https://media2.spaceref.com/news/2017/falcontesla.jpg

SpaceX will try to launch Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster on new heavy-lift rocket, Spaceflight Now
“Musk told reporters in March that SpaceX would put “the silliest thing we can imagine” on the first Falcon Heavy flight. The company placed a wheel of cheese on the first flight of its Dragon cargo craft in an ode to the Monty Python comedy group. The Tesla Roadster weighs about 2,760 pounds (1,250 kilograms), measures nearly 13 feet (3.9 meters) long and spans about 5.7 feet (1.7 meters) wide, according to Car and Driver magazine. That’s well within the Falcon Heavy’s lift capability to go to Mars.”

Keith’s note: I totally get the playfulness with which SpaceX does many things. Its one of the things I really like about the company. Its often infectious – often disarmingly so – and helps to paint space as something more approachable than just launching expensive stuff that does hard-to-understand things into outer space. Its even more fun to kid around when the company does things that NASA cannot do.
Elon Musk has been totally blunt when he comes to the complexity of launching the first Falcon Heavy and that it may well blow up. Other than instrumentation needed to control and monitor the rocket, it would be a risky proposition for anyone to put anything of value on the rocket as a payload. NASA has often flown inert ballast on rockets during early test flights to allow the rocket to behave under properly loaded conditions. The Shuttle often flew with big slugs of lead to balance payloads.
But I have to wonder if something a little more useful could be done on this first Falcon Heavy flight- like auctioning off the $200,000 Tesla Roadster and using the proceeds to fund lots of cubesats that could be given out free to students with the caveat that they may become space toast. To a lot of people in America $200,000 is the cost of a house or one or two full college educations. This is Elon Musk’s decision of course. And while it does have a sort of daring, tongue-in-cheek, out of the box aspect to it, I am also a little disappointed. This is a chance to do something that really resonates with people. Instead a lot of people will see some guy throw his expensive car away in outer space or make a shiny red reef in the Atlantic.
Too bad Elon couldn’t put a Tesla SUV with fat tires inside a heat shield with a parachute and throw it toward Mars. He could even paint it red.
Keith’s update: Now that I have been thinking about this a bit. Elon Musk could have some serious citizen science fun with this. I was thinking back to the ISEE-3 Reboot Project and all of the amateurs – many with home made satellite dishes – who listened for the spacecraft. If the #SpaceTesla does actually make it into space it would be an enticing object for amateurs to track – and analyze. It has known exterior characteristics. How much of its adaptation to space over time could be gleaned from citizen science observations? Not that a sports car with red paint is your ideal space craft. But if it is out there, why not use it as a thing to entice people to look up at the sky and figure out what it is doing? Maybe SpaceX could put a transponder on it …
Elon Musk, ever the merry prankster, plans to launch a Tesla to Mars on a SpaceX rocket
“Since then, his rocket company has pulled off an array of increasingly important — and improbable — feats, from winning billions of dollars in U.S. government contracts to landing rocket boosters on ships at sea. But nothing would quite solidify Musk’s merry-prankster, ringmaster status than his recently announced plan to use the often-delayed launch of his Falcon Heavy rocket into a cross-promotional marketing campaign for Tesla, one of his other companies.”
Further Update:

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member...

139 replies on “Fun Things To Do With Your $200,000 Car: Blast It Into Outer Space.”

        2. Quite a bit of this involved Twitter. As the US government is discovering, a 140-character limit doesn’t make for clear, unambiguous communications, especially not about the details. There’s plenty of room for honest misunderstandings without anyone trying to mislead anyone.

          Remember, the initial story was wrong. It looks like the plan is to put the car on a trajectory which crosses the orbit of Mars, not put it into orbit around Mars.

    1. This film really pushed the limits including the use of rotoscoped animation (Corvette photograph cut out and photographed sequentially in perspective of leaving orbit). I can see now how someone would have brainstormed this idea.

      Imagine a world where every leader made things up in tweets. At least SpaceX came clean in just a few hours.

      1. Imagine a world where leaders made things up in tweets. And the public actually cared about it.

  3. I’ll wait for the dust to settle about whether or not Mr. Musk is planning to fly his car. (Although that would be very much like the opening sequence from the movie, _Heavy_Metal_.)

    But $200,000 isn’t enough to pay for a hundred CubeSats. They’re cheap, but not that cheap. On the other hand, there is a long backlog of CubeSats which have already been built and which are waiting for a launch. Several (e.g. JPL’s INSPIRE) intended to test CubeSat hardware beyond Earth orbit. Given the nature of CubeSats, I suspect many of those involved would be happy to take the risk of a Falcon Heavy first flight in return for finally getting off the ground.

    One the other hand, SpaceX didn’t have a good experience with CRS-1 secondary payload. Even though the customer didn’t complain about ending up on the wrong orbit, the whole launch still frequently called a failure or partial failure. Maybe they don’t want to risk the bad press of blowing up some CubeSats. Even if the CubeSat people are willing to take the risk of having their spacecraft blown up.

    1. Blah blah blah. They have known about this upcoming launch for many many years. The point is that they could have been more creative.

      1. You’re talking about a company that launched a large wheel of cheese on the first Falcon 9 / Dragon. This is their idea of being creative.

        Still, a sub-subscale BFS doing a re-entry test would have been fun.

        1. You know, if he does this it’s something folks will be talking about for years, like they are doing here. It’s great viral marketing for the Falcon Heavy (and Tesla) and will probably give the flight a lot more coverage in the main stream media that would normally ignore it. And maybe raise some questions about NASA.

          I.e. If Elon Musk is able to send a roadster to Mars why is NASA not even able to send astronauts to orbit…

          Yes, I know the answer and policy history, but probably only space advocates do.

          Yes, Elon Musk is crazy, crazy like a fox. This could well cause the media, and nonspace Congress Critters, to start asking some embarrassing questions about NASA. Questions that will be to the advantage of New Space.

          1. Yep, the local news program here in Cincinnati ran a story on it this morning. No way in hell they would have run a story about Falcon Heavy if it were to launch a “boring” payload like a tank of water as a mass simulator.

          2. Yes, Bloomberg is also reporting on it.

            https://www.bloomberg.com/n…

            Elon Musk Isn’t Joking About Sending a Tesla to Mars
            By Dana Hull
            December 4, 2017, 3:00 AM CST

            “This is how the founder, chief executive officer, and largest shareholder of both SpaceX and Tesla Inc. does cross-marketing promotion. He has even coined a tagline for the event: “Red car for a Red Planet.”

