The 'I don't like Tesla' Thread

prizrak;n3545622 said:
Boosters landing is geek boner inducing but that means that they have a lower cargo capacity due to having to accelerate all that fuel that is not being used for boosters. There is a reason why neither NASA nor the Russians land boosters that way and it has nothing to do with technology considering fully automated landers have existed since at least early 90s.

Isn't the concept about the cost savings due to the reuse-ability? Carrying extra fuel would reduce overall payload, but if being able to reuse the boosters saves enough money, it could still work out cheaper in the end to do 5 launches of 12 elephants (falcon heavy payload to LEO) rather than 2 launches of 24 elephants using "disposable" boosters.
 
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NecroJoe;n3545700 said:
Isn't the concept about the cost savings due to the reuse-ability? Carrying extra fuel would reduce overall payload, but if being able to reuse the boosters saves enough money, it could still work out cheaper in the end to do 5 launches of 12 elephants rather than 2 launches of 24 elephants using "disposable" boosters.

NASA has had reusable boosters for a while, they land on parachutes or just splash down in the ocean and get retrieved by special ships.
 
They have, but it's always seemed argueable that the months of tedius refurbishment, after reclaiming them in the first place, was never actually all that beneficial.

These are designed to be more "gas-and-go" with merely days (or less) between uses, and supposedly reducing the cost per KG to drop by 90%.
 
The boosters NASA had were a solid rocket propellant type. They were tedious to repack, and are finicky about what temperatures they can be used.
 
But are generally safer to deal with than liquid fuel, there is a reason area around Baykonur (the Russian launch site) is toxic, all the liquid fuel leakage.
 
prizrak;n3545712 said:
But are generally safer to deal with than liquid fuel, there is a reason area around Baykonur (the Russian launch site) is toxic, all the liquid fuel leakage.

Baikonur area is toxic because the fuel used by Proton-M and some other rockets there is UDMH. That stuff will kill you from breathing in fumes, and will permeate skin if you wear a breather mask and still f*ck you up. SpaceX uses RP1 (basically kerosene) and liquid oxygen, those are by far less problematic, in fact no more so than your typical petrol or diesel.

Parachutes are not an option for multiple reasons:

- They are heavier than the extra fuel required for propulsive landing. People usually underestimate the weight of a parachute capable of gently landing a 70-meter high fuel tank with some engines on the bottom.

- They do not provide assistance during re-entry. Falcon 9/Heavy cores do a re-entry burn when entering the dense part of the atmosphere, scrubbing a lot of lateral velocity and actually shielding the rocket with the exhaust shock wave. When SpaceX tried landing the first Falcon 9 rockets with parachutes (yes they did actually try it first), they didn't survive re-entry, so the chutes never even came into play. To make chute-landing rockets survive re-entry would mean adding a heat shield, further driving up the dead weight, reducing payload.

- They do not provide control of where the stage will land. This makes land touchdowns impossible (the US coasts do not have any large Kazakhstan-like wastes where a rocket could fall wherever), and sea landings much more problematic, because the splashed down rockets will take significant damage from sea water before retrieval (think still hot engine nozzles contacting salt water), driving refurbishment costs way up.

- They introduce additional actuators and systems that can go wrong. The less complexity the better, and engines and control systems for propulsive return are already onboard from liftoff.
 
NecroJoe;n3545705 said:
They have, but it's always seemed argueable that the months of tedius refurbishment, after reclaiming them in the first place, was never actually all that beneficial.

These are designed to be more "gas-and-go" with merely days (or less) between uses, and supposedly reducing the cost per KG to drop by 90%.

Except the second stage is irretrievable, so there is no "gas-and-go" additionally the first stage needs major refurbishment as well.
 
leviathan;n3545715 said:
Baikonur area is toxic because the fuel used by Proton-M and some other rockets there is UDMH. That stuff will kill you from breathing in fumes, and will permeate skin if you wear a breather mask and still f*ck you up. SpaceX uses RP1 (basically kerosene) and liquid oxygen, those are by far less problematic, in fact no more so than your typical petrol or diesel.

Parachutes are not an option for multiple reasons:

- They are heavier than the extra fuel required for propulsive landing. People usually underestimate the weight of a parachute capable of gently landing a 70-meter high fuel tank with some engines on the bottom.

- They do not provide assistance during re-entry. Falcon 9/Heavy cores do a re-entry burn when entering the dense part of the atmosphere, scrubbing a lot of lateral velocity and actually shielding the rocket with the exhaust shock wave. When SpaceX tried landing the first Falcon 9 rockets with parachutes (yes they did actually try it first), they didn't survive re-entry, so the chutes never even came into play. To make chute-landing rockets survive re-entry would mean adding a heat shield, further driving up the dead weight, reducing payload.

- They do not provide control of where the stage will land. This makes land touchdowns impossible (the US coasts do not have any large Kazakhstan-like wastes where a rocket could fall wherever), and sea landings much more problematic, because the splashed down rockets will take significant damage from sea water before retrieval (think still hot engine nozzles contacting salt water), driving refurbishment costs way up.

- They introduce additional actuators and systems that can go wrong. The less complexity the better, and engines and control systems for propulsive return are already onboard from liftoff.

Finally a good explanation, have fake +rep since we have no rep anymore :(
 
GRtak;n3417466 said:
Here is a video for all you haters. Watch a Tesla get cut up. Later they will add a new top and convert it into a shooting brake.



And it is finished... and looking sooooooooo good.
 
Here is a video on the tear down of the Model 3. Some of it is clearly bad, but there is some that is quite interesting.
 
I see a lawsuit coming their way. Do other manufacturers stop honoring warranties for such minor damage?
 
Not honoring the warranty is not something I have issue with, if car has a "rebuilt" title I wouldn't expect it to be covered under warranty no matter how minor it really was. The problem to me is that they straight up blocked the car from being able to "fill up" despite there not being any issues with it's charging system. Tesla truly is the Apple of car world, because I can absolutely see Apple doing something like that. (And that's coming from someone who has mostly Apple hardware)
 
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