“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” said Neil Armstrong when he first stepped on the moon. To this day, society keeps making large bounds forward into our galaxy. On February 6, 2018 at 2:45 P.M., space history was made once again, although not by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This time it was another space exploration corporation who made history by successfully launching the world’s most powerful rocket into space. It contained a red Tesla “driven” by a dummy and was playing ‘Space Oddity’ by David Bowie as it blasted through the atmosphere. But what this Tesla driving dummy achieved is just a small step for their giant leap.
The space exploration corporation that launched the rocket is more formally known as SpaceX, founded and run by American businessman and entrepreneur Elon Musk. SpaceX is a private aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company headquartered in Hawthorne, California.
“A lot of people don’t realize that there are other people involved in the ongoing space race than just NASA,” Musk enthusiast Taze Wilson ‘21 says.
SpaceX’s main goal for the future is to colonize Mars, which is not as far fetched as it might seem. Because NASA has had to abandon any aspiration of Mars due to a lack of funding, Musk has been more than willing to take lead on this mission. More information about their goal can be found at the SpaceX.
Working since 2002, the launch of the Falcon Heavy is another great stride towards that goal. Not only was it the world’s most powerful rocket — capable of holding 140,000 pounds — but it has some pretty hefty cargo, along with an equally trying mission. According to New York Times’ Kenneth Chang, this 27-engine rocket starts its mission by orbiting the Earth’s Van Allen orbit. On its way, it will send satellites and other payloads into orbit. If this is a success, it will head away from Earth onto an elliptical orbit around the sun that extends as far out as Mars’s orbit. It is predicted that it should take about eight months to reach Mars.
But this mission is just a test for SpaceX’s main goal of creating the B.F.R. (Big F****** Rocket) to land on Mars. They were almost able to successfully prove that they could launch a rocket capable of carrying 60 tons while landing all the pieces. Landing the launching pieces of a rocket has actually never been done before, as in the past they have fallen from the sky and were destroyed in the ocean. SpaceX attempted to land these pieces for reuse and were successful with two of the three tries. Musk stated at a press call after the launch that the reason the third one failed was because “it was only able to relight one of the three engines necessary to land.” But this small complication is nothing in comparison to their failures in the past.
Loren Grush from The Verge describes SpaceX’s launch of the Falcon 9, which was destroyed on launch on June 28, 2015 because of a break in the cryogenic helium system. These trials and errors are completely necessary for more successes of the future, especially when concerning the B.F.G.. Each test makes Mars colonization more plausible, but until then Musk claims that a failure would not be surprising.
While people wait for that day, SpaceX is expected to further make history in space travel, so people should turn their gaze to what is beyond the sky in order to witness it.