          3. I was thinking something like that as I read Mr. la Paz’ post above, in which he listed a few of the trivial elements that could get out of hand. Why bother, I wondered?

            But you are so right.

            Mr. Musk is doing something that is long overdue: he is normalizing space flight. He is removing some of the NASA-sheen, the sense of magic. He’s making it ordinary.

            We should thank him for this rather than grumbling about it.

            And NASA is in deep sh*t. Perhaps some will laugh this off. Anybody who really thinks about space and space policy, anyone paying attention to the history of space efforts and the various programs will think long and hard.

            The notion that space is so hard and so expensive that it’s left to governments? It’s expired. These are huge attitudinal adjustments.

            The argument that space costs money — lots of it — is about to see an EOL.

  4. Definitely a funny idea, but payloads are not just dumb lumps, even when they are nothing more than ballast for test flights. Just as the rocket effects the payload, the payload effects to rocket too. The engineering to mount this car to the rocket such that it doesn’t come loose or otherwise damage the rocket would be a non-trivial exercise. Having a problem with your joke payload sure would be an “unfortunate” way to cause a mission failure. On the other hand, diverting the necessary resources to a joke to be sure it doesn’t go bad might not be well understood by other stakeholders.

    2. Engineering??? To basically bolt a useless dead weight in one place so it doesn’t rattle loose. I’m thinking it won’t be that hard

      1. I’m thinking you don’t know much about flying rockets. I didn’t say it would be hard. I said the consequences of not doing it right would be rather embarrassing.

        1. I know nothing and am happy to admit my ignorance….total novice on the subject…less than novice….didn’t realize simply statements are cause for attacks here…guess it’s best to keep ones mouth shut ..I’ll know better in the future than to try to take part in the conversation…I meant no offense to engineers or anyone else

          1. Meh. You came looking for an argument but found more than you wanted. Nobody’s offended, just explaining to you that Hollywood logic doesn’t cut it in the world of real rockets.

          2. I did not come looking for an argument,.i suffer from PTSD and sometimes do not express my thoughts properly…I apologized if I offended you as I truly meant no harm..there is no need to belittle me for one statement

      3. To basically bolt a useless dead weight in one place so it doesn’t rattle loose.

        It’s the “rattling” that’s the problem. The payload will vibrate, that vibration will stress the payload interface, which stresses the second stage…

        Rockets are fairly flimsy structures and have characteristic vibration modes that payloads must be designed around. A long structure like a Telsta Roadster will need to be attached to the payload interface by its tail, not its wheels/axles, making it an ugly payload (from a structural point-of-view. Compare a piece of flat paper to a rolled tube.)

        See the Falcon 9 User Guide, mainly “Environments” and “Interfaces”.

        If the Roadster happens to have a characteristic vibration mode that is in sink with the vibration from the rocket, it could tear itself off its mount. Or even just rattle itself to pieces, throwing off parts that crash through the side of the payload fairing, or through the top of the second stage propellant tank.

        It will require the same testing as any payload. It’s not just a matter of strapping it on. You don’t want the unexpected side-effect of bolting on a Telsa to be the reason an otherwise successful launch fails; requiring months of analysis (and bad publicity), and another non-payload test, before you can determine that it wasn’t the rocket’s fault.

    3. More to the point, the statement was that the Tesla would be put in orbit around Mars. Lobbing about 1500 kg onto a Mars flyby trajectory is one thing, but getting into orbit takes rockets, attitude control fuel and navigation (and navigation implies deep space communications.) The Falcon Heavy could definitely get the mass required onto a Earth-Mars transfer orbit, but the rest would be expensive. On the other hand, they might want to develop that sort of hardware and experience anyway.

      One other note. The 2018 launch window to Mars is in May. That’s hard to reconcile with statements from Ms. Shotwell that they are currently targeting a January launch date.

      1. I am just wondering about the tires. They may be strong enough to hold together in a vacuum initially but the relentless and brutal UV and possible temperature variations may degrade the material rather swiftly and *poof* you have a thruster spinning the car. Should be fun to watch.

        1. They could fly it without air in the tires. I don’t think the goal is to land the car or drive it around. But you are right, it will be fun to see what they actually plan to do and how well they can make it work.

          1. I have seen what UV did to stuff I left outside over the winter on Devon Island. The sun is brutal even at low angles and just breaks anything synthetic into dust.

          2. UV exposure can do nasty things. I’d never want to have a flight instrument next to the UV enhanced outgassing from a sports car’s leather (or plastic) seats. But that’s contamination to other parts of the payload. I wouldn’t expect that to produce much in the way of torque or delta-v.

          3. We don’t leave ANYthing plastic outside, down here in the high sun angles (23° or so N latitude). Coupled with the sand, and the salt- we live a mile from the water but that’s close enough for corrosion.

          5. So slash the tires, and you’d probably want to punch a hole in any sealed volumes. Venting isn’t a problem. A burst might be, although even that isn’t certain. But, large or small, that risk can be avoided by providing venting paths, which is easy enough to do.

            As far as the torques and thrust from venting, I don’t think that’s a concern. Air at one bar makes for a pretty poor cold gas thruster. I’d guess a specific impulse around 15 seconds. At one kilo per cubic meter (air at one bar), that just isn’t enough impulse to move a multi-tonne structure (not just the car, but the faring, second stage and possible a largely empty core stage, depending on when the venting occurred.)

          6. Not sure what type of valve stems are on a Tesla Roadster, but on standard ones, you just unscrew the core from the valve stem and they won’t hold air anymore. For grins, you could screw T connections onto the valve stems to cancel out the “thrust” when they vented.

          7. If you just deflated the tires, the ambient pressure in them at launch would become a 1 atmosphere differential in space. Which you could solve by venting them. Which is something you’d also have to scrub the design of the entire car for – how many sealed volumes exist in a car that normally don’t mean anything at standard atmosphere, but would retain that pressure in vacuum, possibly with enough differential to cause a structural failure that may have detrimental consequences for the mission? Not unsolveable problems at all, but somebody has to do the work to scrub through the car design to make sure. Same thing for all the other mission environments for which the car was never engineered – for example: vibration loads, natural frequencies and how they might couple with the launch vehicle environments, temperature extremes that would well exceed the car’s design limits and might result in material break downs or structural failures due to thermal expansion differentials, UV breakdown (as you guys discussed), atomic oxygen breakdown, material flammability, electromagnetic interference (especially if anything in the car is active) etc. just to name a few concerns. Not to mention designing the structural interface to adapt the car to the rocket interface and modifying the car to attach to said interface. Of course these are all things that can be done, but for how much time & money (especially for something as complex as a car)? On the other hand, one could just ignore the responsible engineering and hope to get lucky. But then if the mission failed you’d just have to go back and do the work to prove that it wasn’t the poorly engineered joke that caused the failure. Or worse yet, if it turned out the joke did contribute to the failure, the various stake holders in the mission would understandably be quite upset about the lack of diligence. This is not at all on the same level as a wheel of cheese inside a cabin.

