The Pod Bay

PearsonArtPhoto

12:00 AM

Actually, only a few seconds off.

kim holder

i still haven't reviewed a lot of this thread. what was your estimate?

PearsonArtPhoto

I think Starman lost power.

25 seconds to be 1 km away. It was actually 22.

Ahh, so the outer engines didn't lite.

DylanSp

center core confirmed lost

did he say they ran out of TEA-TEB on the outer engines?

PearsonArtPhoto

That's what it sounds like.

DylanSp

I really wish Gray Dragon (and Red Dragon, for that matter) weren't canceled. as it is...it's hugely impressive technically, it makes me excited for the future, but FH isn't a huge paradigm shift right now in terms of payloads.

admittedly, if NASA starts looking at a lunar architecture with FH as a major component, I'll happily eat my words

PearsonArtPhoto

12:15 AM

All of these are focusing on Elon, not on the rocket... Sigh.

DylanSp

yeah.

PearsonArtPhoto

Hopefully the phone will have a technical question or two.

Like how close will it get to Mars, how long will the battery last.

kim holder

it's not a technical reporter crowd. they are going for broad appeal. which in some ways, is a positive sign.

oh, there's a good technical question

that's the 2nd reporter to mention national security. that surprises me.

PearsonArtPhoto

It's not really technical, but at least half-way there.

kim holder

something i like about elon is he will always talk like a 25 year old hanging out with buddies in his garage.

PearsonArtPhoto

12:20 AM

Yeah, that's pretty true.

That's a good one.

kim holder

dude where's my car. heheheheh

PearsonArtPhoto

12 hour battery. Good, that's another question down.

DylanSp

did he say total investment was probably half a billion? (I'm on a bit of a delay, was interrupted)

kim holder

yeah, then he said probably more.

PearsonArtPhoto

Yeah, that's what he guessed.

DylanSp

12:23 AM

oof. not surprised, but that's a significant figure

PearsonArtPhoto

Short BFR flights next year.

DylanSp

so...two years or so from now, accounting for Elon Time (tm)

PearsonArtPhoto

Or 3.

Short hopper flights is what he said.

Third burn is a minute long. Hmmm.

DylanSp

huh, surprisingly short. but M1D's got a lot of thrust.

interesting...contemplating ship-to-ship hopper flights.

kim holder

man, i'd love to see one of those hopper tests

8th power? i'd like to know more about that

he's giving a great answer, and almost everyone is going to summarize it as 3 or 4 years.

PearsonArtPhoto

12:30 AM

Yeah, no kidding.

That's a great question!

kim holder

i'll get on it once the press conf is over

if nobody beats me

PearsonArtPhoto

The space suit is a production one, and there's a manikin there.

kim holder

wow, they are actually going to directly catch the fairing with the boat. that's crazy.

PearsonArtPhoto

How many unanswered questions can we answer now on this site...

The only real question I still have is how close will it get to Mars in the first orbit.

kim holder

1:41 AM

@PearsonArtPhoto that is still mostly your patrol. i hope i can get more involved again in a few months.

AShelly

Does anyone know when the transfer burn is expected?

DylanSp

about an hour is what I'm hearing on twitter, haven't heard anything official from SpaceX

Antzi

\o/

Too bad I missed the livestream, but god I was happy to wakeup this morning after checking twitter :D

kim holder

@Antzi i know, right? so cool...

geoffc

2:16 AM

"What werre you thinking?" ""How did it feel?" "Talk me through your thought process". What is wrong with these reporters? Ask a real question for petes sake.

AShelly

Spaceman livestream ended :( Was hoping it would stay live through the burn.

DylanSp

3:00 AM

third burn definitely happened; lots of sightings from california. no word from spacex on how it went

everything working after a few hours is a good sign, though

geoffc

Great video from the ground of one side booster!

Uninterrupted Footage of the Falcon Heavy Launch and Booster Landing! 2-6-18

►

geoffc

3:13 AM

Saw a claim that the first production Roadster was delivered to a customer on this date, 10 years ago! I guess that means in a few years they will have to send a Model S to Mars as well. Tis a tradition now!

DylanSp

3:49 AM

third burn successful! and we've got a look at the orbit...headed out well past Mars

Third burn successful. Exceeded Mars orbit and kept going to the Asteroid Belt.

