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Elon Musk Shows Off Near-Complete Falcon Heavy Rocket (newatlas.com)
Eloking quotes a report from New Atlas: SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket has been a long time coming. The successor to its Falcon 9 and the vehicle hoped to carry humans to Mars, this booster will be one of the most powerful ever. And we've just gotten our best look at it yet, with CEO Elon Musk tweeting out photos of an almost complete Falcon 9 Heavy in the hangar ahead of a planned maiden launch next month. The Falcon Heavy is essentially three Falcon 9 first stages rolled into one, with a second stage sat atop the middle one. The nine engine cores in each first stage work together to provide thrust equal to eighteen 747 aircraft, making it the most powerful rocket currently in operation and the most powerful since the Saturn V rocket last lifted off in 1973. In a series of tweets, Musk revealed that when the Falcon Heavy does lift off for the first time, it will do so from the same pad used by the Saturn V rocket at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Musk has said recently that the Falcon Heavy will carry his own cherry-red Tesla Roadster as its first payload, but as an earlier tweet professing his love for floors has shown, it's not always easy to tell how serious he is about such matters.
If it were a public company, you'd be right. Which is why it's not.
Looks like it can take some serious payload... https://imgur.com/a/dtJIf
The intro in not correct in calling the Falcon Heavy the rocket that will take humans to Mars. This is just a heavy payload version of Falcon which still uses the Merlin engine. The BFR (Big Fucking Rocket) will have 31 Raptor engines (more powerful) and a completely redesigned booster and second stage. It's the BFR that will go to Mars. https://www.nasaspaceflight.co...
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
Funding is coming from successful launches.
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