        2. Could always use tires like the ones on the Apollo Lunar Rovers. IIRC woven wire cables with metal strip threads..

      2. You know, I was wondering about that. Maybe the plan is to launch into LEO with some sort of docking connection and attach an interplanetary stage later for the 2020 window as a demonstration of modular building.

    4. Yea that car is designed to handle loads differently than something pointed straight up on a rocket that is going to accelerate rather fast and shake and shimmy quite a bit.

      1. Straight up would be an issue. Stress on the payload, and the payload shifting, are significant issues. But even without that, having the payload’s center of mass near the axis of the vehicle is equally important. If the payload is a car, launching it top-up would be better than front-up. But the Tesla Roadster is only a few centimeters under 4 meters. That makes things a bit tight. Personally, this whole thing sounds a bit iffy to me. It could be done, but with more work and complexity than I’d like for a test payload on a first flight.

        1. I think they are going to have to stick some structure inside of it. Or take out the battery pack, or do something to make it capable of not jumping around and affecting the rocket or its structure.

          1. Probably. Or some structure outside it. Or inside and outside. Definitely something thing to center a car’s center of mass.

          2. On second thought, they should probably leave the batteries in. It would be a smart move to track the car after launch. That gives them a measure of the delivery accuracy to escape trajectories. To minimize work on (and cost of) a test payload, they wouldn’t want to add attitude control, high gain antennas or solar panels. If I did the numbers right, they could use the car’s batteries to power an omnidirectional radio and get enough signal for tracking for a week or two.

          3. A week or two? I don’t think I appreciated just how much juice was required by those long-distance birds that you fancy.

            In calculating that ‘week or two,’ what battery capacity did you assume?

          4. On another site there was a discussion of “micro-rovers” that went completely off the rails when someone mentioned that to communicate with earth, you’d need a transmitter capable of outputting X number of watts. From there you can work backwards through the efficiencies of the various systems to figure out how big your battery pack and solar panels would need to be. Needless to say, a “micro-rover” isn’t much use unless it can communicate with a relay that’s very, very close to the rover.

          5. A directional antenna can really help, but they you have to add that, and the ability to point it, and the knowledge of where to point it. That might turn a micro-rover into a mini-rover.

            I’m one of the people advocating planetary small spacecraft and CubeSats. But I’m also the one saying most of the good ideas require telecom relays from larger missions. And that making that work requires a very standard interface between the small spacecraft and the relay. (And a mandate, probably from the headquarters level, since large planetary missions probably won’t be interested in supporting an unrelated small mission.)

          6. I used 53 kW-h, which is what the wikipedia entry gives. Note that this is the old, 2008 roadster, not the new one they are in the process of rolling out (which will be 200 kW-h.)

            But I made one really painful assumption. Since I was thinking of minimal additional hardware, I assumed the “spacecraft” wouldn’t have attitude control. That would mean using an omnidirectional antenna. Beaming a signal in all directions takes way more power than emitting in a 1 deg. beam.

            I also made a bunch of other assumptions, such as transmitting at a constant power. You could triple the time by starting at a low power and ramping up as the range increased.

            Actually, a better link and power budget would be a fun assignment for an aerospace engineering class. Maybe a masters level one in telecommunications.

        2. The military routinely moves loads by air— loads with difficult centers of mass, and difficult to fasten. And while airlifts and rockets are different machines, I’d think that securing the payload is the least of the problems.

          1. Moving large cargo in airplanes is also not a trivial exercise in integration engineering. The payload requirements for cargo planes have been well developed and standardized and many typical payloads have been certified for those requirements. There is also a lot of specialized equipment that has been developed for securing payloads in cargo planes. Sure, it has been done and it’s now a well understood task, but it took effort to get there. Same is true for any vehicle – never heard of a semi tipping over because the load wasn’t properly distributed or secured? The payload integration problems are far more challenging for rockets though due to the vastly more energetic environments and vastly slimmer mass and performance margins.

          2. Putting a Tesla Roadster on a Falcon Heavy requires a custom interface, which means one would have to be developed and tested. Not impossible, but it would need to be done. Of all the things which have been mentioned, I’d worry most of vibrations and coupling between the car and the second stage. You could probably design the interface to damp that, but you’d also want to put the car on a shake table and find out what its resonant modes are.

            I note, by the way, that one of the often-neglected things which made CubeSats so successful was a rock-solid standard interface with the launch vehicle. The launch vehicle providers know exactly what flying a P-POD deployer with three units of CubeSats means, and that they don’t need to know the details about what sort of CubeSats are the box. Without that standard interface, the cost would be prohibitive and nanosatellites would be where they were in the 1990s.

            But a more interesting question isn’t about the cost or work involved with flying a car on the Falcon Heavy launch. I wonder about the added cost. They are going to fly some sort of test payload. That’s an important part of making it a valid test. Given that, they will have to develop a custom payload interface. A car does have some odd mass and balance properties, and vibration is an issue. But how much more would that interface cost, compared to the interface for some other test payload?

          3. Yeah, might not be all fun and games if some unrecognized mode in the car couple with the flight control system in a bad way.

          4. Right. And I wondered if parts that remain secure driving on roadways wouldn’t shake loose during a launch.

          5. AIUI Tesla’s have Inconel armor plates around and under the battery pack as crash protection. ISTM bolting/welding a standard satellite-side mount to that should allow the Roadster to be attached to an F9 Payload Adapter. Add ballast to balance as required.

  5. His car, his rocket, his money…..so he gets to do what he wants with it…no need for a cause, foundation, charity….it’s whimsy on his part…might just gain the interest of many and inspire their support of spaceflight….many with the political view that people should not spend their on money as they wish will be displeased…yes the money could go to many other things…but socialist thinking aside…in a capitalist nation…your dough is. And should be yours . To blow or burn, as you wish.

