-

Shows a nice video as well. Pretty neat.

I was counting, it clears the tower in less than 5 seconds. :)

I like that there is now a selfie camera for good shots of the Roadster! Way to go SpaceX! Fastest car in history! Should beat the Lunar Rover by a long shot! :)

I heard 11Km/s final value.

It cleared the tower in 5 seconds, but it still damaged the pad because it wasn't far enough away.

Depends on the type of failure I guess. Explosion would probably be okay, but a fall down and explode, well, not so much.

What was it, Explorer? that collapsed on the pad, in the super early days of spaceflight?

There were plenty, but I was referring to Antares.

It went up, but fell straight back down and exploded.

There's a fair number of inaccuracies in that video actually... Sigh.

No RSS for one thing.