Falcon Heavy Test Flight

> I think everyone forgot about early SpaceX product quality. This was 8 years ago and is one of the greatest stuff I've seen in space launches. The footage is so epic that it even got replicated in SciFi series! ... ▶ this video This was 9 years ago, first droneship landing - link And this is 18 years ago, their first Falcon1 launch - link More live video from the ascent than we got on Artemis2 for sure...

Just to link that: ▶ this video Such an unbelievable moment. And I also think an indicator of how much better society could be if we focused more on doing amazing things. The comments on YouTube are just filled with hope optimism and general awesomeness. FWIW that link goes straight to the moneyshot - it's always so much better if you watch it all the way through. It's an amazing broadcast.

Falcon Heavy has been launching commercial, government, and military payloads successfully for years now. [1] I'd strongly encourage checking out their first successful test launch of it, from 5 years ago. [2] Skip to about 29 minutes in for the money shot. Still gives me goose bumps! So let's compare the two! Falcon Heavy was developed with completely private funding, at a cost of ~$500 million. The prices of the launches are listed in Wiki. They start at $117 million, as NASA paid in 2023 to launch their Psyche craft. The SLS has been in development for more than a decade now, fully paid by the taxpayer, at a cost just about to break the $30 billion mark. The nominal cost per launch is still unknown but will almost certainly top a billion dollars. The last NASA administration gave an estimate of $800-$900 million per launch in 2019 dollars. And SLS cost estimates only go one way. And what do you get for $30 billion, and then another billion per launch? Ideally up to almost twice the capacity of a Falcon Heavy. The reason people are so cool on the SLS is that it's already a very poor value against existing technologies. And will be completely obsolete by the time Starship comes to pass which should not only be able to launch for a fraction of the cost of Falcon Heavy (which is already a fraction of the cost of SLS), but also launch well over the ideal launch capacity of SLS. [1] - link [2] - ▶ this video

It's hard to measure objectively but I feel I was dramatically more impressed seeing first Falcon Heavy come down than I was seeing the first successful (non-heavy) landing. I've shown a lot of people (who aren't otherwise into space) the original Falcon Heavy landing video: ▶ this video The most common response, by far, is: "Is that real?" It really is just that amazing. Even look at the YouTube comments. It's enough to make even the internet become a place of shared awe, wonder, and inspiration. Makes one wonder what the world would be like if we had media that focused more on things like this and less on things that divide and agitate people.

I remember seeing it around or just after midnight when I was visiting a customer in Taipei. I had fallen asleep two hours earlier, but set a timer to wake up just for this historic event. Totally worth it. That was one the best executived live streams of all time: ▶ this video

You should watch the launch, its probably one of the most interesting engineering projects of the last few years. ▶ this video

I think that's most likely just you projecting your own views. See people's reactions to their launches. YouTube is the home to some of the most antagonistic commentary, yet check out the comments to the Falcon Heavy Launch. If you can make YouTube look like a great group of enthusiastic, optimistic, unified aspirants - then it's safe to say they're already bringing the world like nothing before. And that's with little more than the launch of a special rocket. When SpaceX is putting people on another planet, I think we will have entered into the beginning of a new era in humanity. [1] - ▶ this video

We are, at this very moment, living through what will likely be seen as one of the most important and keystone eras in humankind. We are finally taking the steps to move, as a people -- as a species, into space. This is something that will completely transform our species, forever. People millennia from now will wonder how this came to be - how the time that we're living through played out, how people responded to such change. The reality that most people are completely unaware would probably be quite disappointing. One-off bursts of coverage are forgotten as quickly as they emerge. For instance, if we were to poll Americans on our recent achievements in space, what percent of Americans do you think would have any clue about what's going on? Even just of the Falcon Heavy in particular? I think a fair over/under would be 20%. In my experience it's a fair bit lower than that. And the biggest shame here is that people are just jaw dropped at seeing what we're achieving - which makes that ignorance all the more of a shame! Heck, YouTube is home of some the most negative and trollish commenting on the internet. See how people responded to this [1] video of the Falcon Heavy test flight. That a 'mere' technological achievement somehow brought out such strong and positive emotion from so many people, on YouTube of all places. Why aren't the media more actively tapping into that? The media plays a very large role in deciding the zeitgeist of a time. And I think it's a shame that they'

Oooh, so you're simply unaware and your bias prompts you to assume i'm making shit up. Here, let me fix that. Watch exactly one minute after this timestamp, pay attention to the screen at the right edge of the video, in the middle: ▶ this video Drone ship feed static for a while, then smoke on deck clears, no core visible, deck empty. Both go "oh." and after a pause: "we're waiting to hear what happens. [...] we'll let you know as soon as we find out" and "we'll [...] know [...] whether it's standing". It is clear during all of this that they're looking at the same video feed as is in the background, because the timing of their reactions is exactly in synch. They saw it didn't land, they found out immediately and didn't let "us" know. Instead they claimed it might be possible it is standing despite seeing the empty deck. PS: You could've asked instead of engaging in cheer pressure.

If you look at the footage closely you see that they used the same footage for both boosters. Nevertheless, the landing was superb. edit: ▶ this video

They said in the broadcast they weren't but when it got close to the ground you could tell they were the same feed. link ▶ this video

There was a mistake as in the feed they claimed they were separate, but in fact it was a duplicate of the same stream: ▶ this video