Posted on 02/09/2018 9:29:23 PM PST by aquila48
The successful launch of SpaceX’s Falcon powerful new rocket Tuesday ... was a tremendous step toward reasserting American leadership in space.
The Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket launched in the U.S. since the Apollo missions – and the most powerful commercial rocket ever made. It can carry nearly 64 metric tons (141,000 pounds) into orbit. This is more than double the payload of the next-biggest rocket currently in operation.
For perspective, SpaceX says this is, “a mass greater than a 737 jetliner loaded with passengers, crew, luggage, and fuel.”
SpaceX owner Elon Musk also said the rocket system could launch payloads “direct to Pluto and beyond” without the help of a gravity assist.
When President Trump reinstated the Space Council on June 30, he challenged its members to “think big” in space again. The day before the new Space Council met for its first meeting on Oct. 5, Vice President Mike Pence wrote in The Wall Street Journal that the council “will refocus America’s space program toward human exploration and discovery.”
Specifically, the Space Council should heed Vice President Pence’s charge: "To achieve these goals, the National Space Council will look beyond the halls of government for insight and expertise.”
...
The private sector has shown that the conventional wisdom of the slow-moving, risk-averse space bureaucracy is wrong.
As Dr. Robert Zubrin, president and founder of the Mars Society, wrote after the launch: “Seven years ago, the Augustine commission said that NASA's Moon program had to be cancelled because the development of the necessary heavy lift booster would take 12 years and 36 billion dollars. SpaceX has now done that, on its own dime, in half the time and a twentieth of the cost. And not only that, but the launch vehicle is three quarters reusable.”
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
True. FH is the most powerful liquid fueled rocket since Saturn V.
This was a demo/test/experimental launch. The only thing that went wrong was the central core crashed on landing. Everything else went exactly as planned, which is incredible for a first launch of this kind of rocket.
The publicity value of sending his car in orbit with a video feed will probably end up being much more than the cost of the launch.
Obama and world communists are very saddened, yet these Musk types still seem to vote left because they like the government’s help, as if it could be safely harnested.
LOL!! Bump!
It’s not quite as much as a 737 aircraft. I have a Boeing 737 type rating and the smallest currently flying is the 737-700. A 737-700 is 154,500 pounds Max takeoff weight.
Musk is now done with the Falcon series design and has moved on to the BFR which will be configured to sent substantial payloads to Mars.
NASA’s Space Launch System lift to LEO of 150,000 to 290,000 lb.
The BFR will lift to LEO 330,000 lb REUSABLE
Payload to Earth RETURN 110,000 lb
The odd part is that they’re doing cargo while the capsules are carrying people.
Actually, SpaceX is likely the best candidate to actually do that.....think solar power satellites and beamed energy. Musk is accumulating ALL the necessary elements for a space-based solar energy economy, including the necessary heavy-lift capability.
but Starman is going the Wrong Way
I get the Big
and the Rocket,
but what does the F stand for??
but what does the F stand for??
—
In polite company ‘F’ stands for Falcon.
Otherwise and originally according to Musk, it stood for ‘Fxxking’.
Block 1 may be available 2019 for 70t. Getting to that double FH’s 64t, appears to skip Block 1B upgrade to reach 105t, second stage replacement for Block 2 to reach 130t. Not going to launch the upgrades in the next 1 to 2 years. Might fly 130t by 2025 with a perfect accident free launch schedule???
Should have just said FH can place two and one-half times the shuttle’s payload capability into low orbit.
Government has held back space technologies since about 1972.
The NRO, a name rarely mentioned but it is the most important name in space today, has held back the use of space.
What was the exclusive domain of the NRO is now a common technology. It is amazing the NRO still keeps photographic satellites classified when everyone know about space-based photos and uses them daily.
“When I saw those two booster rockets land simultaneously, I thought, holy crap! “
Science-fiction realized.
Unfortunately many still think it is science fiction. I tracked the whole thing from launch to landing, but I’m still getting hit with tons of comments from people insisting my videos are a fraud and it’s all fake. It’s enough to make me think humanity is doomed. Might as well just blow my brains out.
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