      1. It’s not like it’s only a matter of Mr. Musk’s personal funds either. This would add risk to an already risky development that is already behind schedule and over budget and which a lot of his customers and investors have a strong interest in seeing succeed. Some of those customers have also fronted a lot of the development costs in various ways and some of those customers are spending the public’s (i.e. our) money doing so. Not to mention the resources and attention diverted from other projects that are critical to his investors and customers. Seems to me quite reasonable for the public to have some opinions about this one. Then there is the matter of how this must look to Tesla’s investors at a time when their flagship product is foundering so badly that there are daily stories speculating about the demise of the entire company. Sending a Tesla to Mars when he can’t get them into the garages of people that have already started paying for them might not be the best PR move.

        1. “Some of those customers have also fronted a lot of the development costs in various ways and some of those customers are spending the public’s (i.e. our) money doing so. “

          Forgive me but there are a lot of weasel words here. Can you provide a few sources or explanations?

          It’s worth pointing out that Tesla has sold more than 250,000 units as of this past September. Nobody is calling Tesla stable, nor is the future assured. But they are well on the way with a car customers love and Consumer’s called on of the best American cars.

          1. No weasel words. Shotwell was quoted some time ago saying that SpaceX would not have survived without the NASA development contracts, for instance. USAF contracts also covered a lot of their development costs. As has been discussed on this blog many times over the years. Bottom line – there has been considerable public investment in SpaceX and therefore the public has a vested interest in the success of their projects. As for Tesla, you may want to check recent news – the Tesla 3 production ramp up is a disaster that has yet to show signs of getting better. It’s bad enough that more Wall St. analysts are starting to squirm and squeal at a time when it looks like Tesla is going to have to ask for more investment to have enough money to keep operating until they can get their production ramped up enough to operate in the black. That’s not to say they are headed for certain doom, but as I said, this stunt may not be the best PR move at this time. For either company.

          2. “…there has been considerable public investment in SpaceX and therefore the public has a vested interest in the success of their projects.”

            The government’s (and the public’s) vested interest is no more or no less than what was specified in their contracts with SpaceX. Unless you know something I don’t, those contracts were to develop the launch vehicle. Nothing about other uses for the launch vehicle by SpaceX. Nothing about any authority or interest in new launch vehicles derived from the Falcon 9.

            You may say that NASA should have written clauses like that into the contracts. That’s a moot point, since they didn’t. SpaceX’ legal obligations start and end with what was in the contracts they signed.

            By the way, I believe the only Air Force funding was for an upper stage based on a version of the Raptor engine. I don’t see how that’s relevant.

          3. I never said there was any legal obligation involved. All I said was that it was within reason for a member of the public (specifically, Mr. Cowing in this instance) to express his opinion about the propriety of Mr. Musk’s joke, in part because public money has been invested in the success of his endeavors. I never said nor implied that there was any contractual issue involved or that anybody should try to invoke such. I said only that it is incorrect to assume that SpaceX is the only party potentially impacted by this joke and therefore it is reasonable for those interested parties to express their opinion on the matter.

          4. You are on increasingly thin ice here, Mr. La Paz!

            By your reasoning we have an interest in every company the government ever bought anything from!

            Give it up! 🙂

          5. I agree. If nothing else the launching of his Tesla will help break that “Space payloads have to be practical” mindset of government funded space. In a commercial market you really don’t care what the customer is buying the launch for as long as it’s not illegal. If they want to spend their money on a joke it’s their money to do so.

            Also a lot folks here seem to assume that the SpaceX engineers are too naive to send the technical issues involved as if they never launched anything into space. Isn’t that insulting to them, especially after what they have accomplished with reusable liquid boosters?

            Quite honestly figuring how to minimize the risks of launching a sports car into space safely is just the type of mind expanding problem solving activity good creative engineers thrive on. I am sure the SpaceX engineers are up to the task.

          6. Nobody here ever said SpaceX is or is not doing the engineering to do this right. Since I started that line of conversation, I will take you back to the root question. As far as we know, either they are or they are not. If they are doing due engineering diligence, then it is reasonable to speculate that some of the stakeholders in this mission may not consider it to be a worthwhile investment or resources. If they are not doing due engineering diligence, then it is reasonable to speculate that some of the stakeholders in this mission may not be pleased with the increased risk caused by this joke, especially in hind sight if something goes wrong. (That has lead to some hypothetical discussions about the engineering involved in payload integration in general, for the benefit of blog commenters expressing limited awareness of the issue, but that aspect of the conversation has made no specific assumptions about SpaceX’s capabilities.)

          7. Care to list the various “shareholders” who are paying for this launch and how much they are paying? If they aren’t paying they are not shareholders, they are stakeholders which is something entirely different.

            I far as I have read SpaceX is paying the cost of the flight and will bear the financial lost if something goes wrong. This is not a government mission, it’s a private one and the only shareholders are those who own SpaceX stock. I have yet to hear any of them complain about it.

            I think the problem is too many folks still see space as some type of sacred place for science and are offended that Elon Musk is committing “Blasphemy” by his joke. If so, I am even more in favor of it. It’s far past time to get over the “religious” view of space as only a place for science and starting viewing space as simply another place for folks to get rich and have fun by exploiting it’s wealth. I hope that next that Robert Bigelow will announce he is putting a slot machine in his first space hotel 🙂

            If this flight succeeds it may well give America more than another commercial private launch vehicle, it may change our view of space.

          8. Care to list the various “shareholders” who are paying for this launch and how much they are paying?

            What’s with the quotes? Bernardo specifically said “stakeholders”, not shareholders.

            And to answer the question, this launch will be part of the USAF qualification of FH for national security payloads. If Musk’s gag payload causes what would have otherwise been a successful launch to fail, with the resultant months of analysis to even determine that it was the payload not the launcher; that failure will always be part of their “score” when the USAF assesses FH’s reliability. Plus it will necessitate another test flight (and maybe repairs to the launch pad), pushing back the launch of contracted payloads on FH from April to… late 2018, early 2019? (So USAF, NASA, Taiwan, Planetary Society, and ArabSat, will all be affected.)

            Damage to 39a might also cause delays to F9 launches (by again forcing all east coast launches to 40.) Which makes all F9 customers “stakeholders”.

          9. He is implying that by saying NASA has invested in SpaceX. Only shareholders invest in a firm, which is why it’s in quotes.

            As for the rest, if that is a financial risk that SpaceX wishes to take its their right.

