CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — It's almost showtime for SpaceX's big new rocket with a cherry-red sports car on top.
The Falcon Heavy rocket is poised to blast off Tuesday afternoon from Florida's Kennedy Space Center.
It's the long-awaited first test flight for the rocket. Once it soars it will become the world's most powerful rocket in use today. The Heavy is equipped with three boosters and 27 engines designed to provide about 5 million pounds of thrust.
SpaceX chief Elon Musk has his Tesla Roadster on board. Musk — who's also heads up the Tesla electric carmaker — says he wanted to add some dramatic flair. Usually there are things like steel or concrete slabs or mundane experiments on test flights. SpaceX is targeting a long, oval orbit around the sun for the car.
Post a comment as
Report
Watch this discussion.
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
!!!CHANGES TO ONLINE COMMENTS — PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING!!!
Effective immediately, all comments will display the user's FIRST AND LAST NAME rather than a screen name. Anyone with an existing account that did not provide a first and last name when registering will be required to update their profile before submitting a comment. AGAIN - YOUR ACCOUNT MUST INCLUDE A FIRST AND LAST NAME!
Keep it Clean. NO obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person. Comments that include verbal attacks of another commenter will not be posted.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.