Elon Musk's Starman Conspiracy

[EnolaGaia]

I think they screwed up by showing a series of shots out of sequence. I suspect the bright flare and sudden appearance of a space background represents the point at which the payload module opened / ejected / whatever to first expose the car to space. The camera(s) quickly adapt to the increased light level, and you see the expected space background.

 

[Ermintruder]

What the hell do we conclude from this purported quote (made by Elon Musk)

Musk, too, expressed amazement. Of the synchronized booster landings, he said, “That was epic. It was probably the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen.” And of Starman, the spacesuited mannequin, he quipped, “You can tell it’s real because it looks so fake. We have way better CGI.”
https://arstechnica.com/science/201...oment-spacex-opened-the-cosmos-to-the-masses/

This is neither reality, nor is it really being presented as reality.

 

[skinny]

Lagrange Points: Parking Places in Space
https://www.space.com/30302-lagrange-points.html
[Texan ayccent] Up here at Lagrange, we're just thrilled to bits and pieces that an American has finally sent us a ride. We were expecting Elvis in an Eldorado, but oh well. [/Texan ayccent]

Every thread needs a theme, Swifty, and this one is about cars. Ten tracks for cruisin'. No charge.

 

[Andy X]

Elon also said in that press conference that they didn't do anything to the car to prep it for space; it's literally just an ordinary car. Any scientifically-minded people here know if that sounds plausible? Wouldn't the tyres explode in a vacuum? What would happen to a glass windscreen at such low temperatures? etc...

Ah, I was about to make just that point regarding the tyres, though they're probably elastic enough to take a bit of air and not explode and still appear normally inflated...but I did wonder if they'd replaced pneumatic ones with a solid spaceworthy version. Apparently not!

 

[Andy X]

The car shots don't look like CGI as such to me, but I can see how some sort of composite image using projections could yield similar results. I reckon they've retrieved Kubrick from his cryo-stasis tube to help pull this off

 

[genex17]

In a way, Elon has put a fun edge to rocket science just as Steve Jobs did for the personal computer and mobile phone.

I never expected to witness a car being shot into space, NASA wouldn't even dignify that idea with an answer. It just makes me think good things are somewhere on the horizon.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Not surprisingly, the Flat Earth Society doesn't believe it. Then again, maybe they're just sore about having invested in Mad Mike's yet-to-fly rocket project only to be upstaged.

Yup, Flat-Earthers Think the Falcon Heavy Launch Was a Conspiracy
Yesterday's successful launch of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket also sent an unusual payload into space: a cherry-red Tesla Roadster "manned" by a dummy named Starman and equipped with cameras that provided gorgeous views of Earth against the backdrop of space.

But flat-Earthers aren't buying it.

"People who believe that the Earth is a globe because 'they saw a car in space on the Internet' must be the new incarnation of 'It's true, I saw it on TV!' It's a poor argument," tweeted The Flat Earth Society, an organization dedicated to spreading the (incorrect) notion that the Earth is not round. "Why would we believe any privately held company to report the truth?" the organization added. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/61688-flat-earthers-spacex-falcon-heavy-conspiracy.html

 

[Ermintruder]

Presumably we are all familiar with a concept which might be called 'DBA'... Discredit By Association (or, also, Distraction By Affiliation): the entire internet-invigorated Flat Earth trope is somewhere between a parable and a pantomime. As that (just) it raises some intriguing points, but shouldn't be allowed to become the multilevel deflector that it so easily becomes.

This is an interesting set of responses
https://www.livescience.com/61690-why-spacex-roadster-looks-fake.html - I am intrigued as to why a chemist was approached, and proudly-cited. Presumably at times like this, physicists are all too busy polishing their Foucault's pendulums to answer Skype calls and emails.

Riddle me this: I question pixels always before particles, and unpick pictures before paradigms. As ever, we see the Earth from space, blue and beautiful. Why do we never see the daylight terminator? Why, although there is no up/down in space, do we always see the Earth represented as rotating in its own equatorial plane, and not in a skew-turn? And why do we never (or exceedingly-rarely) see that 30% of the Earth's surface that is land?

Even if we accept that stars will not be seen (due to relative light levels, and lens limitations...I presume that will be the current as-ever excuse explanation) it is interesting that we never ever seem to see pictures of the Moon and Earth, together, from space.

