SpaceX Launch

SpaceX is getting better at launches. But, I am wondering why they didn't launch some science experiments for free with that flight. It might have been a 50-50 gamble, but it would have been easy to have included them in the payload bay. Colleges and non-profits (solar sail 2?) might have been able to come up with something practical and to launch for free/cheap.

I am also surprised that the boosters don't use parachutes to slow down, even if they would detach from the parachute a hundred feet above the platform, and let the rocket do the rest. I would think that they could save a lot of fuel (weight) in slowing it down.

I watched the video feed live, but they need to have a flying drone capture video for the remote barge.

 

It may be impossible to travel back to solid land close to where it launched from, and I understand that it is hard to guide a parachute, especially a high speed decent one to a specific target. But, those rockets are descending at terminal velocity and the rocket has to counter-act all of that speed.

On Mars our spacecraft usually have parachutes to slow down in the first stage, and then fire rockets or bounce with air bags to land.

 

On the lighter side:

 

Track Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster On Its Space Odyssey With This Website

In the past week, SpaceX has cemented itself in aerospace history by launching Falcon Heavy — the world’s most powerful rocket — for the first time.

Beyond demonstrating the rocket could actually blast off, SpaceX had some fun by putting Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster into an orbit around the sun where it would fly by Mars and Earth over and over again.

A few hours after the monumental launch, Musk tweeted that his electric sports car and the crash test dummy he put inside it — named “Starman” — had slightly overshot. The SpaceX CEO said that its path “exceeded Mars orbit and kept going to the Asteroid Belt.”

Musk hasn’t provided a lot more details regarding Starman’s trajectory, but thanks to self-described “space nerd” Ben Pearson, we no longer have to wait for sporadic twitter updates:

Where is Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster with Starman?

 

The whole Space X thing is amazing!
The rockets landing themselves in position? Wow! I am loving it! E. Musk said he wants manufacturing in space, and I can see how that would be our next step to colonizing.

 

If Elon Musk decides to expand into robotics and android technology....Dr. Eldon Tryell.

 

We've been talking about this manufacturing in space. And have come to the conclusion that it would have to be additive manufacturing and not subtractive. Maybe some form of 3 D printing.

 

Could you cold weld the remnants together to keep mass efficiency up?