History Was Made in Deep Space This Month

On February 6th SpaceX successfully launched the Falcon Heavy into Earth’s orbit. Thanks to the dedication of Elon Musk and the SpaceX team, history was made. The Falcon Heavy’s trip is the first deep space mission since the Saturn V’s last launch in 1973. To put this in perspective, Nixon was our president and the Miami Dolphins won Super Bowl VII in 1973. 

This heavy lift rocket is 2 times more powerful than previous record holder, the Saturn V. With 5 million pounds of thrust it’s the equivalent of 100 Boeing 737’s taking off at the same time. Ultimately designed to carry 37,000 pounds worth of cargo to Mars, this rocket could carry 7 Chevy Suburbans out of earth’s orbit. The top speed of this monster is 25,000 mph, imagine the speeding ticket in that one!

Elon Musk, who founded Tesla, put his ideologies into SpaceX. The largest of which was making entirely reusable and eco friendly rockets, mostly unheard of previously in space travel. Founded in 2002, SpaceX was his Magnum Opus (greatest accomplishment) considering he had formulated a way to dramatically reduce the cost of launching satellites into orbit, almost half the price compared to his closest competitor. Elon Musk has proven that an private enterprise can accomplish things as efficiently if not, more effectively than a government run space agency.

Since SpaceX makes their rockets 100% reusable, deep space missions such as this one will cost considerably less. Further, this is the only space agency that has its priorities set on eco-friendly rockets and payloads. If Elon Musk keeps on going down this road, this could open up a new chapter to future space travel. Who knows? Maybe Matt Damon really will be on Mars one day filming another Martian movie! Not to mention its pretty cool to see rocket boosters landing in unison.