Falcon X

[trash]

Finally the flying car becomes a reality!
No not a Ford .. Elon Musk's person Tesla Roadster car will be a flying car one way or the other.


Either it will be flying between Earth and Mars permanently or it will fly off in pieces all over Florida.
Everybody is hoping the first scenario is the one that happens, but even Elon thinks that his personal car has a good chance of ending up as confetti.

They're going to do a full static engine test of the rocket this week. This is the rocket equivalent of warming up tyres before a quarter mile race. Or a bogan smoking up a Ford XC's tyres before leaving the Broady K-Mart car park.

I liked the description he gave:
"For the Falcon X heavy we take three Falcon X rockets and strap them together.
We thought this would be really easy, but it turns out that it is really hard and we had to make a lot of changes, we're not even sure it will work."

Space-X is taking all the risk on the rocket, but it's NASA's launch pad and if it is damaged by a (large) explosion then it is likely to set back American human space flight by a couple of years because that's the pad NASA will use for the job.
It's hard to believe it's been seven years since the last space shuttle.

They plan to launch it in about 2 to 3 weeks depending on how the static engine test goes.
Time to plan a visit to see Uncle Sam. I've got to see one of these things fly.
Even more dramatic is that they are going to bring all three first stages back and land them. Two on land based pads and one on the sea barge.


(Now every time I see this, it makes me laugh thinking about Sheldon Cooper).



In true American style, I hope they build a Falcon XXL.