            As for the pad delaying CCP, NASA will probably be overjoyed if that happens since it will give it another argument for SLS/Orion. Boeing will also be happy.

            I look at this as the same when Tex Johnson barrel rolled the Boeing 880 twice at the Seattle Sea Fair. The “professionals” were shocked but stunt sent the world the message that unlike the DeHaviland Comet the B707 was one rugged airplane.

          10. I’m curious what you mean by a “stakeholder” and how much (if any) control over a company’s decisions they have. There are customers waiting for a Falcon Heavy launch, but their contracts almost certainly discuss launch dates and potential delays for a vehicle which hasn’t flown yet. As long as SpaceX stays within those terms, those clients have no say in how SpaceX develops and tests the Falcon Heavy.

            Of course, those customers might be unhappy is SpaceX botches a test launch by tacking on a publicity stunt. And making customers unhappy is bad for repeat business. I assume SpaceX is taking that into consideration. But that’s no different from the relations between any business and their customers. “Stakeholder” usually refers to someone who should be consulted in advance of major decisions and whose approval is generally expected before going forward. I don’t see how that applies here.

          11. I was more interested in identifying those technical issues. That’s both an interesting engineering exercise and helps get at the cost of the work. A test payload is supposed to cheap enough that no one would really be hurt if it’s lost. If the engineering work to fly a car is too high, then it doesn’t really make sense to fly it as a test payload. However, as you noted, flying it as a publicity stunt could be quite valuable.

          12. No, the government didn’t just buy things (or services) from SpaceX. The government invested money in development contracts with SpaceX. But we are getting esoterically far from the point – this joke is not just a risk of Mr. Musk’s personal money. There are other stakeholders impacted. Again, pay attention – I’ve never said any of them do (or do not) have any kind of legal claim – only that it was not a matter of overreaching into Mr. Musk’s personal business to be critical of the propriety of his joke. The only ‘thin ice’ here is Mr. Rice’s original response to Mr. Cowing, in part, “many with the political view that people should not spend their on money as they wish will be displeased…yes the money could go to many other things…but socialist thinking aside…in a capitalist nation…your dough is.” That was an incorrect assessment of the basis for Mr. Cowing’s criticism.

          13. Those contracts were for both COTS and CCP, not for the Falcon Heavy. And SpaceX has fulfilled their current obligations on those contracts.

            BTW I remember folks were very vocal at the time saying they were not subsidizes, but a simple one time payment for engineering results. Now it sounds like you are claiming the government is a “shareholder” in SpaceX forever because of them.

            Does that make the government a “shareholder” in me because I took financial aid 30 years ago? It sounds like it would by your reasoning.

            Sure the government will benefit if Falcon Heavy works, just as it benefited when a couple of crazy inventors built the first Apple using electronics components invented for missiles. But that doesn’t make the government a shareholder in Apple, nor do past purchases of SpaceX products, including the data bought under COTS make them a shareholder in SpaceX.

          14. It’s within reason for a member of the public to express their opinions and complain, even if they have no financial interest at all. We’re living in a country where people are free to complain about more-or-less anything. I can express concern about adding risk to the Falcon Heavy test flight, not because public money is involved (it isn’t) but because I’d really like to have a Falcon Heavy approved and available for the next round of planetary Discovery missions. I can also complain about Apple switching to USB-C on their new laptops, because I think all the adaptors for USB-B compatibility are a pain. That doesn’t require claiming any financial interest. It also doesn’t mean I have any illusions about Apple paying attention to my opinion.

          15. Unless you know something I don’t, those contracts were to develop the launch vehicle.

            No, I believe the contracts never directly funded launch vehicle development. Only the capsule. (Money being fungible, SpaceX used their profit margin to fund F9 development too; just as they use F9 commercial launches to fund FH and now BFR.)

            The only exceptions, AFAICT, are the USAF funding for Raptor development. That’s a pure development grant. And commercial crew added funding for man-rating the launcher.

            However, even in the latter case, SpaceX can’t bill other launcher development costs to that contract. FAR law prevents SpaceX from directly recovering prior development costs in the contract for future services (whether COTS or conventional launch services.)

          16. I’m fairly sure the original CCDev contract (eventually $396 million) covered both Falcon 9 and Dragon development plus two test flights. Also, not being allowed to build prior (or current, unrelated) costs directly to contract isn’t much of a burden. It means writing a larger overhead rate into the contract and billing the unrelated work to overhead. (Ok, doing that correctly and legally isn’t trivial, but that’s how lawyers and accountants earn a living.)

          17. Weren’t the contracts based on a fixed price for performance? If so it wouldn’t matter what internal billing was done within SpaceX’s cost accounting system because it was not relevant and NASA would never see it. All NASA needed to see was that the performance goals were satisfied.

            Charging things to overhead, etc., as you state would only matter if CCD had been done using the old cost-plus method instead of using a fix price approach.

          18. I’m fairly sure the original CCDev contract (eventually $396 million) covered both Falcon 9 and Dragon development

            Nope. Just the Dragon Crew capsule and the man-rating of the F9. Because the first contracts were FFP, not cost-plus, SpaceX could obviously allocate that funding however they wanted. But if you look at the milestones, none were for F9 development.

            I’m not saying that COTS and CC money didn’t end up in routine F9 development, I’m saying that NASA didn’t “pay” for F9. Indeed legally couldn’t.

            (Likewise, Boeing’s contract was the capsule plus man-rating the Atlas V.)

          19. I’m sorry; I got the acronym wrong. I meant the original Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) funding. That was 2006-2013, and for cargo not crew. Dragon 2 and man-rating weren’t part of it.

          20. In that case, there was no direct funding of F9 development in the contract. It was solely for the capsule. Same as they other COTS players. (Same with Orbital. They weren’t paid to develop Antares, just Cygnus.)

            —

            The reason I’m harping on about this is that SpaceX (and Orbital) obviously used the included markup/profit-margin in those contracts to pay for vehicle development, just as they use the markup on commercial launches. Just as any tech company uses revenue from their existing products to pay for ongoing R&D. But people like to use that to pretend that there’s no difference between that commercial model and the Old Space model of refusing to get out of bed unless the government pays them. And Bernardo_de_la_Paz is one of those people who deliberately obfuscate the difference.

          21. This might be one of those “POV” discussions that depend on where you start, I suppose. For instance, what you call “investment” in SpaceX is (with an exception) actually money paid for services rendered, and so is it really an investment? And everybody knows that SX would have been dead in the water after the F1 failures. NASA’s purchase of services from SX was, at the time, a terrific leap of faith.

