NEWS Space X nails it!

[nittany03]

"I'm tripping balls here."

- Elon Musk, February 6, 2018

 

[Brett327]

Imagine Earth's orbit. Then imagine Mars's orbit. Assuming the final burn goes well (which should be soon), it'll end up in an orbit where the highest point (relative to the Sun) touches Mars' orbit, and the lowest point touches Earth's. Basically, the last burn makes the rocket go faster than Earth, which elevates the highest point it can reach up to touch Mars' orbit, and then the Sun's gravity takes over and pulls it back down. At which point the Earth is somewhere else, because it's been going faster.

It'd need another burn (the second half of the Hohmann Transfer) near Mars to drop into Mars orbit, which was never the point of the whole thing anyway. They'd have had to wait until Mars was in position to catch up to where the rocket would be when the rocket got there. Interplanetary transfer orbits are basically like taking a guns shot. Match planes with the target and lead it.

No need to nerd-splain it to me, Von Braun Jr. I've got KSP:

 

[nittany03]

No need to nerd-splain it to me, Von Braun Jr. I've got KSP:

In which case all nerd jokes boomerang right back at you, too . . .

(I'm not addicted, I swear, I can stop playing whenever I . . . aw, shit)

 

[HokiePilot]

If you ever wanted to understand space flight, KSP is an amazing game. I learned more playing that game in a few hours than I did in my college orbital dynamics class.

 

[sevenhelmet]

Simple Rockets is also pretty good for understanding orbits in a 2D sense, and you can play it on an iPad.

 

[nittany03]

Heck with Mars; looks like that Roadster is headed most of the way to Ceres.

 

[Meyerkord]

Heck with Mars; looks like that Roadster is headed most of the way to Ceres.

I can't tell if they meant to do that or not. My guess is probably not since they originally talked about bouncing between an Earth/Mars orbit. But I don't think they care at this point. They got a freaking car into space.

 

[HokiePilot]

I can't tell if they meant to do that or not. My guess is probably not since they originally talked about bouncing between an Earth/Mars orbit. But I don't think they care at this point. They got a freaking car into space.

My guess is they ran the engines to failure. SpaceX has proven many times it can hit a specific target. They didn't need to. This was a chance to burn the engines to exhaustion to see what happens.

 

[sevenhelmet]

It demonstrates more delta-v capability than the Earth/Mars orbit they talked about. I think it was intentional.

I wonder what kind of measurements they got while going through the Van Allen belts.

 

[Swanee]

If you ever wanted to understand space flight, KSP is an amazing game. I learned more playing that game in a few hours than I did in my college orbital dynamics class.

Same. except sub Orbital Dynamics for high school physics....

 

[nittany03]

So about that last Falcon 9 they launched before the Falcon Heavy . . .

Looks like someone or some group of someones got to send it to Rocket Valhalla.

 

[BACONATOR]

If you ever wanted to understand space flight, KSP is an amazing game. I learned more playing that game in a few hours than I did in my college orbital dynamics class.

Space mechanics (orbital dynamics) was the bane of my undergrad. IIRC one of 2 Cs I ever earned.

 

[Hair Warrior]

SpaceX Lacked FAA Approval for Launch That Ended in Fireball

Anyone able to translate FAA speak? Is this a big nothing or does SpaceX have an FAA problem?

 

[sevenhelmet]

SpaceX Lacked FAA Approval for Launch That Ended in Fireball

Anyone able to translate FAA speak? Is this a big nothing or does SpaceX have an FAA problem?

That article is not very well written, but it appears to state that the FAA allowed SpaceX to continue launch operations as of Tuesday (presumably prior to launch). Whatever corrective actions (flight safety and regulatory compliance) the FAA required after the non-compliant December launch have apparently been taken.

I'm leaning toward this being a nothingburger or "click bait" story. Then again, I have no idea how space launch regulations work and there's a new sheriff in town since December, so you never know.

 

[jmcquate]

I got a pretty good orbital dynamics lesson on a cocktail napkin from a front room NASA flight dynamics guy over beers at the now defuncted "Turtle Club" in Clear Lake, TX.