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 By Jim WATSON, with Kerry SHERIDAN in Miami Cape Canaveral (AFP) Feb 7, 2018
The world's most powerful rocket, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, blasted off Tuesday on its highly anticipated maiden test flight, carrying CEO Elon Musk's cherry red Tesla Roadster toward an orbit near Mars. Screams and cheers erupted at mission control in Cape Canaveral, Florida as the massive rocket fired its 27 engines and rumbled into the blue sky over the same NASA launchpad that served as a base for the US missions to the Moon four decades ago. "The mission went as well as one could have hoped," an ecstatic Musk told reporters after the launch, calling it "probably the most exciting thing I have seen literally ever." "I had this image of a giant explosion on the pad with a wheel bouncing down the road with the Tesla logo landing somewhere," he said. "Fortunately that is not what happened." Loaded with Musk's red Tesla and a mannequin in a spacesuit, the monster rocket's historic test voyage captured the world's imagination. SpaceX's webcast showed the Tesla Roadster soaring into space, as David Bowie's "Space Oddity" played in the background -- with the words "DON'T PANIC" visible on the dashboard, in an apparent nod to the sci-fi series the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." The Roadster was also outfitted with a data storage unit containing Isaac Asimov's science fiction book series, the Foundation Trilogy, and a plaque bearing the names of 6,000 SpaceX employees. Musk posted a live video showing the "Starman" mannequin appearing to cruise, its gloved hand on the wheel, through the darkness of space, with the Earth's image reflected on the car's glossy red surface. He tweeted late Tuesday night that the rocket's upper stage had made a successful final burn, sending the car and its mannequin passenger out of Earth's orbit, into an orbit around the Sun that brings it close to Mars. After surviving a five-hour journey through the Van Allen Belt -- a region of high radiation -- the car now embarks on a journey through space that could last a billion years and take it as far as 250 million miles (400 million kilometers) from Earth, the same as a trip around the equator 10,000 times. "Maybe it will be discovered by some future alien race," Musk told reporters. "What were these guys doing? Did they worship this car?" he mused. - 'Giant step' - About two minutes into the flight, the two side boosters peeled away from the center core and made their way back toward Earth for an upright landing. Both rockets landed side by side in unison on launchpads, live video images showed. "New Olympic sport - Synchronized Landings!" wrote NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik on Twitter. The third, center booster failed to land on an ocean platform -- known as a droneship -- as planned. "It didn't have enough propellant," Musk said, adding that it plunged into the ocean about 100 meters (yards) away from its landing point. "Apparently it hit the water at 300 miles an hour and took out two of the engines," he added. Experts said the launch would likely catch the eye of the US space agency NASA, which may consider using the Falcon Heavy as a way to fast-track its plans to reach the Moon again for the first time since 1972. Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot congratulated SpaceX and called it a "tremendous accomplishment." Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana said "the successful launch of a new vehicle on its first flight is a significant accomplishment they can be very proud of." Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield tweeted: "What we're watching is @SpaceX leaving all other rocket companies in the dust. Congrats to everyone there!" - Falcon Heavy specs - President Donald Trump also offered his congratulations, tweeting: "This achievement, along with @NASA's commercial and international partners, continues to show American ingenuity at its best!" Musk replied: "Thank you on behalf of SpaceX. An exciting future lies ahead!" The Falcon Heavy launched from the same NASA pad that was the base for the Apollo-era Moon missions of the 1960s and 1970s. It is "the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two," SpaceX said. That means it can carry twice the payload of United Launch Alliance's Delta IV Heavy, at a far lower cost -- about $90 million per launch compared to $350 million for its competitor. But the Falcon Heavy is not the most powerful rocket ever -- just the biggest in operation today. The Saturn V rocket that propelled astronauts to the Moon could deliver more payload to orbit. The Soviet-era Energia, which flew twice in 1987 and 1988, was also more powerful. The Falcon Heavy is essentially three smaller, Falcon 9 rockets strapped together, adding up to a total of 27 engines. The 230-foot (70-meter) tall rocket is designed to carry nearly 141,000 pounds (64 metric tonnes) into orbit -- more than the mass of a fully loaded 737 jetliner. It was initially intended to restore the possibility of sending humans to the Moon or Mars, but those plans have shifted and now the Falcon Heavy is being considered mainly as a potential equipment carrier to these deep space destinations, Musk said Monday. Instead, another rocket and spaceship combination being developed by SpaceX, nicknamed BFR -- alternately known as "Big Fucking Rocket," or "Big Falcon Rocket" -- would be the vehicle eventually certified for travelers.