Tweeted by elonmusk on February 7, 2018 at 3:46 AM

uhoh

4:27 AM

@DylanSp thanks for the post, I've noted it here space.stackexchange.com/q/24919/12102

Edlothiad

9:19 AM

I've just noticed Starman only has one hand on the steering wheel, with the other on the driver side door!

Rory Alsop

@Edlothiad such a slacker!

Edlothiad

@RoryAlsop All he's missing is a flowery shirt and sunnies with a pair of shorts and flipflops and he'd fit into the stereotypical Malibu beach shot that's been drilled into my head.

PearsonArtPhoto

10:46 AM

We briefly went over the 10 question/day with New Horizons. We've actually shattered that record just in the last 2 days...

We now have the highest questions/day since the public beta, and I wouldn't be surprised if we pass that.

And actually, yesterday was the single highest number of questions on the site except for the first two days of private beta.

geoffc

11:28 AM

Amazing what CAAAARRRRSSSSS IN SPPPPPAAAAAACCCCCCEEEEE does to the public interest!

PearsonArtPhoto

11:43 AM

LOL, sure is.

And big heavy rockets too.

DylanSp

1:02 PM

what projects has NASA paid SpaceX for? COTS, CRS-1, CRS-2, CCDev, is that it?

PearsonArtPhoto

1:25 PM

I should create a website to track Spaceman/ Roadster.

I could probably make a bunch of money from it...

Too bad I didn't think of that last night when I had time to do so.

Edlothiad

Well they've got patches for COTS and CRS-1-13 and CCDev is one they've been paid for

geoffc

@DylanSp CRS-1 and CRS-2 are not quite the same as COTS and CCDev. The latter two were development contracts. The former two were fees for services.

Rory Alsop

1:44 PM

@PearsonArtPhoto great idea for a new question: where is Spaceman? :-)

PearsonArtPhoto

The idea came from a question.

Rory Alsop

Oh - I was actually going to promise to not ask a question like that :-)

PearsonArtPhoto

Two actually.

I could register a domain name now...

geoffc

Yay! 2 rep cap days in a row, and @Edlothiad has no points before and now two rep cap days for him/her/it as well.

PearsonArtPhoto

Registered whereisroadster.com

Now, will take a bit of time to make a site, but...

Edlothiad

1:56 PM

@geoffc Them/Us/We/Am I even human?!

PearsonArtPhoto

I'll drop my game for a few days and work on this.

Edlothiad

I had two questions before, but never more than some rep over several days

geoffc

@Edlothiad To ask it, is to answer it. My dog always said Yes to that question, so if you answer yes, you are a dog. If you answer no, you are not human. Ergo no need to ask, we already know the answer. Don't waste our time. :)

Or more simply? Do you float, if so, you are a witch. (Python reference if you get it).

Edlothiad

@geoffc I probably should, but I don't, unfortunately.

geoffc

@Edlothiad Holy Grail movie, the villagers come to Sir Galahad (? The wise one) who judges her. He asks why do they think she is a witch? She has a witches nose, she takes the carrot off her nose and says they put this on me. Then he has this bizare analogy of wood a duck and a witch. Thus if she floats she is a witch. If she sinks and dies, she is not.

Edlothiad

2:03 PM

@geoffc Ah yes of course! Monty Python, not the programming language paha!

Rory Alsop

And of course the best bit is that she is, actually, a witch :-)

geoffc

@Edlothiad Perl is better for drowning witches than Python. Or maybe Ruby? A fair question for the Programming site, I would think.

Check out this question. I love the opportunity to use my collection of past photos in a Q/A.

4

Q: How will they lower the landed side boosters after landing, if there is a nose cone?

To lower/handle landed stages, SpaceX has a rig that connects to the inter stage and they use it as an attach point for the crane to lift/move it. The two cores landed in Florida after the first Falcon Heavy mission have nose cones and no inter stage to plug their current rig into. I could no...

I am already rep-capped today, so no points for me on it, I just really like the pics.

PearsonArtPhoto

I haven't had this many days of being rep capped in a row since the site launched...

geoffc

I forget... If you rep cap, you do not get the points. But does the upvote count towards a tag point total, toward tag badges? (Points lives matter folk!)

Edlothiad

@geoffc Yes

PearsonArtPhoto

2:15 PM

Actually, I never had 7 days in a row of being rep capped.

geoffc

I had to hold off on voting for @Edlothiad yesterday because I was going to hit the spammer counter of more than 5 upvotes for one persona day...

