Rocket signals a new dawn in space travel
IT was one small step for Musk, one giant leap for mankind. With a burst of flame visible, appropriately, from space, the most powerful rocket to leave Earth since the Apollo missions of the early Seventies launched successfully from Florida yesterday.
The Falcon Heavy jumbo rocket, developed by flamboyant technology billionaire Elon Musk, took with it the hopes of a bold new era of space exploration that could one day take humans to Mars.
And its maiden flight at 7.45am Australian time earned him the distinction of sending the first road-legal sports car into space.
Although Falcon Heavy can lift a spacecraft the size of a fully laden 737 jet, the 70m rocket’s first payload was the inventor’s own cherry-red Tesla Roadster electric car.
After the rocket left the Earth’s atmosphere, the $130,000 convertible car was released, complete with crash dummy Starman in the driver’s seat and David Bowie’s Space Oddity playing on a loop on its stereo. It has a copy of Douglas Adams’ novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy in the glovebox.