Five things to know about Elon Musk's space projects Here is a look at some of the other far-out space projects that Musk has cooked up in recent years: - Reusable rockets - To bring down the cost of spaceflight and boost efficiency, a key goal for Musk is to make rockets as reusable as commercial airplanes -- eliminating the current industry practice of tossing the multi-million dollar components after each launch. After some early crashes and near-misses that prompted SpaceX to showcase them in a blooper reel, the company has now perfected the art of firing the booster's engines, maneuvering the grid fins and neatly landing the tall portion of the rockets upright on solid ground and on ocean platforms. Musk is not the only one to have done it -- competitor Blue Origin, a rocket company run by Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, has also managed to land its own rockets in a similar fashion. But no one has done it so many times. SpaceX has landed 21 of its Falcon 9 boosters so far. - Colonizing Mars - Musk wants to make humans an "interplanetary species" by establishing a colony of people living on the Mars. Riding on reusable rockets and spaceships -- still under development -- people could travel 100 at a time to the Red Planet. The idea is to bring up to a million people to Mars in the next century. Test flights could start in the next decade. The cost to develop the rocket and spacecraft is estimated at $10 billion. - 'BFR' - SpaceX is calling the rocket that would carry all these people to Mars "BFR," which Musk has jokingly -- or not -- referred to as code for "Big Fucking Rocket." According to Spacenews.com, its formal name is now understood to be "Big Falcon Rocket." The idea is to have one booster and ship that replaces three of SpaceX's signature projects: the Falcon Heavy which aims to be the world's most powerful rocket for now, and may one day ferry supplies to Mars; the versatile Falcon 9 rocket, which can land seamlessly back on Earth post-launch; and the Dragon cargo ship which supplies the International Space Station. The BFR is designed to stand 106 meters (about 350 feet) tall, with 10.8 million pounds of thrust, far more than the Saturn V moon rocket at 7.9 million pounds of thrust. The first tests could come as early 2019, with orbital tests in 2020. The first cargo shipments could make it to Mars in 2022, SpaceX has said. - Rockets on Earth - New York to Shanghai via rocket in 39 minutes? It's all part of Musk's vision for rocket travel on Earth. The BFR will be the vehicle, Musk has vowed, to fly to most places on Earth in under 30 minutes and anywhere in under an hour. The cost per seat would be about the same as an airplane economy fare, he said. - Cargo and crew to space - It seems like old news now, but SpaceX made history in 2010 by becoming the first private company to send its own spaceship to orbit and recover it. In 2012, SpaceX broke barriers again, sending its Dragon cargo ship to the orbiting International Space Station. That same year, SpaceX began regular cargo missions to supply the astronauts living in space with its gumdrop-shaped Dragon cargo ship, launched atop the Falcon 9 rocket, under a $1.6 billion contract with NASA. Orbital ATK also sends its unmanned Cygnus cargo carrier to the ISS under a $1.9 billion deal with NASA. SpaceX's Dragon is the only ship that can be returned to Earth intact. The Cygnus burns up on re-entry to Earth's atmosphere. SpaceX is developing a crew Dragon vehicle that will be able to transport several astronauts at a time to the space lab. Its first manned flight could come later this year.
Elon Musk, visionary Tesla and SpaceX founder San Francisco (AFP) Feb 6, 2018 From cars to rockets, Elon Musk dreams big. On Tuesday, the South African-born entrepreneur combined both of those passions, blasting one of his Tesla electric cars into space aboard his own rocket. It was the latest feat for the 46-year-old Silicon Valley billionaire who has been hailed as a leading innovator and visionary. Born in Pretoria, on June 28, 1971, the son of an engineer father and a Canadian-born model mother, Musk left South Africa in his late teens to attend Queen's University ... read more
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