The Falcon 9-Heavy is some dangerously ‘heavy’ shizzle
Posted: April 5, 2011 Filed under: I R NERD | Tags: Dragon, Falcon 9-Heavy, Man Rocket, Mars Hilton Hotel, SpaceX Leave a commentNow that’s a rocket. Hell, that’s a man-rocket. The Falcon 9-Heavy is the latest offspring to come out of SpaceX, the space vehicle company that Elon Musk (founder of PayPal) built. Since NASA’s demise and the last of their shuttle fleet making their last landings – it was inevitable that private companies would start to make an appearance with their offerings … and fuck did they make an appearance.
I remember last week seeing an announcement that in the coming days, SpaceX would mention some “big news” but I just shrugged it off, thinking that it would just be a mediocre announcement about a new member joining the team or something along them lines. Boy, was I wrong. Musk explains how he envisions the 70m tall rocket going beyond space station missions, and how returning rocks from Mars is possible when the Falcon 9-Heavy is in operation (expected in 2012). SpaceX was the first private company to successfully launch and land an unmanned capsule ejected from a rocket (known as the Dragon) in history.
SpaceX went on to mention that an even bigger rocket than the Falcon 9-Heavy-esqe would be needed to land humans on Mars. Here’s hoping that I can spend three nights at the Mars Hilton sometime soon.