            But one that paid off.

            As to Tesla, I dunno. I’ve revealed before on this forum that I’m a happy Tesla owner. All of my experience with Tesla’s support for the car has been, frankly, stellar— and very, very expensive.

            I’d add: paying for a truck and crew to service the car in my driveway and on appointment ain’t cheap (it’s compulsory, there being no Tesla dealerships). The car is what you’d expect in that price range.

            I cite this experience as a (very) limited into the way Tesla, and perhaps SX, function; there’s no detail left unattended.

            Yes, I know they are really, really struggling with new models. You are right about that. I’d only say, watching the company, and have read what I can about Mr. Musk, that if Elon wants this model to succeed it probably will.

            We stayed with the Mac through the tortuous 90’s when Apple was always “beleaguered Apple”. We stayed then and now for a very simple reason: though costly, the product is superior. And while better products don’t always rise to the top, I’m convinced Tesla and SX will.

            Yikes. I sound like a moronic cheerleader.

          22. There are far worse fanboys on this blog than yourself. For the record, I am not offering speculation about the corporate health of Tesla, but only observing that given the current level of public speculation on that subject that there may be negative PR consequences this joke.

      2. I have PTSD…sometimes do not express myself properly…was not saying you were thinking like Socialist…very sorry if it came off that way

    2. Any mention if Elon is going to be driving the car?

      Yeah, a good definition of freedom is being able to do what someone else thinks is stupid but calling somebody a socialist for having the temerity to suggest that maybe there is something more useful to society to launch? It is pretty ironic considering the mountain of government funded research and subsidies that his rocket stands on.. You against public libraries too?

      This is a very clever PR stunt that benefits both of his companies. I bet a lot more people in “Walmart nation” will know about this than can name a current astronaut.

      1. I have PTSD….sometimes I do not express myself properly…I meant to call no one anything…sorry if it came off that way

    3. “his rocket, his money”

      Many people complain about wasting money in space but that money is spent here on earth. It is not stuffing a capsule full of cash and sending it BEO. However, Musk can be the first to do so.

      However, if the launch is paid by the government then there could be restrictions on secondary payload unless the contract doesn’t address that. Someone will have to analyse using a car as secondary payload.

      Speaking of ballast, several tons of lead was placed in rear of Shuttle orbiter to help with pitch control on entry. One of the speakers in the 2005 MIT open course ware lectures mentioned this. Think of what it took in terms of fuel to bring along that extra mass.

  6. Joke or Not…It’s interesting that you thought he meant a new Roadster 2 instead of the original Tesla Roadster, which he admits was a failure.

    Most people don’t seem to realize that Tesla existed as a company before Musk bought his way in and turfed the original founder.

      1. Russia just lost 20 of their customers’ satellites due to a programming error.

        Nothing wrong with SpaceX testing their launch with a 10 year old Tesla Roadster…:)

      2. While true, if it’s a “first generation” Roadster, it should be “affordable” as a used car. Car Gurus has one listed for $18k. That’s less than I paid for my last (used) vehicle.

  8. His car, his rocket, his money.

    Nevertheless, his money could be spent better than on a whimsy. I can envision possible payloads that could be both dirt cheap and a nice tax deduction. There are non-profit agencies that could benefit from a cheap payload, with hardware cheap enough to be easily replaced if the FH blows up.

  9. Phil Plaite has reported in his blog that he has contacted Elon and gotten the direct poop on this…
    1– Elon does in fact intend to put his Tesla roadster aboard the FH test flight.
    2– The destination is not Mars. It is an elliptical solar orbit which intersects both Earth’s orbit and Mars’ orbit.
    3– It seems there may be some other things going up inside the car when it flies too…not yet clear what.

    This is obviously a PR stunt to demonstrate the capability to reach Mars’ (note the hyphen) orbit.

    I would be very surprised if there wasn’t going to be cameras both inside and outside the vehicle, and objects inside intended to be filmed floating around in free-fall “weightlessness”. I do not believe that the car will be the only thing…I’m quite sure that some science would go as well. Remember what his goal, the whole purpose for the existence of SpaceX, is.

    1. Ok, that makes sense. He must have a contract for “Solar Orbit” in his personal game of KSP to fulfill.

      1. Ya. Most people care more about what Lady Gaga had for breakfast than what science goes on to a typical NASA probe. A semi-eccentric billionaire upgrading his roadster and using one of his rockets to launch the old one into solar orbit sounds like it came from a James Bond movie and is just the kind of thing to top the trivial Twitter trends.
        Rockets are rock stars, first-launches are spectacles, and Musk is a showman. Better if it doesn’t blow up of course, but it’ll be epic either way.

  10. I think the bigger story here is that a Falcon Heavy launch could happen very soon. I’m looking forward to seeing a full engine test and then a launch.

  11. Don’t know if I’m right or wrong but what I imagine is most likely is a Dragon with a modified trunk to take the Tesla with a few gopros, the trunk would then possibly split like a payload fairing would with half remaining attached to the Dragon the other half being ejected, the dragon itself would I imagine be packed with the main sensors cameras etc.SpaceX have been planning this a long time, yes the Tesla bit is a publicity gimmick but you can bet SpaceX will have worked out how to wring every last bit of data out of this mission a long,long time ago.

      1. Ok, I don’t know everything and don’t claim to , it does seem that people like me who are interested in what SpaceX are doing but simply do not have the time to devote to knowing every minutiae of rocket science are being made to feel less than welcome with some of the dismissive “are you stupid or something” responses to simple comments. Yes I realize the Roadster is somewhat longer than the Dragon Trunk hence I used the word “modified” Not a trivial task I accept but with the way SpaceX works not impossible to imagine either.

        1. Because you don’t ask questions; you are ignorant, but you insist. It’s the bane of online discussions.

          In this example, the scale of Dragon’s trunk and the length of a Tesla Roadster are both easily found on the internet. You didn’t care enough to look before you posted, why on Earth should anyone care about your hurt feelings?

