Six years ago today was the first #SpaceX #FalconHeavy launch. The launch site was #NASA #KSC Pad 39A. The payload was an early #Tesla Roadster that to this day loops between Earth and Mars.
I can't stress enough how much this test flight made us all giddy. Like most of Elon's engineering ideas, it was crazy but it worked. The U.S. once again had the most powerful rocket on the planet.
@TwiHusband He famously cozied up to President Obama during that administration. I think he's easily misled, follows whomever he thinks will give him the best deal.
In another five years, for all we know he'll be with the Green Party.
@WordsmithFL Beg to doubt. After shutting off Starlink to Ukraine command and control in the middle of a war, the man is dangerous and a threat to national security.....who's obscenely wealthy. He's a grifter, like Trump.
@TwiHusband From various statements, it appears that Russia reached out to Elon and implied that they might somehow disable his Starlink sats on orbit if he continued to let Ukraine use the Starlinks for offensive maneuvers. That's why he did it; it wasn't everywhere in Ukraine, just in certain places on the front lines.
I was just telling a friend that her son with the cybersecurity degree should apply at Starlink for this reason.
@WordsmithFL The man committed what amounts to an act of war at Putin's behest. Security be damned. Russia is treating him like he's his own nation state?
@TwiHusband I'll also mention that I found articles quoting Ukraine military officers as saying Russia had the capability to target Starlink dishes, so they could only turn them on for a quick maneuver and then turn them off again. They weren't designed for military use.
@WordsmithFL
Much as I disdain Musk, I have to agree that it was a great boon for the U.S. For years our space program had been foundering, and Russia was taking the lead.
@p3R1n01D My Florida space politics history book is almost done. The "climax" is in 2010, when Elon takes Obama on a tour of Pad 40 to show him the Falcon 9, talks about reusability bringing down the cost.
Obama spent serious political capital to make it happen. The locals really hated Obama for breaking up the OldSpace monopoly, but it was the right thing to do.
@WordsmithFL Too bad he's an Afrikaner fascist lunatic....with WAY too much money and power..