California to Tesla: Don’t call it ‘Autopilot’

California regulators, it turns out, take a dim view of Tesla Motors’ Autopilot — not the self-steering system itself, but the name.

In draft regulations released late Friday, the state Department of Motor Vehicles said car companies should not use the terms “self-driving,” “automated” or “auto-pilot” in advertising unless their cars are capable of driving themselves without human passengers paying attention.

For Palo Alto’s Tesla, that could pose a problem.

The company’s Autopilot system, available in both the Model S electric sedan and Model X SUV, can steer on its own and change lanes. But the human driver is supposed to remain ready to take the wheel whenever needed.

The fatal crash in May of a Tesla driver who appeared to be watching a Harry Potter video while Autopilot drove his car made the need for that requirement clear.

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Business House Republicans cite concerns over SpaceX explosion

A group of 10 Republican members of Congress wrote Thursday that they are increasingly concerned about SpaceX’s ability to safely fly NASA astronauts and national security satellites after the company recently suffered its second rocket explosion in just over a year.

In a letter to the Air Force, NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration, the group said SpaceX should not be leading the investigation into its most recent failure, and that authority should be turned over to the federal government “to ensure that proper investigative engineering rigor is applied.”

Last year, an unmanned Falcon 9 rocket exploded a couple minutes after it launched a resupply mission to the International Space Station, destroying $118 million worth of cargo. Then, earlier this month, another Falcon 9 rocket blew up as it was being fueled ahead of an engine test. A $195 million commercial satellite sitting on top of the rocket was lost in the fireball.

“These failures could have spelled disaster, even loss of life, had critical national security payloads or NASA crew been aboard those rockets,” wrote the members, many of whom represent states where SpaceX’s chief competitor, the United Launch Alliance, has a strong presence.

SpaceX declined to comment. After the Sept. 1 explosion, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said on Twitter that the Dragon capsule would have been able to abort in time, ferrying the astronauts on board to safety.

The company has said it is narrowing down the cause of the explosion, pinpointing a breach in a second-stage helium system. Earlier this week, Musk said the investigation was “vexing and difficult.” He stressed that finding out what went wrong is the company’s “absolute top priority” but said what actually caused the explosion was still unknown.

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Can Elon Musk’s Mars Plans For SpaceX Prove To Be The Demise Of Tesla?

 

Earlier this month, a Falcon 9 rocket blew up and destroyed a Facebook satellite. This is not the first time that this happened. If Musk wants to send humans to Mars, he and his team at SpaceX must find a way to fix this issue.

News.com.au added that Elon Musk’s massive plan for SpaceX will definitely affect Tesla’s future. It was noted that, currently, the car manufacturer is already facing too many risks. It is losing so much money right now, money which it may not be able to get back in the future.

The publication reported that Musk has a lot of things going on right now. First, SpaceX has plans with NASA, aside from the Mars thing. Next, he recently took on SolarCity’s debt, which is costing him money. It is highly likely that these issues will take its toll on Tesla.

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SpaceX is set to take on the wild, wild waste

Of course, skeptics say that SpaceX is trying to do too much, too fast. It’s a fair point in light of the recent accident at the Kennedy Space Center where an unmanned Falcon 9 blew up during routine pre-launch procedures. Others point out that this endeavor will cost anywhere from hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars. It’s far more than even Elon Musk, cofounder of Paypal and CEO of Tesla and Solar City, could possibly afford alone or raise collectively. These kinds of question have yet to be fully answered, although Musk does mention in the video that reusability and a strong public-private partnership will play a big role in dramatically lowering costs.

Other big questions are: where will the first assessment team land, how will they live, and what will they use for gas? Mars may look like the desert southwest in images returned by robotic explorers, with clear crisp lines of desert and dune against pink and blue skies, but it is not. The surface of Mars is instantly lethal to humans in a  dozen different ways. The rarefied air is mostly carbon dioxide and nitrogen with no free oxygen at all. The surface is bombarded by radiation, even the soil is toxic by most standards, and these are just some of the hazards we know about.

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What could wreck Elon Musk’s plan to colonize Mars isn’t science, technology, or money—it’s ethics

Musk’s dream to colonize Mars is not about science, though. It is an insurance policy. “History suggests there will be some doomsday event,” he said. “The alternative is to become a space-going civilization and a multi-planet species.” When your belief is that you’re saving humanity from annihilation, you may not care too much about a few alien microbes.

But Musk also admits that he can’t achieve the colossal task alone. “Ultimately, this is going to be a huge public-private partnership,” he said. Even if Musk doesn’t have ethical qualms, as a publicly funded body, NASA most certainly will.

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The biggest lingering questions about SpaceX’s Mars colonization plans

But a human Mars settlement is more than just hardware. The lives of people will be at stake, and serious thought needs to be given to the safety of the first human settlers. Musk admitted that the first colonists would have to be prepared to die, but killing people either on the way to Mars or once they get there will defeat the entire purpose of creating a colony in the first place. SpaceX may consider itself just a transportation company, but if it wants to get in the business of transporting humans, the company needs to reassure the public it can get them to a destination in one piece.

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