Which is not fair, he/she/it had a good set of things to upvote.

Edlothiad

@geoffc *blushes* too thoughtful

I'm a he, if it makes things easier :)

geoffc

"It" makes things easier.

It it shall be henceforth. :)

Edlothiad

Paha!

geoffc

(PS: if you had yet to notice I try to joke or pun or Python reference all the time, you have failed at paying attention).

F-H tage went from 55 to 86 Q's in the last day or so.

AH, 80 is the threshold for tag badges, right?

Edlothiad

2:21 PM

100 on graduated sites, unsure about beta (this is the first I've committed to)

XKCD

2:33 PM

"This one is perfect in every way, except that for some reason it's woven from a tungsten mesh, so it weighs 85 pounds and I'll need to carry it around on a hand cart." "That seems like a bad--" "BUT IT HAS THE PERFECT POCKET ARRANGEMENT!"

geoffc

I bought a backpac 5 years ago and thought I spent too much, but it has stood the test of time. Biking into work with clothes + two laptops. Travel and so on very ywell.

Edlothiad

2:57 PM

There's this infamous bag company here, that produces bag out of truck tarp, seatbelts and some velcro, completely waterproof (obviously) etc. and I had mine throughout secondary school (7 years) and my brother had his that long, and they were in almost new shape.

PearsonArtPhoto

3:13 PM

Figuring out how to figure out where the Roadster is is starting to hurt my brain...

PearsonArtPhoto

3:43 PM

Actually, I might be able to do this fairly easily. Hmmm...

Russell Borogove

3:54 PM

Ugh, I should just stay off sx for a few days.

PearsonArtPhoto

Maybe, but...

kim holder

innocent questions from innocent people. the non-answers and chatter is a little annoying...

PearsonArtPhoto

And you aren't a moderator;-)

Also, a lot of duplicates.

Russell Borogove

Yeah, I shouldn’t be allowed near innocent people :)

kim holder

:P

PearsonArtPhoto

4:01 PM

There has been more flags in the last 24 hours then there was in the week before it.

kim holder

popularity! yayyy!

@PearsonArtPhoto do we need to add the tag 'starman' and make it a sub-thingy of roadster? or maybe even the other way around?

called2voyage

Given the lack of clarity on what constitutes a nonfunctional/unused/defunct satellite, I'm tempted to close this question as opinion-based:

9

Q: Is the SpaceX Falcon Heavy payload (a Tesla car) space junk?

Yesterday SpaceX succeeded in the first Falcon Heavy launch, but the payload, a Tesla car has no real useful purpose (except for company prestige). Thus, can it be considered as space junk ? How long will the car stay in orbit and has it been designed for an atmospheric disintegration? Is the ca...

spacex debris falcon-heavy impact tesla

@kimholder I can't see there being many "Starman" questions that wouldn't also be about the Roadster.

kim holder

4:18 PM

@called2voyage yeah, but people may tag with 'starman' not realizing it's the same as 'roadster'. so, i thought they could be paired. (what's the word for that again...)

called2voyage

synonyms?

kim holder

Yes! :)

called2voyage

yeah, I could make starman a synonym of roadster...it's not exactly true, but the usage makes sense.

Maybe make a meta question on it so people can vote

kim holder

ok

Russell Borogove

Yeah for tagging purposes there’s no interesting distinction between the two

called2voyage

4:21 PM

What do you all think of the above question I linked? Is it salvageable?

kim holder

i've been thinking about it...

called2voyage

I think organizations are unlikely to provide clarity on it.

People like Tristan who work in the field will see it as junk.

But not everyone is going to agree on that, and I don't think anyone is going to officially deem it "defunct".

kim holder

i have a knee-jerk response to not close a question with 9 votes...

called2voyage

It wouldn't be the first highly upvoted closed question. It wouldn't even be the most highly upvoted one.

I've seen higher upvoted dupes for that matter.

Maybe if the question is changed to "Is the Tesla a navigational hazard?" it would work, but that is less interesting.

kim holder

it seems to me the interesting thing about the question is if it constitutes a risk

yes, that thing you just said

called2voyage

4:24 PM

right, but the answer to that is simply "No" because it's in a vast field of nothing.

Now, if we were to launch a hundred Teslas a year into the same trajectory, would we have an issue? That question might be slightly more interesting, but speculative.

