"Musk means that if the launch fails, the Falcon Heavy, currently standing at the Florida launch pad where Apollo astronauts began the first journey to the moon, could end up in a massive explosion over the Atlantic Ocean.
"There's a lot of risk associated with Falcon Heavy," Musk said at a conference in 2017. "Real good chance that the vehicle doesn't make it to orbit." " cnet.com
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Now THIS will be a real pilgrimage for that "midnight cherry roadster." I guess he is tired of the car. I continue to be surprised and pleased that there still are people like Musk among us. The hiccups in the Tesla car building bidness are unpleasant but I think they will overcome that with the construction of the company's Shanghai plant. I am very keen to see if all three booster cores can be returned to Terra for re-use.
I suppose Musk intends to leave his bones on Barsoom. pl
https://www.cnet.com/news/spacex-falcon-heavy-elon-musk-tesla-roadster-launch-static-fire/
You have taught the computer a certain pattern and it can work within that design game's rules.
I do not believe that to be so impressive.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 09 January 2018 at 04:59 PM
The impressive part is that they do it now and not 20 years ago. Computers where fast enough back than. True, it would have taken a week instead of 4 hours but that is still faster than write a competing program the old fashion way.
Posted by: charly | 10 January 2018 at 11:05 AM
A friend of mine said that a human, using only a pencil and a piece of paper, can do anything a computer can do. That is a true statement, but it does slide over the fact that the human would have to be immortal and very dedicated.
More to the point, "Go experts were impressed by AlphaGo's performance and its nonhuman play style; Ke Jie stated that "After humanity spent thousands of years improving our tactics, computers tell us that humans are completely wrong... I would go as far as to say not a single human has touched the edge of the truth of Go." That is echoed by chess experts who say that the play of AlphaZero is neither human nor computer. It's alien.
Impressed? The cohort of chess and go players--who are very impressed--is small. So the decision whether to be impressed will be based on the domains other than chess and go which the computer can conquer in a short period of time. Each of us is permitted to make our own guesses as to what those domains may be... and thus how impressed to be.
Posted by: Bill Herschel | 10 January 2018 at 03:21 PM
A fundamental principle of metaphysics that thing cannot give rise to that which would surpass them.
All these attempts by men - out of a sense of womb-envy - does not imply the creation of something by Man that could surpass him.
Another gadget, another trick, like Leonardo's mechanical contraptions for the amusement of the King.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 10 January 2018 at 04:46 PM
SpaceX completed a WDR(wet dress rehearsal) on the Falcon Heavy today, which was only test loading of fuel. Had it been flawless we could have seen the static test which would have been a start and running of all 27 engines for 12 seconds. The static test was scrubbed for today.
They will repeat this tomorrow, unless today's results uncovered a needed change.
Once the static test has been completed and all of the data analyzed, we could expect a solid launch date.
Posted by: philmc | 11 January 2018 at 02:25 PM
Static test completed today. 5 million pounds of thrust for 12 seconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EAhy4ZHkDE
You have to forward to 28 minutes into the video.
Hopefully next stop is test flight of FH and 3 core returns.
I would bet the hotel rates in the cape area just doubled or tripled.
Posted by: philmc | 24 January 2018 at 12:48 PM