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Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

I. Am. Just. Speechless.

Perfect takeoff, 2 simultaneous landings (still waiting for confirmation on the droneship landing), the car is in orbit.

I don't remember being so nervous watching a launch video since... Space Shuttle missions, I think.

Great job, SpaceX!

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Watching the car orbit and the Earth's reflections in the windshield and paint and Starman's visor is sublime (sometimes goes to cameras of the engine/orbit overview)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBr2kKAHN6M

e.g. https://i.imgur.com/Yu6gRar.jpg

This is all I'm watching for the rest of the day https://imgur.com/oKWTAQk

What are the particles flying with different speeds when the camera points away from the Sun?

Link to a timestamp with what you're asking about please it's a 4 hour video...

It's pretty much constant in the video; just keep watching until you notice small particles floating about. I recall them being visible especially well about 1 hour into the stream.

Same here.

Might I suggest pairing it with Pink Floyd's _Echoes_[0]?

- 0 - https://open.spotify.com/album/468ZwCchVtzEbt9BHmXopb

And I'm playing this in the background https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lERqGULWxs

https://i.imgur.com/VrBII8Y.jpg

I've had the same running all day, to be honest. Having the 2001 a Space Odyssey soundtrack and Interstellar's soundtrack in the background is quite pleasant.

I only just noticed the "Don't Panic" on the center console. I presume that's there in case Starman picks up any hitch-hikers.

It seems unreal - like some sort of advertisement. In fact, they should put that in a commercial! :D

Yup that was amazing. Slightly related, I'm already nervous for the James Webb Telescope launch. Maybe Spacex should launch it :)

The main argument for Falcon Heavy over Ariane 5 is cost, not reliability. Ariane 5 remains the most reliable heavy launcher, so that's the launcher you want for JWST.

On average, that's true. however, the most recent Ariane 5 launch did not go as expected. I can only imagine all of the people involved with JWST just got a little more anxious than they wanted to be this close to launch.

if it isn't too expensive to build 3 of your payload, falcon heavy could blow up twice and still be cheaper!

Obviously JWST does not fall into that category. I imagine if it blows up, it is just done forever?

Depends on how much a Falcon Heavy launch will really cost at the end, but right now the nominal fee seems to be around 70M€ for Falcon Heavy and around 150M€ for Ariane 5.

1 successful launch vs 1 launch anomaly in 16 years and 80 consecutive succesful launches.

I know where I'm putting my money.

Ariane 5 had an anomaly just two weeks ago where they put the satellites in the wrong orbit.

http://spaceflight101.com/ariane-5-va241/ariane-5-va241-anom...

Yep, which is the only one it's had since the first flight.

> I don't remember being so nervous watching a launch video since

landing of the mars mission was pretty big in the spectacle sense.

> car is in orbit.

That is correct...but NOT in orbit of our home planet!

My understanding from the diagrams they showed is that the orbit is a wide one (oval) around Earth that passes near Mars.

https://imgur.com/a/NJsIv

It has just burned again to raise apogee, and will burn a third time to switch from earth orbit to a transfer orbit (edit: or perhaps the next orbit is the final Earth-Mars orbit?)

It's actually orbiting around the Sun, it passes near Earth orbit at the perihelion and near Mars orbit around aphelion, but is not actually in orbit around either planet.

Hmm, I think it's still in parking orbit around earth, no?

Yes, I believe you are correct, I got slightly too excited. (: It's on a highly elliptical earth orbit at the moment. The second big test is doing a long stage 2 burn after passing through the Van Allen belt. I believe that will take place in 6 hours or so.

It's not that elliptical (at least not for another 5 hours or so when burns resume)

It is quite elliptical. Right now the second stage is in GTO, with an apogee of 7000km and perigee (presumably) of ~200 or so. When it arrives at apogee, it'll reignite and go hyperbolic, onto a trajectory that escapes the Earth's SOI - then it will no longer be in Earth orbit.

Driving around looking for a free parking spot

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