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SpaceX Has Received Permission From the US Government To Launch Elon Musk's Car Toward Mars (businessinsider.com)

SpaceX this week is preparing to launch Falcon Heavy, the biggest rocket in the company's history, for the first time. From a report: The 230-foot-tall three-booster launcher is scheduled to blast off Tuesday between 1:30 and 4:30 p.m. ET. SpaceX says Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket in the world. SpaceX's founder, Elon Musk, wanted this test launch to happen as early as 2013, though he recently said it could end in an explosion. Instead of putting a standard "mass simulator" or dummy payload atop Falcon Heavy, Musk -- who once launched a wheel of cheese into orbit -- will put his personal 2008 midnight-cherry-red Tesla Roadster on top of the monster rocket. In an Instagram post over the weekend, Musk also revealed that the car would carry a dummy driver, which Musk is calling "Starman," wearing a SpaceX space suit. "Test flights of new rockets usually contain mass simulators in the form of concrete or steel blocks. That seemed extremely boring," Musk said in an Instagram post in December, adding that the company "decided to send something unusual, something that made us feel." However, all rocket payloads need a permit from the Federal Aviation Administration to launch, and Musk's sleek electric car is no exception. The FAA granted SpaceX that permission on Friday in a staunchly formal notice, which Keith Cowing posted on NASA Watch.

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  1. Re:I've got Karma to burn by saloomy · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Healthcare is not a right, and I don't know why so many people feel it is. A right is something that you started with, and shouldn't be taken away. There is a right to breathe air. There is a right to free speech. There is a right to freedom from persecution based on religion, race, creed. These things, you would have if you lived on your own on an island. No one had to do or give anything for you to have them, they are inherent to the human condition.

    Rights are not something that you didn't start out with, and want. Healthcare is not provided by mother nature at birth. A doctor (and his or her support staff, the hospital, the pharmaceutical industry, and everything else that goes into it) has to give it to you. If you mandate the doctor do so, he is no longer free. You are asking we take the freedom of a doctor to choose if he wants treat you or not, and ask to be compensated as he thinks is just and the market will bear, for your WANT of his services. How is that right? How is that fair?

    If you want the services someone else, convince them with monetary compensation. If you want the service of a doctor, convince him or her with monetary compensation.