Also, regarding the popularity, I'm worried that is largely because the question is controversial. It's feeding an argument that IMO can't be resolved.

kim holder

these things are all true...

called2voyage

It's kind of like asking "Was Jesus divine?" on Skeptics. The site doesn't really have a way to conclusively address the issue, because divinity is outside the scope of scientific skepticism.

kim holder

yeah, i've scrolled through the answers and the discussion now. it's becoming an argument...

called2voyage

Hello, uhoh

you might want to give the above a read, starting with the link to the space junk question.

kim holder

but the odd thing is, it isn't really the fault of the question. the question is one lots of people are going to have, the kind of quick-reference answer for the general public SX is so good for.

it may simply be that it is necessary to clarify the issues with the word 'space-junk'.

called2voyage

4:33 PM

yeah, that was my first thought too, but I just don't think that can be satisfactorily resolved. It would require providing a stricter definition for space junk than is actually used in the industry.

uhoh

@called2voyage hi, and Kim

I don't have anything to add here that I didn't say there. I just stopped by.

called2voyage

Maybe the best answer we can give is "It depends" and explain how from the perspective of navigational hazards -- if it were on a collision course with an active spacecraft, it would definitely be one. But that whether it is "defunct" itself is more subjective.

Hold on, I'm going to do that just now.

Russell Borogove

Estimated 25 million asteroids larger than 100 meter diameter. A thousand Teslas is nothing.

kim holder

@uhoh by the way, by my art college definition set, Starman is performance art :D

called2voyage

@RussellBorogove Yeah, I didn't think so, just pointing out that at some point putting junk in solar orbit could theoretically be an issue.

uhoh

4:36 PM

Ha! Excellent.

kim holder

@called2voyage that was where i was leaning too

uhoh

David Bowie was performing in some sense as well.

kim holder

this is true

Russell Borogove

Hobbes' answer is pretty well balanced: yes it's junk, but no it's not really problematic

called2voyage

@RussellBorogove My answer: space.stackexchange.com/a/24984/58

uhoh

4:41 PM

@kimholder Starman reminds me a lot of Bowie's Blackstar video. At 00:36 for example; youtu.be/kszLwBaC4Sw?t=36

After seeing that, and Lazarus, I've never been quite the same. OK cheers.

kim holder

cheers, uhoh. yes, leave it to bowie to use his last album to leave a real haunting image...

called2voyage

@uhoh See you, uhoh!

uhoh

5:09 PM

@called2voyage I didn't know this can happen! i.stack.imgur.com/GIsiS.png It's a very good answer.

called2voyage

@uhoh Wow! You hit your vote cap! You're a generous soul--thanks for the feedback.

By the way, yesterday my brother and I were talking about various technological developments, and he offhandedly mentioned Lithuania as an example of a country without a space program.

I said: I don't know, everybody and their mom has a space program these days.

I looked up and found that Lithuania has a space program that has created (at least) two satellites:

Lithuanian Space Association

The Lithuanian Space Association or LSA (Lithuanian: Lietuvos kosmoso asociacija or LKA) is a space organisation based in Vilnius, Lithuania. It is one of the partners that created the first two Lithuanian satellites. == History == In 2007 several Lithuanian institutions and enterprises signed a co-operation agreement to establish the National Technology Platform of Space Technologies and after a year the Government of Lithuania assigned the Ministry of Education and Science to start negotiations on co-operation with the European Space Agency. In 2009 the Lithuanian Space Association was officially...

My brother said: Ok, bad example. How about Turkmenistan?

Turns out they also have a space program that has launched (at least) one satellite:

Turkmenistan National Space Agency

Turkmenistan National Space Agency (TNSA; Turkmen: Türkmenistanyň prezidentiň ýanynda Milli kosmos agentligi), is a governmental body that coordinates all Turkmenistan space research programs with scientific and commercial goals. It was established in 2011. == Space programme == In 2011, Turkmenistan space industry boosted as new agency set up under the state program for development of space industry after President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow's approval. == Satellites == Turkmenistan contracted the Thales Alenia Space group to manufacture its first satellite launched into geosynchronous orbit in...

kim holder

picking former parts of the Soviet Union was a mistake there...

called2voyage

:)

@kimholder Even Congo has a space program:

mentalfloss.com/article/27244/…

They've been launching Troposphere rockets since 2007.

