Big brother Tesla

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icowden

Legendary Member
Can you also not read?
I said the main 5 in China all use Lidar. Musk will go with Lidar too, it totally insane not to.

Yes, it appears to be you with the literacy problem. Just because some companies are doing Lidar it doesn't follow that all companies will use Lidar. Tesla's strategy is not to use Lidar. Which part of that are you not understanding??
 
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albion

albion

Guru
Rofl.
 

AndyRM

Elder Goth
This is the actual cover for a book about Space X.

All those billions and this horrible mish-mash of space/alien tropes is the most he could afford to pay someone £10 for 15 minutes of their time for... Tragic.

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icowden

Legendary Member
This is the actual cover for a book about Space X.
All those billions and this horrible mish-mash of space/alien tropes is the most he could afford to pay someone £10 for 15 minutes of their time for... Tragic.
Er, Brad Bergan isn't worth billions of dollars. He's just a journo who wrote a book. He may have got SpaceX permission, but it's not an official SpaceX book as far as I can see.
 

AndyRM

Elder Goth
Er, Brad Bergan isn't worth billions of dollars. He's just a journo who wrote a book. He may have got SpaceX permission, but it's not an official SpaceX book as far as I can see.

Yeah, yeah. You and your facts again...

(Being vaguely serious, someone at SpaceX must have seen that at some point given it's using their imagery and Musk's likeness and been cool with it.)
 

icowden

Legendary Member
(Being vaguely serious, someone at SpaceX must have seen that at some point given it's using their imagery and Musk's likeness and been cool with it.)
Actually I'm not sure they have. The picture of Falcon Starship I think is public domain. The SpaceX word is not the official logo although it's been made to look quite like it (the real logo has a curve in the long axis of the x which decreases in size, and the A is not a triangle) and the Elon Musk pic looks like it's been photoshopped out of another image. It has "we didn't have official licensing permission" stamped all over it.

I agree with you that the cover is awful by the way.
 

AndyRM

Elder Goth
Actually I'm not sure they have. The picture of Falcon Starship I think is public domain. The SpaceX word is not the official logo although it's been made to look quite like it (the real logo has a curve in the long axis of the x which decreases in size, and the A is not a triangle) and the Elon Musk pic looks like it's been photoshopped out of another image. It has "we didn't have official licensing permission" stamped all over it.

I agree with you that the cover is awful by the way.

Yeah, you're not wrong. I'm just speculating really, but Musk strikes me as the kind of fella that for all his laissez faire attitudes he would keep tight control of his likeness.

But then his logo for "X" is unicode so he probably doesn't actually care.
 

Bazzer

Well-Known Member
Hopefully the book highlights that the various pronouncements of the vapourware salesman were largely hot air.
As for Space X, even after spending billions of dollars, they haven't managed to get a spacecraft to fly to the moon, do one orbit and then return to earth. Something Apollo 8 successfully achieved with 3 people on board, in 1968.
 
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icowden

Legendary Member
As for Space X, even after spending billions of dollars, they haven't managed to get a spacecraft to fly to the moon, do one orbit and then return to earth. Something Apollo 8 successfully achieved with 3 people on board, in 1968.
That would presumably be because it has never been a target for them to achieve.
 

Bazzer

Well-Known Member
DeThat would presumably be because it has never been a target for them to achieve.
So why in February 2017, did Space X announce they were going to fly two space tourists on a trajectory around the moon and this was going to take place in late 2018?
Then in 2018, Space X announced the Falcon Heavy, which was originally going to be used for the flight, was no longer to be certified for human transport. Instead, they were going to use a new rocket called Starship which was going to fly to the moon by 2023.
2023 came and went, but it wasn't kind to Starship, if you consider explosions unkind.
Leaving explosions to one side, Starship's proposed payload also appears to be being cut back. So not only has Space X failed to date to do what was announced in February 2017, but it looks like it may not be able to carry enough fuel to do the take off and land bit safely.
Even if you don't consider Space X's 2017 announcement as a target, or the bollox Musk has spouted about Mars, as targets, Space X did successfully win two contracts for lunar landers. These I believe anticipated a crew joining Starship from a space station called Gateway and Starship would then take them to the moon, land and later return the crew safely. The first was awarded in April 2021 and was due to have a launch date of September 2026. But even the American government realises this date is a pipedream because of problems with among other things, Starship. - It only managed to finally achieve its trajectory orbit in March 2024, but then destroyed itself.
I believe it is proposed to convert the mission to unmanned, presumably on safety grounds.
 
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icowden

Legendary Member
So why in February 2017, did Space X announce they were going to fly two space tourists on a trajectory around the moon and this was going to take place in late 2018?
Because they had funding and that was the plan at that point. They intended to get Falcon Heavy certified for space flight. They then changed their minds and focused on developing Starship which in turn completely altered the planned schedule and eventually ended the tourism idea. It was only ever a money maker on the side.
2023 came and went, but it wasn't kind to Starship, if you consider explosions unkind.
But SpaceX had never intended Starship to survive. Unlike previous space rocket development, SpaceX is using rapid iteration and learning from each launch.

Even if you don't consider Space X's 2017 announcement as a target, or the bollox Musk has spouted about Mars, as targets, Space X did successfully win two contracts for lunar landers. These I believe anticipated a crew joining Starship from a space station called Gateway and Starship would then take them to the moon, land and later return the crew safely. The first was awarded in April 2021 and was due to have a launch date of September 2026. But even the American government realises this date is a pipedream because of problems with among other things, Starship. - It only managed to finally achieve its trajectory orbit in March 2024, but then destroyed itself.
I believe it is proposed to convert the mission to unmanned, presumably on safety grounds.
Musks date planning is always wildly optimistic. NASA has contracted for an uncrewed flight to the moon in 2025 and a crewed one no earlier than Sept 2026. In Feb of this year NASA confirmed that SpaceX had accomplished over 30 HLS specific milestones (Starship HLS is the Starship variant being designed to act as a shuttle between the Earth and the Moon). This is a hugely complex and ambitious project intended to allow us to actually build a Moon base and have regular traffic there. it's the first step before the Mars missions begin.

Personally I think what SpaceX are doing is hugely exciting.
 
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