The Falcon Heavy, the world’s most powerful rocket, was launched from Florida on Tuesday sending Elon Musk’s Tesla roadster in the asteroid belt well beyond mars. The launch required twenty seven engines and nearly five million pounds of thrust to lift rocket from earth. As spectacular as the launch was, it was just an appetizer for the best part. Eight minutes after the rocket was launched, two of the three Falcon Heavy’s cores that helped propel the rocket upward, descended side by side back to the launch site at the same time. This marks a very important time in the history of space travel because this could mean we could recycle the various parts of a rocket thus making future space traveling billions of dollars less expensive. The third core stage however, was not able to make it back to the landing site and instead crashed into the atlantic ocean at a speed of 300mph. Elon Musk before the rocket was launched tried to downplay the event by claiming that it is a very big risk and will most likely fail. However, as soon as the launch was a success, Musk said, “They’ve done an incredible job of creating what really is the most advanced rocket in the world, the biggest rocket in the world. I’m still trying to absorb everything that happened because it seems surreal to me”.
NASA is currently building an even more powerful rocket that will generate 8.8 million pounds of thrust, but the rocket won’t be actively used until 2019. Until then, the falcon heavy will be the most powerful rocket to have existed. A space-suited mannequin, Starman, was put into the roadster and launched into space. As the roadster was flying around in space, live video footage was released showing amazing views of earth. Despite SpaceX’s success it is still not yet clear how the Falcon Heavy figures into SpaceX’s long-term plans, whether enough customers, including NASA, will buy the Heavy for commercial satellite-launching missions, to send interplanetary probes into deep space or possibly to send space tourists into orbit.However, the Future for the SpaceX and space travel is looks really promising.