World's Most Powerful Rocket Ready In 2012, SpaceX Says

Velcroman1 writes "Elon Musk, the millionaire founder of private space company Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX for short) said the long-planned Falcon Heavy vehicle would be ready for lift off at the end of 2012. The rocket, which he called the most powerful in the world, would be capable of taking men to the International Space Station, dropping vehicles and astronauts on the moon — and maybe even cruising to Mars and back."

Comments

Re:Vaguely remember...

[IICV]

...but NASA also needed $12 billion and a decade to make a pen that worked in 0 gravity... and the Russians just used a pencil, classic.

There's pretty much nothing true in that statement besides the claim that "the Russians just used pencils" - NASA did too, until after Fisher developed the space pen (without government funding) and asked NASA to try it. In fact, after NASA adopted the space pen, so did the Russians.

And there's problems with using pencils in space - wood pencils are flammable, and the graphite in mechanical pencils can snap off more easily and damage vulnerable equipment (it's conducive, after all) or the astronauts themselves, if they accidentally inhale it.