Friday, March 14, 2025
Pure Sail
Lots of rain upon our return from Southeast Asia. We had an amazing time and met lots of cool folks. Vietnam is nuts with 8 million scooters trying to hit you. Hong Kong was beautiful as it is surrounded by hills and water. Glad to be back home. Hope to get out his weekend but the weather is in charge.
Thursday, March 13, 2025
Sail GP Heading to SF March 22-23
The flying machines will be back on the bay next weekend. I have a boatload of folks joining me and hope to get some great views of these guys approacing 50 mph (43 knots). Tradionally, SF has been the final stop to the season. This year however, they have racing into November. Hopefully, we will get some nice weather!
Tesla Roadster Still Oriting the Sun After 3.5 Trillion Miles
It's been 7 years since Musk rocketed a Tesla Roadstter into space as a publicity stunt to introduce the car to the public. He added the payload to one of his latest rockets in February of 2018. Inside the car is a mannequin in a space suit listening to a famous David Bowie song on repeat. Am I crazy or is it the hash? This month it was spotted and offically listed as an asteroid. Here is the scoop: Musk's car was accidentally and briefly classified as an asteroid in 2025. The International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center issued a bulletin on Jan. 2 announcing 2018 CN41 as a newly discovered near-Earth object. NEOs include asteroids and comets.
The MPC issued a follow-up notice on Jan. 3, saying, "The next day it was pointed out the orbit matches an artificial object 2018-017A, Falcon Heavy Upper stage with the Tesla Roadster. The designation 2018 CN41 is being deleted and will be listed as omitted."
Time flies when you're floating aimlessly through the cold, inhospitable wasteland that is space. And it's already been seven years since SpaceX test-launched its powerful Falcon Heavy rocket, shooting founder Elon Musk's personal Tesla Roadster into space. The cherry-red sports car is still out there after taking off on Feb. 6, 2018, and even suffered from a recent case of mistaken identity when astronomers thought it might be an asteroid.
A lot has happened since 2018. Musk turned Twitter into X. Tons of Starship development. Tons of Falcon 9 launches. Some more Falcon Heavy launches. Through it all, the red car and a mannequin named Starman have been in orbit around the sun.
Tesla Roadster as near-Earth object.
Where exactly is the car now?
Whereisroadster.com tracks the location of Elon Musk's car in space.
Whereisroadster.com has been in operation since 2018, tracking the car on its journey through space. Created by Ben Pearson, the site follows the car's location and calculates the distance it's traveled. As it passes its seventh anniversary in space, the Roadster has "driven" around 3.5 trillion miles.
It takes the car about 557 days to orbit the sun. According to Pearson's work, the Tesla has exceeded its 36,000-mile warranty by over 96,330 times. The car famously pumped out David Bowie's song Space Oddity at the start of its journey. If the battery and speakers were still working, the on-board mannequin would have heard Bowie's masterpiece over 692,000 times. Talk about an earworm.
Researchers had already looked into the chances of the car hitting Earth some day, and calculated the odds at just 6% within 1 million years. The team also worked out that the Roadster will make a close(ish) encounter with Earth in 2091, when it will come within a couple hundred thousand miles of the planet where it was made.
Space is a harsh place, so it's likely the Roadster and its pilot are pretty roughed up at this point. What will be its ultimate fate? It could be doomed to wander the solar system, or perhaps we'll go fetch it someday and put it in a museum. Anyone want to buy a lightly used, well-traveled electric car?
Saturday, March 08, 2025
Portland Maine becomes round the world central
Racers from far and wide are picking a few boatyards in Maine to prepare their boats for a lap around the planet. Read the article here:https://www.sailmagazine.com/cruising/the-storied-legacy-of-shorthanded-around-the-world-sailing-based-in-maine
Friday, March 07, 2025
One of my favorite boats: Mayan
Beau is the Commadore of the St Francis Yacht Club and a perfect owner for the classic beauty.
Monday, March 03, 2025
Cool Moon Fly Over
Firefly's Blue Ghost lander captured more incredible footage of the Moon during its third lunar orbit maneuver on February 24 that inserted the spacecraft in a near-circular low lunar orbit. The footage below, sped up by 10X, was captured about 100 km above the lunar surface, showing the far side of the Moon and a top-down view of Blue Ghost's RCS thrusters (center) and radiator panels on each side. The radiator panels are moving nominally to protect Blue Ghost's subsystems from extreme temperatures.
Wednesday, February 26, 2025
On Our Way
We departed Singapore on our cruise and are now heading to Thailand. At sea today we booked my biggest bucketlist item! I have been dreaming of a trip to New Zealand forever. We will depart December of 2026 for Sydney with a circumnavigation of NZ. Silver Sea again. I can't wait. Only 696 days until departure! Below is a pic of the incredible Marina Bay Sands Hotel Singapore.
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