back to article SpaceX grounds Falcon 9 carrying first private lunar lander

SpaceX postponed the launch of its Falcon 9 rocket, carrying a lunar lander and rover built by a private Japanese aerospace company and the United Arab Emirates Space Agency rover to the Moon, by one day. The medium-lift launch vehicle, originally scheduled to fly at 0339 ET (0839 UTC) on Wednesday 30 November, is now expected …

  1. that one in the corner Silver badge

    The Moon populated by robots!

    On Twitter - great, now I've read more tweet replies, including this doozy (just sharing the joy with you all):

    ----------+

    SpaceX:

    Standing down from launch of ispace's HAKUTO-R Mission 1 to allow for additional pre-flight checkouts; now targeting Thursday, December 1 at 3:37 a.m. ET for liftoff

    Reply:

    https://mobile.twitter.com/hasbeensilenced/status/1597819885480206336

    12-1 3:37. Where do y’all come up with the numbers? 13:13 there’s possibly a potential for bad luck with that launch… just sayin.

    ---------

    Can you spot where he got the two thirteens from?

    Anyway, despite the tone of the headline (I know, red top) no sign (yet) that it'll need anything drastic, like a roll back, so fingers crossed for later this morning.

    Although I have mixed feelings about commercial landers dropping off rovers: how long before "testing the properties of the regolith" becomes "varying the albedo of the regolith - oh, look, a giant Nike swoosh, who knew that was going to happen?" (Yes, it'd take a long time to draw big enough to be easily visible, but if it is all alone with no kind of atmosphere then it can just keep on going, two weeks on and two weeks off)

    1. ChrisC Silver badge

      Re: The Moon populated by robots!

      "Can you spot where he got the two thirteens from?"

      Add together the 1 and 12 from the date, and add together the 3, 3 and 7 from the time.

      Because, you know, when you're dealing with thought processes like this, you ought to be sufficiently familiar with the contents of Rules of Numerical Intepretation for Predictions, Fortune-Telling and Other Such Things, 73rd Edition[1] to be perfectly aware that you treat each number either as a whole (e.g. 12) or as individual digits (e.g. 3 and 7 from 37) as needed to achieve the desired result, logic and consistency be damned!

      [1] Note that some unscrupulous purveyors of printed paper products may try foisting their unsold stock of the 10th [2] edition on you instead, claiming that it is actually the 73rd edition because, duuh, 7+3, so do take care when shopping for this essential tome if it's not already found a special place on your bookshelf...

      [2] Note however that if they're sufficiently unscrupulous to try foisting a 1st edition on you instead (7 + 3 = 10, 1 + 0 = 1), then if it's in decent condition you may want to give serious consideration to their offer, given how much a 1st edition can go for in the collectors market...

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
        Megaphone

        Re: The Moon populated by robots!

        ***WARNING***

        If you read a book on superstitions, your bum will fall off.

      2. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: The Moon populated by robots!

        Reminds me of the Law of Fives:

        "The Law of Fives states simply that: ALL THINGS HAPPEN IN FIVES, OR ARE DIVISIBLE BY OR ARE MULTIPLES OF FIVE, OR ARE SOMEHOW DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY APPROPRIATE TO 5."

        The Law of Fives is never wrong.

        https://discordia.fandom.com/wiki/Law_of_Fives

  2. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Unhappy

    You can watch a livestream of the SpaceX flight scheduled for tomorrow here.

    No you can't - it's claiming 'private' this morning.

    1. Bob Dunlop

      Stood down again

      Probably private because the launch has been stood down again. This time indefinitely.

      https://www.space.com/spacex-delays-japan-moon-lander-launch-again

  3. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

    Why is the lunar regolith sticky?

    That's sure a lot of money to find that out. Why couldn't they have paid me, and I'd 'a' told 'em.

    If you leave a couple of trillion tonnes of cheese out in the Sun for a few billion years, things are going to get a bit messy.

    The real question they should be asking is: What happened to all the giant space cows?

    Or is the Moon actually made of goats cheese? If so, that would also explain why the Golgafrinchians had to flee their planet in giant space arks, in order to avoid a giant mutant star goat.

    1. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Why is the lunar regolith sticky?

      What happened to all the giant space cows?

      I'm not sure if anyone knows. The literature is fairly clear about their having jumped over the moon, but there's little, if any, documentation about their onward trajectory.

      1. Spherical Cow Silver badge

        Re: Why is the lunar regolith sticky?

        What shape would a giant space cow be??

        1. Roj Blake Silver badge

          Re: What shape would a giant space cow be??

          Cow shaped?

          The same as the miniature giant space cows we have here on Earth.

  4. ChrisC Silver badge

    "citing the need to perform "additional pre-flight checkouts" on Twitter. "

    For improved comprehension, shouldn't that be "citing, on Twitter, the need to perform "additional pre-flight checkouts"."? Although, given what Elon's been up to recently, maybe we shouldn't put it past him to require SpaceX to integrate Twitter into said checkouts in some way, in which case the original would be just fine...

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