So they're a lot more fledgling than others, but still -- everyone and their mom has a space program.

kim holder

5:25 PM

yeah, and give it a few years... then everyone and their dog will have one.

called2voyage

kickstarter.com/projects/irazu/…

kim holder

your google-fu is strong.

called2voyage

:)

Still not able to find anything for the Vatican though.

Unless the Pope making a call to the space station counts.

uhoh

5:41 PM

@called2voyage I just saw your Lithuania message. That's interesting! With all of the up and coming launch providers, a country has no need whatsoever for any launch capability or even aspirations for one. It's like "fabless chip manufacturers:

quora.com/…

called2voyage

@uhoh Yup

Of course, developing launch capabilities can be useful for other reasons.

Though, those reasons aren't always popular, see North Korea and Iran.

uhoh

@called2voyage We're typing in two different places now, and I'm getting punchy because it's past my bedtime. Cheers (didn't I say that already)?

called2voyage

@uhoh Lol, yep. Goodnight!

@uhoh Cleaned up the comments.

@uhoh Anyway, with regards to that discussion, I understand your puzzle. That said, I do see a fundamental difference between GOES-13 (for example) and the Falcon Heavy payload. If something was going to crash into GOES-13, we might decide it was worthwhile to try to move it. With the Falcon Heavy payload, is anyone going to care to move it? Would there be any serious protest if it were accidentally destroyed?

Space Exploration Meta

6:09 PM

2

Q: Is it Starman or is it the Roadster?

After the test flight of the Falcon Heavy, we've gotten a flood of questions related to its wonderfully quirky payload. Before the launch, this payload was known as 'the Roadster', and we created a roadster tag. On launch day, it was officially named Starman by SpaceX. It has generated so much in...

discussion tags tag-synonyms

PearsonArtPhoto

The payload is space junk, but it doesn't matter as it is beyond Earth. It's no different then one of the millions of asteroids out there.

According to Space-Track- "TESLA ROADSTER/FALCON 9H"

kim holder

6:29 PM

0

Q: Is this what really happened on the way to Mars and why the roadster will not make its intended flyby?

Sorry Starman - You are just going too darn fast!

tesla

sigh...

geoffc

7:23 PM

Some good memes.

I like the Bowie and tesla one. That is pretty good.

kim holder

8:45 PM

So i've become curious, how much has our traffic spiked in the last day or so?

called2voyage

Roadster is not transmitting any more images right?

It stopped live feed after four hours, and that's it for the images, correct?

kim holder

there are at least 2 'live' feeds on YouTube, but a quick look makes it obvious it is a loop of earlier stuff, and they're milking it.

called2voyage

so no more new images, right? live or not

kim holder

i don't quite want to commit to definitely no - but elon estimated the battery would die after 12 hours. i think it's almost certain.

called2voyage

that's what I thought

kim holder

9:00 PM

that was in the press conference. i'm not sure of when. i see there is a question where that reference would be a big help.

ReactingToAngularVues

11:29 PM

Some of these questions seem like they should be closed.

This for example space.stackexchange.com/questions/25035/…

is a duplicate of space.stackexchange.com/questions/24365/…

Also most of the answers on all of the FH questions in the past 3 days are uncited.

The answer quality on non-SpaceX questions definitely seems higher if I'm honest. Which is a shame.

PearsonArtPhoto

Now, if I can only get the orbit right for the Roadster.

Not a lot to go off of, but...

I'm actually tempted to fly the mission in KSP, but I don't think that would quite work...

ReactingToAngularVues

Would there be any interest in a meta-post about SpaceX question answer quality?

I have a feeling my thoughts would just get downvoted though; so I'm not sure it's worth bothering.

PearsonArtPhoto

Might not be a bad idea.

ReactingToAngularVues

It's almost as if the enthusiasm for SpaceX (which is 100% fair, I'm just as enthusiastic as anyone) gets in the way of people actually taking the time and care to answer such questions appropriately.

PearsonArtPhoto

Honestly, I can use all of the help I can get from those of you who frequent chat to help keep the site running.

ReactingToAngularVues

11:42 PM

I often find the review queues totally empty; you seem really on top of it as it is :P

PearsonArtPhoto

I've been handling flags, and a few other things, but...

Right now I'm going to try and make whereisroadster.com actually work.

ReactingToAngularVues

Clever idea!

PearsonArtPhoto

I'm considering hosting it on something with a bit of power, but the first step is to actually figure out where the Roadster is...