Anyway, I don't want to deflect this thread from Teslas that the owners of have said aren't there anyway...

 

[Xanatic*]

Being able to land rockets for re-use is something SpaceX has attempted for a while. So I can understand why Elon Musk was excited.
Why would he fake it though? He had the rocket, he had the payload capacity, it would be great publicity for his car company.

 

[Bigphoot2]

Riddle me this: I question pixels always before particles, and unpick pictures before paradigms. As ever, we see the Earth from space, blue and beautiful. Why do we never see the daylight terminator? Why, although there is no up/down in space, do we always see the Earth represented as rotating in its own equatorial plane, and not in a skew-turn? And why do we never (or exceedingly-rarely) see that 30% of the Earth's surface that is land?

Even if we accept that stars will not be seen (due to relative light levels, and lens limitations...I presume that will be the current as-ever excuse explanation) it is interesting that we never ever seem to see pictures of the Moon and Earth, together, from space.

Anyway, I don't want to deflect this thread from Teslas that the owners of have said aren't there anyway...

Daylight terminator and solar panels

Moon and Earth together from the ISS

 

[Ringo]

I take it all at face value and don't believe that any of it is faked. I think we are witnessing the birth of a new era when it comes to privately financed space technology. A friend of mine is the Swedish sales agent for Virgin Galactic and I think we are in for an exciting time ahead.

As for Spaceman, I think Musk is a visionary. (His brother also does amazing work trying to change the food/agriculture industry.) Musk is a publicity hungry man with a space rocket company, with access to nearly unlimited resources (and customers waiting with hundreds of millions of more dollars in their hands). He has pulled off an extraordinary publicity stunt, carried out another successful test of his reusable boosters and showed his new rocket's lift capabilities. As a bonus, he gets one of his products into space as an eternal monument to himself.

I don't know much about space travel but I think all of our everyday preconceptions about the environment up there are probably a little off. I can imagine that the car is very cold but otherwise what do people expect to happen to it? If they let the air out of the tyres then nothing will happen. Even with air in them not much will happen as the elasticity of the tyre will compensate for any increase in internal pressure (which wouldn't be that much considering the difference between Earth air pressure at sea level and the vacuum of space is only about 15psi). The tyres will become firm and extremely brittle but unless something hits or rubs them then they will keep their integrity as they have no forces acting on them. The batteries playing the music will be dead from the cold even now I expect.

As for the photographs, I envisioned the car hurtling through space by itself and therefore wondered who took the various pictures we have seen of it in space. But common sense says that it is still atached to some sort of framework in order to be held and then released from the rocket. This then will have had the camera mounted to it.

 

[Swifty]

I'm getting slow but I've just realised that Falcon Heavy is a play on words for Fucking Heavy if you pronounce it that way. What with one of his code names being BFR (Big Fucking Rocket that he doesn't deny), Elon Musk's a card .

I've been wondering why the rocket landings looked so fake myself (like something out of Flash Gordon) and then it struck me ... because we only have science fiction films we've seen to compare with this .. I was also wondering why I'd only seen the rockets landing from one angle but I've found a different angle here ..

 

[genex17]

Not surprisingly, the Flat Earth Society doesn't believe it. Then again, maybe they're just sore about having invested in Mad Mike's yet-to-fly rocket project only to be upstaged.

As long as they don't defraud and have to make their case in a court of law, they really can "have their own facts" under the umbrella of free speech and even worse, the internet.

 

[dr wu]

https://www.space.com/39619-spacex-falcon-heavy-roadster-to-asteroid-belt.html

I think the conspiracy here is that name......Elon Musk......really?

 

[Bigphoot2]

I'm getting slow but I've just realised that Falcon Heavy is a play on words for Fucking Heavy if you pronounce it that way. What with one of his code names being BFR (Big Fucking Rocket that he doesn't deny), Elon Musk's a card .

I've been wondering why the rocket landings looked so fake myself (like something out of Flash Gordon) and then it struck me ... because we only have science fiction films we've seen to compare with this .. I was also wondering why I'd only seen the rockets landing from one angle but I've found a different angle here ..

If I had Musk's money I would have been launching my rockets from an extinct volcano.

