Space X Falcon Heavy Launch soon!!

One of the biggest problems in actually trying to land a crewed vehicle on Mars is the lack of atmosphere and its associated lack of friction of the descending body. Trying to slow anything down bigger than a Mars Rover is almost impossible with todays technology, even with retro-rockets. Anything bigger than 1 ton means too much fuel is needed to arrest the descent, which means more weight, which needs more fuel to slow it down, which means more weight, ad nauseum. They need a complete re-think in how they are going to do it.

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Originally Posted by cripesamighty

One of the biggest problems in actually trying to land a crewed vehicle on Mars is the lack of atmosphere and its associated lack of friction of the descending body. Trying to slow anything down bigger than a Mars Rover is almost impossible with todays technology, even with retro-rockets. Anything bigger than 1 ton means too much fuel is needed to arrest the descent, which means more weight, which needs more fuel to slow it down, which means more weight, ad nauseum. They need a complete re-think in how they are going to do it.

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Build a geosynchronous docking station in orbit and then build a goods elevator to the surface of Mars.

I saw an idea for a space elevator a while ago using a cable made from carbon nanothread. Would love to see that in action!

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Originally Posted by garrycol

Yes but you said it starts at 8.30 but you posted at 12.58 (nearly 4 1/2 hours later) - so it had already happened when you posted.

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If you had wanted to watch it (or even bothered to watch it) you would see there is nothing but music in the video clip until the 8:30 (minute) mark. Why? I have no idea, that's just the way it is.

finally! we have flying cars lol

So ............ in this day and age when we're all supposed to be doing our bit towards reducing pollution, and when we quite regularly see articles about the amount of "space junk" out there .......... when some egotistical ****** with a lot of money launches a car into orbit for no other purpose than to leave a monument to himself, we are supposed to be impressed ???? :Thump:

I'm afraid it takes a bit more than that to impress me. :wacko:

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Originally Posted by BMKal

So ............ in this day and age when we're all supposed to be doing our bit towards reducing pollution, and when we quite regularly see articles about the amount of "space junk" out there .......... when some egotistical ****** with a lot of money launches a car into orbit for no other purpose than to leave a monument to himself, we are supposed to be impressed ???? :Thump:

I'm afraid it takes a bit more than that to impress me. :wacko:

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Truth is, it was a test launching.
With a test launching, they need some weight to simulate cargo. Usually they use old blocks of concrete. As there is no market for second hand electric vehicles and their resale price is way less than that of waste concrete, it was cheaper for Elon to use his old car as ballast.

But I thought that these electric cars were the way of the future, and that there would be a huge market for second hand examples when they came available. Could it be that we are just being conned again ????

If they really wanted something with "zero re-sale value" to send up as ballast, I'm sure that we could have rounded up a few politicians (I won't nominate which ones, 'cause that could be interpreted as a political statement [biggrin] ) and sent them into orbit. Could you just imagine if those other "little green men" came across out political rejects in their travels. Would definitely put them off any plans they might have had to visit this place. :Rolling::Rolling::Rolling:

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...018/02/248.jpg
...I'll show myself out.

It was a test launch during preparations to send missions to the Moon and Mars. He owns the company, so why not promote it's products by sending up one of its cars as cargo? We're talking about SpaceX, so the promotion worked. Mission accomplished.