[amsat-bb] A dumb question...

[Paul Stoetzer]

The amateur satellite community could certainly have done something
with the 6,951 km x 180 km x 29.0 degrees parking orbit that the upper
stage and Tesla ended up in prior to solar orbit injection. Well hams
could make use of it, it's a useless orbit for any serious commercial
or government application these days. The bottom line is that SpaceX
was never going to carry anyone's payload on this mission, so it's a
purely academic discussion.

The next Falcon Heavy launch, the STP-2 mission to qualify the rocket
for Air Force launches, will carry a few amateur cubesats to LEO as
part of the mission, including USNA's PSAT-2 (assuming the situation
Bob Bruninga discussed in yesterday's AMSAT-BB post is resolved).

73,

Paul, N8HM

On Thu, Feb 8, 2018 at 2:04 PM, Greg D <ko6th.greg at gmail.com> wrote:
> In hindsight, sure, it could have been an interesting launch to be part
> of (ignoring for the moment JoAnne's notes about ITAR, et al).  The car
> is now heading towards the Asteroid Belt, with Sir Isaac Newton in a
> space suit sitting in the driver's seat, and the passenger's seat
> unoccupied.  But that wasn't the most likely outcome.  Elon himself said
> he had visions of  the whole thing blowing up on the pad, with one of
> the Roadster's wheels bouncing down the road, and its "T" hood emblem
> implanted in the concrete.
>
> How much risk is AMSAT-DL willing to take in launching the P3E
> satellite?  It's of little use to the community sitting on the shelf,
> but it's even less than that if sitting in pieces among scorched fuel
> tanks and smoldering bits of a once-cherry red iconic car.
>
> Greg  KO6TH
>
>
> Pete Parisetti wrote:
>> ...that many people might be asking now.
>>
>> Rather than taking ballast - for that, besides marketing, is basically
>> what a car is - couldn't one one the next test flights carry the P3E
>> satellite that AMSAT-DL has had on the shelf for quite some time now?
>> 140 Kg wouldn't make a hair of a difference for a thing capable of
>> lifting 60 tons.
>>
>> Is anybody talking to them?
>>
>> Always hopeful, even after so many years...
>>
>> Pete MM0TWX
>>
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