          1. Sadly this will be my last comment on Nasawatch As I really can not be bothered with the increasingly superior attitudes here. Firstly I am under no obligation to simply sit here and beg for you to enlighten me with what is obviously your superior knowledge, when people offer their knowledge and insight I listen, when people try to simply put me down to show they know better than me without offering any actual information and insight I find it somewhat rude and insulting. Secondly I am alowed to voice my thoughts even if you believe they are wrong. Thirdly I am not Ignorant, name calling is plain rude and serves no purpose whatsoever. Fourthly your comment “It’s the bane of online discussions” is exactly why the general public has such a low opinion of the scientific community, these sort of discussion forums are more and more populated by those who feel that anyone they think lacks their own intelect should simply keep quiet or just beg to be enlightened. Finally, for the second time If you actually read my original comment I used the word “Modified” I knew full well the length of the Tesla was in excess of the Dragon trunk, however I didn’t realize I had to write a scientific paper just to comment a simple thought. I have no hurt feelings whatsoever and to be honest really don’t care what people think. I simply despise rudeness and arrogance which has sadly become “the bane of online discussions”, I have seen more and more people treated like their thoughts are worthless by those with extremely pious attitudes, respect for others and their thoughts costs nothing.

          2. Secondly I am alowed to voice my thoughts even if you believe they are wrong.

            Who stopped you? Unless Keith bans you, you are as free to comment as anyone.

            But it seems that you want other people to not be able to express their thoughts in response.

            You don’t see the irony? You don’t want freedom of speech, you want freedom from criticism. That’s not just a different thing, it’s the opposite thing.

        2. I think you are missing the point of a test payload. The idea is to make it sufficiently spacecraft-like for a valid test, make sure it doesn’t add significant failure modes, and to make it cheap and unimportant that no one will care (much) if it’s destroyed in a launch failure. Spending tens (hundreds?) of millions in development work to build a test payload just doesn’t make sense.

      2. The DragonLab _concept_ included an _optional_ 4.3 m tall trunk. A Tesla Roadster would fit in that. Unfortunately, if that concept ever left the drawing board, it didn’t leave the factor in Hawthorne. Also, the whole point of a test payload is to fly something relatively inexpensive and which you don’t mind losing.

    2. It wouldn’t be a Dragon, since they need to fly with a fairing to qualify for USAF certification.

      1. Ok I accept thats correct, however what then is the case with ISS cargo missions using dragon, are they exempt from USAF cerification? If so that surely that stifles private enterprise, one rule for government missions one for everyone else.

        1. I don’t think USAF certification cares about flights without a fairing. That’s the point; flights without a fairing just don’t count. They want to see a certain number of successful launches _with_ a fairing before they certify the vehicle for national security payloads. SpaceX would like that certification as soon as they can.

  14. That sounds insulting to me. One of the main problems in landing on Mars is how to put heavy payload down without resorting to rocket propulsion only (i.e some kind of aerobraking in direct entry scheme or aerocapture if you want to orbit first, then land). He could have taken a tesla chassis fully loaded with heavy battery load to make a “crude” rover, and landed it on mars with some kind of heat shield (inflatable or a dragon-based) for little money (and probably not even his own) instead of that stupid stunt. The Tesla Brand would have reached Mars in a way that actually makes sense and would have provided Young people with an interesting challenge. Or land a subscale MCT. Or unfold a big solar sail, or just about anything that is actually heavy AND designed to operate in hard vacuum.

    1. To actually land the car on Mars he would have to meet NASA’s planetary protection policy to avoid intoducing Earth micro-organisms. This isn’t impossible but would take time so landing probably is not planned. Launch is approaching and we still don’t know if this is serious or a joke!

        1. Yes. The United States government has treaty obligations regarding anything launched from the United States. (Let’s not get into the mess of foreign-owned spacecraft launched from US soil…) The State Department is responsible for signing off, and they delegate the details of approval to NASA’s planetary protection office. It doesn’t matter if it’s a NASA or a private launch. That’s the same as the requirements for not accidentally crashing on someone’s house.

          By the way, sending something to Mars orbit also invokes planetary protections issues. They are just easier to handle. You have to show the risk of the spacecraft won’t accidentally crashing on Mars is sufficiently low, that it’s orbit won’t decay and enter the atmosphere for a long time, etc.

  15. To me it looks like ballistic capture. So it would be an important test to see if Musk can launch anytime to Mars.https://http://www.scientificamerican.com/.... No fuel or heat shield needed. The 2nd stage could do course correction. Go to Mars orbit and let Mars slowly catch up capture the Tesla. Takes longer but why care about that for this project. He sounds like he will use his own personal registered car. Probably needs a new battery pack anyway.
    Never mind. I read it will be a solar orbit. Just go to and beyond Mars orbit. Nowhere near Mars. Oh well.

    1. Unfortunately, the part people often leave out is that this ballistic capture idea is a very slow transfer. The article you linked gives GRAIL as an example of a mission which used such a trajectory to get onto lunar orbit. GRAIL took 113 days to get there. A Hohmann transfer takes 10 days. For Mars, the contrast isn’t quite as bad, but it’s still much longer than a Hohmann transfer (and many people think a Hohmann transfer is too slow for human spaceflight.)

      1. Ok. Some say they need retro rockets. The 2nd stage would go to Mars. It has attitude thrusters. A large peroxide engine could be added, maybe Super Draco. The LOX would boil off. A larger peroxide tank would be needed. This would speed things up. Since the launch is Jan. they will still have to wait in Mars orbit and use retro rocket if they need to. It will arrive at the same time as if you wait until the Mars window opens. Or they will have to take a slower trip to arrive at Mars and use retro to insert into orbit around Mars. Not slower. Or Musk talks about 2 months. So it goes at a high speed and meets Mars 3/4 ways around and orbits at whatever angle it approaches at. I think. I don’t know much about retrograde orbits. Do the speed of Mars and Tesla cancel or add?. The NASA drill Insight will launch Polar. So will it go out of the solar plane? This takes the same same time as staying in plane? It has the motion of Earth. These are some of my questions I need to work on. No need to answer unless you want to.

      2. But the GRAIL-approach is perfect for lots of other, non-time sensitive cargo. He DID say ‘orbit’, so this looks like the only way to achieve it. And keep the Roadster in the news for some time.

    2. If I’m not mistaken, you still need some delta-v near Mars to do ballistic capture, it’s cheaper than Hohmann transfer but doesn’t mean it needs zero delta-v for Mars capture.

      Also 2nd stage would only last a few days at best, it won’t be able to do course correction after that. So I think this is most likely just a one shot deal, it may do a flyby at significant distance but no way it is going to orbit Mars.

      1. Additionally, Musk has previously said they are going to try second-stage recovery on the FH flight. Can’t do that if it’s attached to a car.

