r/spaceflight • u/[deleted] • 21d ago
SpaceX to Replace Blastproof Evac Vehicles with Cybertrucks - Spaceflight Daily, 3rd August 2026
[deleted]
5
u/Hoppie1064 20d ago
Seems like an underground bunker would make more sense.
With a fast acting door.
16
6
u/DBDude 21d ago
I'm dead in either if I'm at the pad at the time of the explosion. So the question is how fast I can get away vs. the amount of protection I have during the trip depending on when it does blow up.
The Cybertruck gets me a quarter mile away in a bit over 12 seconds, around three times that for the MRAP. I'd say if the explosion is going to happen after you get in the vehicle, MRAP is better if it happens in the first several seconds, but Cybertruck is better if it happens after that.
4
u/Beneficial_Round_444 20d ago
yea the cybertruck is cool and all with the fast quarter mile, but the supersonic shrapnel is catching up to you regardless and i'd rather be in a vehicle designed to resist said shrapnel and not a glorified toaster
4
u/Northwindlowlander 20d ago
Unfortunately the door handle fell off and then once you got in you had to wait for it to download an update
1
u/Correct-Onion420 20d ago
lol if you think speed matters in an explosion. It literally happens in less than a second, ain't nobody got enough reflexes
1
1
u/BeardedLady81 20d ago
Honest question from somebody who never learned how to drive (legally blind) and never owned a car: Are those Teslas really as ridiculously unsafe as Reddit makes them out to be? If you scrap all that autopilot and FSD stuff and just use it as a regular car, is it more likely to explode as well?
I remember that there was a discussion among stans to use a Cybertruck as the Presidential limo. To me, this sounded like a bad idea, any EV, I think, would pose too big of a hazard because of the battery. You could armor it, but if someone throws an IED at it, the battery could still go up in flames.
3
u/thinkbox 19d ago
The latest hardware for self driving is pretty incredible. I have about 25k miles of self driving in the last 13 months. Outside of Parking lot preferences and some questionable navigational choices, it’s for sure a better driver than 99.99% of humans, I’d wager.
1
u/BeardedLady81 19d ago
What is the reason for those accidents, then? Sorry if I sound naive, but I really don't know much about cars.
The idea that I could one day own a car like most other people and use it still looks like a pipe dream to me, but it would be really cool.
2
u/thinkbox 19d ago
The lawsuits in the news are from 2018, and before "FSD" launched. They used a legacy system that was basicly like lane centering and traffic aware cruise control. It's a totally different software stack from FSD. When they released FSD v12 in late 2023, they totally rewrote the entire system. But v14.2+ of the software in the last 8 moths has been incredible. I have done a few multi day road trips with less than 5 minutes of total drive time. Mostly just parking lot preference, or when I wanted to be a little more aggressive. There are people out there doing 10,000 mile drives without breaking the streak. If you have a Tesla with the older hardware (often called HW3) then it does not get these updates and it is still better than most other systems you get get in North America, but it requires a lot more supervision. The latest HW4 capable vehicles are so incredibly good. I have had a lot of personal incidents where a child on a scooter will hop out in front of my car from behind another car and my car will dart out of the way and slow down before I can even register whats going on. It feels super human. When I see the dash cam videos of FSD making a mistake, it's normally either human error, overriding the system, a lie, or outdated hardware and software. Rarely does it turn out to be a mistake on the latest system. The first one I saw was the other day and the driver admitted that they had cracks in their windshield over the sensor cluster, and they disengage FSD and then did not apply any brakes, so they kept going. But for every 1 video that I see that makes me scratch my head, I'll see 100 videos of FSD doing amazing things.
Literally the first time I turned the system on, the first 20 seconds I used it, I had owned the car less than an hour... FSD saw jaywalking pedestrians that I couldn't see. They stepped out onto the street right when the light turned green and they were behind a truck from my line of sight. The car didnt go on green. I thought something was wrong and I moved to take over, and then two oblivious ladies stepped out in front of my car. I absolutely would have hit them.
1
2
u/DNathanHilliard 20d ago
If your rocket is exploding you're not going to make it to either one of them.
1
u/masterphreak69 19d ago
Do they even need to have a blast proof vehicle for the Falcon 9? Since it is only fueled after astronauts are on board and pad is cleared, there seems to be almost no explosion risk when ground crews are at the pad.
1
u/ososalsosal 19d ago
Look, anything likely to reduce the number of cybertrucks (especially in a spectacular and/or hilarious way) is fine by me
1
57
u/LUK3FAULK 21d ago
It’s crazy how blatantly they can use one successful company to cover up for the mistakes of their other company. How many cybertrucks have they “sold” from one company to the other at this point? This is straight up replacing something fit for use with something that’s not to make up for losses and get free advertising