 

[Dr_Baltar]

As for the photographs, I envisioned the car hurtling through space by itself and therefore wondered who took the various pictures we have seen of it in space. But common sense says that it is still atached to some sort of framework in order to be held and then released from the rocket. This then will have had the camera mounted to it.

It's still attached to the second stage. That's what they (mis)fired to put it into its orbit round the sun.

And he's really trolling those aliens from the future:

...SpaceX packed other weird items in the car, among them a small toy Hot Wheels Roadster (complete with a miniature Starman) on the dashboard.

"Maybe [it will be] discovered by an alien race, thinking, 'What were these guys doing? Did they worship this car? Why do they have a little car in the car?'" Musk said. "That will really confuse them."

 

[Spookdaddy]

I hope to god that Musk never goes into business with the current POTUS - Trump Musk sounds like the most poorly researched men's grooming product ever invented.

 

[kamalktk]

Alternate conspiracy: Rocket company founder killed a guy and there's a dead body in the spacesuit as part of the perfect murder.

/coming soon to a crime novel near you.

 

[Xanatic*]

I figured it might be the Stig.

 

[CarlosTheDJ]

Apparently the car is on an elliptical orbit of the sun, so it will pass close to Mars at some point or something like that.

Looking forward to a few years time when it smacks back into Earth and takes us the way of the dinosaurs.

 

[GNC]

Apparently the car is on an elliptical orbit of the sun, so it will pass close to Mars at some point or something like that.

Looking forward to a few years time when it smacks back into Earth and takes us the way of the dinosaurs.

It's a normal-sized car, I doubt it would even cause a crater after burning up in the atmosphere, even if it did return.

 

[Mythopoeika]

Yeah, the conspiracy theories started almost immediately. In fairness it did look a bit fake!

The 2 boosters landing simultaneously bit was so smooth, it looked like CGI - yes.

 

[Mythopoeika]

Elon also said in that press conference that they didn't do anything to the car to prep it for space; it's literally just an ordinary car. Any scientifically-minded people here know if that sounds plausible? Wouldn't the tyres explode in a vacuum? What would happen to a glass windscreen at such low temperatures? etc...

They probably filled the tyres with plastic or rubber foam.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Being able to land rockets for re-use is something SpaceX has attempted for a while. So I can understand why Elon Musk was excited. ...

The novelty in the Falcon Heavy launch wasn't the return and controlled landing of a booster - it was the return and landing of two boosters at the same time.

SpaceX first successfully landed a used first-stage booster (on solid ground) in December 2015. Their first successful landing on a moored offshore barge was a few months later.

 

[Vardoger]

I think the car is safely placed inside the capsule. They just blue screen the area around the car, making it look like it's in the open.

 

[Mythopoeika]

...SpaceX packed other weird items in the car, among them a small toy Hot Wheels Roadster (complete with a miniature Starman) on the dashboard.

I wondered what that was! Thought it was a bobblehead.

 

[EnolaGaia]

I think the car is safely placed inside the capsule. They just blue screen the area around the car, making it look like it's in the open.

It takes a solid / continuous blue (or green) screen surface to blue-screen / green-screen video into the background.

How does one accomplish a blue-screen technique using a flexibly-segmented array of matte black panels?

 

[Andy X]

The 2 boosters landing simultaneously bit was so smooth, it looked like CGI - yes.

Yes, a touch of the Gerry Andersons, definitely

 

[Mythopoeika]

It takes a solid / continuous blue (or green) screen surface to blue-screen / green-screen video into the background.

How does one accomplish a blue-screen technique using a flexibly-segmented array of matte black panels?

Unless the matte black panels are part of the projection?

No, I don't believe that either. There is no reason to fake this.

 

[Andy X]

It's still attached to the second stage. That's what they (mis)fired to put it into its orbit round the sun.

And he's really trolling those aliens from the future:

...SpaceX packed other weird items in the car, among them a small toy Hot Wheels Roadster (complete with a miniature Starman) on the dashboard.

"Maybe [it will be] discovered by an alien race, thinking [...]Why do they have a little car in the car?'" Musk said. "That will really confuse them."

Unless it's discovered by this race of spacefaring cybercreatures - who will find the idea totally familiar.