        1. If the car gets to escape velocity, it’s hard to see how the final stage of the Falcon Heavy would get back to Earth. I think there is some mixed terminology floating around about which stage is which.

          1. The FH upper-stage is the same as the F9 upper-stage. Back in March, Musk said (or tweeted) they hoped to start experimenting with upper-stage recovery in the FH demos, presumably because the early payloads will leave a huge amount of propellant in the US to play with compared to an F9 launch. (No attempt at landing, just seeing how deeply you can get into re-entry before it kablooies. “Odds of success low, but maybe worth a shot.”)

            That’s obviously inconsistent with sending a car to Mars.

            Mind you, at the same time, he also tweeted that the payload for the first demo would be “the silliest thing we can imagine”, which is consistent with sending a car to Mars.

          2. I just mean that any final stage which gets its payload to a Mars transfer orbit will be, after separation, on a transfer orbit to Mars. That’s well above escape velocity, so slowing down and going back to Earth would be very hard to do. Probably impossible, even if the payload were ver small. So I can’t see a second stage recovery from a planetary Falcon Heavy launch.

            I can certainly see it from a Falcon Heavy launch to low Earth, or possibly even geostationary transfer, orbits. At least if the payload is small enough. There may even be an overlap in Falcon 9 and Heavy capabilities. With a payload at the high end of the Falcon 9’s capabilities (which would require expending the whole stack) could you launch on a Falcon Heavy and recover everything?

          3. If you mean recover the three boosters, plus the second stage, pretty sure Mr. Musk was asked that question and responded negatively.

          4. I did mean all four: Boosters, core and second stage. The statements I’ve seen from Mr. Musk and from SpaceX aren’t crystal clear about it.

            It would be interesting to know what would happen if they launched a Falcon Heavy to low Earth orbit with no payload (i.e. just an empty fairing.) How much fuel would be left in the second stage tanks and would it be enough to slow for a survivable reentry? If so, could they do it with a small (Falcon 9 class or smaller) payload?

            In the spirit of reusability, that would make sense. Launching a small payload on a Falcon 9 requires one cycle on the first stage and expending the second stage. Launching the same payload on a Falcon Heavy would (if possible) involve recovering the second stage for reuse, at the expense of two extra cycles on the boosters. I don’t know if that’s possible, but I hope someone at SpaceX has looked into the possibility.

          5. I knew what you meant. Just pointing out that there’s no confusion about stages; just about Musk’s two comments. Testing upper-stage recovery is obviously not compatible with sending a car to Mars.(*)

            Given that testing US recovery has a hell of a lot more commercial value to SpaceX than sending launching a car into space, and given the jokey nature of his midnight-cherry-red-roadster tweet (which came in the middle of a chain of joke tweets about the Boring Hat; “Buyer of the 5000th Boring Hat will receive an autograph… from the delivery guy”, etc), I’m inclined to think he’s joking, in spite what he might tell journalists.

            —

            * (Unless they add a third stage for TMI, which they’ve never done with Falcon. Or put an engine on the “spacecraft”, which means modding that Tesla a hell of a lot more than discussed elsewhere in this thread.)

    3. He is planning on recovering the side boosters at the launch site, only the core will go to a barge. So it will not be operating at maximum performance. I suspect it will just go into a solar orbit or perhaps a high Earth orbit.

  16. What I wonder is if there is time for the FAA CST to approve the payload, or it already approved as “ballast”. It will be fun seeing it how it is recorded on the register of space objects if it makes it into solar orbit 🙂

    1. I’d love to see the payload manifest. But, realistically, the were shooting for a December 29 launch. There is no way anyone would expect to get FAA approvals in under a month. If they are really planning on flying the roadster, they already have the paperwork in hand. Which makes me wonder if this is for real, and if so, why it hadn’t leaked out before now.

      1. why it hadn’t leaked out before now.

        Because they know how to keep a secret? This is not the first time they surprised us, for example nobody knows they were building a huge carbon fiber tank last year.

        1. Yes, I strongly suspect that Elon Musk had his engineers work out all the problems long before making the announcement. It isn’t something you leave until the last minute before a flight. Also the essence of a good joke is secrecy.

        2. I was thinking of the FAA officials and everyone else outside SpaceX who would be involved in the approval process.

  17. From a technical point of view, there are risks in carrying lithium batteries on board (launch load qualification, resulting orbital debris from an explosion, etc.).

    Taking risks is a wonderful and lovely thing. There is a boundary that gets crossed though, where the risk to future missions and current on-orbit assets could be compromised by the explosive aftermath of the roadster’s Li cells. (let’s not even talk about that whole Mars trajectory thing and microbial transport).

    Perhaps this was an implosive release or a trial balloon to see what dialogue ensues–akin to Elon’s plan a while back to release TNT/explosives/bomb on the Martian surface? Wait, do we want to explore Mars or destroy it?

    1. Despite some bad publicity, lithium ion batteries aren’t all that prone to explode. Or, more properly, burn. Off, with no current flowing in or out, and isolated, it’s hard to see how they could catch fire, let alone explode. Also, compared to fuel in the second stage, the energy content of the batteries is pretty negligible.

      1. Well, sure, but the energy density isn’t really the thing, is it? The issue on airliners is really about adjacency.

  18. A quick survey shows all of the major business outlets have stories on this. Yes, it will be great PR for Elon Musk 🙂

  19. Guess what day 1/5/18 is? Mars free return launch day. See if they launch then. search turns up a 2013 paper. Video also.
    May be crewed or not. I guess that Ms. Tabor will be in the drivers seat of Dragon that is. They have had 5 years to get ready. the pad abort has been done, the crew access tower and arm can be done in the down time that they are working on getting ready for FH. Nothing like depending on your on life support by Tabor. The MAP abort has not been done and it is a first flight. It might not have a crew and they will go when the next window opens. I never checked back then to see if it was in the Mars launch window. I seemed to remember it was Jan. and checked and it is. I am surprised it is not in the regular window. I only checked the launch date and did not read the rest of how it would be done. I ought to wade through it I suppose, since there will be people telling me no way. I think it is around 500 days mission. Supplies for that long? Maybe a hatch through the heat shield to the trunk. USSR had a return capsule that did that, so it is proven.

    1. Dennis Tito made a lot of noise about this some time ago, haven’t heard anything more.

      Would I go? With my wife? Probably, assuming at least one Bigelow addition, and assuming the availability of Xanax…

      Good opportunity to finish my book.

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