SpaceX successfully launches the most powerful rocket ever

Yesterday, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, SpaceX successfully launched the most powerful rocket ever. The rocket, called the Falcon Heavy, was the product of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX, along with Tesla. In a news conference after the launch, Musk said “It seems surreal to me.”

The launch of this rocket is exceptionally monumental, as it signals the first time a rocket of this size has been sent into space by a private company, as opposed to a government space agency like NASA. Known for being quite the eccentric individual, Musk also made it known the payload had quite an unusual load: his cherry red Tesla Roadster, which is one of the electric vehicles his company Tesla produces. Inside the car, a mannequin wearing one of the prototype SpaceX spacesuits was strapped in to the drivers seat. To top it all off, Musk said the Roadster would be blasting David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”.

On the matter, Musk said, “It’s kind of silly and fun, but silly and fun things are important.” The car was supposed to be making its way towards Mars, but it was reported it overshot its trajectory, and will be making its way to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Musk expects the car to continue to orbit the sun for hundreds of millions of years, once it reaches it final destination.

The success of the launch gives SpaceX the credibility it was vying for, as they have high aspirations to be the first to bring mankind to Mars, and even create a colony there. In order to generate enough power to get a spaceship to Mars, Musk and SpaceX are working on creating a new type of rocket called the B.F.R. That could be ready for launch sometime in 2020.

Musk has said he hopes the success of this launch will be the catalyst for a new global space race, with an aim for more ambitious advances in reaching new limits in the cosmos. He said “We want a new space race, races are exciting.”

SpaceX is closely followed by another private space company called Blue Origin, which is founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Both have the goal of bringing millions of people into space, with the hopes of establishing new colonies and place of living for the human race. Another company, Planetary Resources, hopes to mine asteroids to extract the immense amounts of precious metals.

Right now, the success of their Falcon Heavy launch will allow SpaceX to attract more government contracts that will generate more revenue. NASA has been encouraged to utilize the Falcon Heavy rocket over their own Space Launch System rocket, that is currently being developed with the goal of taking astronauts back to the moon.

This is an extremely exciting time, as technology is now catching up to the point of where we will be able to explore the wonders and mysteries of space. For SpaceX, this is just the beginning of the innovations they hope to bring in propelling the human race towards the stars.