SpaceX launched its Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2018 and landed two of the side boosters at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
CAPE CANAVERAL — The fire and smoke have long dissipated but the excitement of Tuesday’s maiden launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket continues to linger as a lone red car with a mannequin “driver” makes its way through the blackness of space to the soundtrack of David Bowie.
The live photos of “Starman” in the drop-top Telsa Roadster — one hand on the steering wheel, the Earth hanging behind him — proved to be as inspiring as any image of space travel over the last 50 years.
Though it started as a publicity stunt tying billionaire Elon Musk’s electric car company to his rocket firm, the image of that car and driver in space quickly became a source of social media delight, getting posted and re-posted on web pages around the world.
More: SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch captured imaginations – and that was just a test
More: A Tesla Roadster in orbit. A ‘Starman’ at the wheel. Why this incredible image has us excited about space exploration
A new rocket flying a demonstration flight would typically launch something like a block of concrete to simulate the mass of a spacecraft, but Musk and SpaceX decided that was way too boring.
Not since 1977, when NASA launched the Voyager I probe with two “Golden Records” — phonographic albums containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth for any intelligent extraterrestrial life with a record player — has a cultural artifact sparked such interest.
And like those records, the Starman and his ride are set to keep going and going and going. Musk’s plan is for the $100,000 Tesla Roadster — with the message “Don’t panic!” stamped on the dashboard — to cruise through high-energy radiation belts towards deep space.
Musk confirmed late Tuesday that a final burn by the Falcon Heavy’s upper stage engine had successfully initiated a “trans-Mars injection” boosting the car into an orbit around the sun stretching way beyond Mars.
“Third burn successful,” Musk reported on Twitter. “Exceeded [the trajectory towards] Mars orbit and kept going to the Asteroid Belt.”
Batteries powering the camera views of the Roadster were only expected to last about 12 hours, so they won’t provide close-up views of the car near Mars or an asteroid, but that was never the idea. Just like the car’s sound system possibly playing David Bowie’s Space Oddity, a song about an astronaut who is lost forever to the void, that can never be heard because sound can’t travel in the vacuum of space, the goal was to mesmerize.
“I think the imagery of it is something that’s going to get people excited around the world,” Musk said. “And it’s still tripping me out.”
He noted that outside of the earth’s atmosphere, the car’s cherry-red color looked “kind of weird, ” too crisp” — proof that it was real.
“You can tell it’s real because it looks so fake,” he joked. “It’s just literally a normal car in space, which I kind of like the absurdity of that.”
“It’s kind of silly and fun, but I think silly, fun things are important,” he added.
Indeed, the photo of that surreal red car and the silliness it represents have served to ignite the imaginations of millions around the globe.
Thousands traveled to the Space Coast to witness the 3:45 p.m. ET demonstration flight from Kennedy Space Center’s pad 39A, jamming roads for hours after liftoff of the world’s most powerful rocket. Hundreds of media representatives reported on the event, one of the biggest turnouts since the last space shuttle launch in July 2011 and NASA’s Orion capsule flight test in December 2014.
Their visit was further rewarded eight minutes after liftoff when two of the rocket’s side cores performed a tandem landing at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and generated back-to-back sonic booms during the propulsive descents.
Even Musk’s rivals applauded him. As for Musk, with the mostly successful first flight out of the way (minus losing the center core during an attempted landing on a drone ship), Falcon Heavy is likely a few months away from launching on its first contracted missions. The company has obtained contracts from the Air Force, Arabsat and ViaSat to launch payloads to orbit.
But the three-core launch vehicle isn’t just limited to commercial or military payloads.
“Falcon Heavy opens up a new class of payload,” Musk said Tuesday. “It can launch things direct to Pluto and beyond, no stop needed. You don’t even need a gravity assist or anything.”
“It can do anything you want,” he said.
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EL PASO — A Border Patrol agent whose death last November fueled President Trump’s calls for a border wall appears to have died in an accident, according to FBI findings released Wednesday.
Border Patrol Agent Rogelio Martinez, 36, was found dying at the bottom of a roadside culvert along a span of Interstate 10 in West Texas on Nov. 18. Within hours, union officials said they believed Martinez had been ambushed by smugglers in a rock attack.
The agent’s death became a political flash point less than a day later when Trump tweeted that Martinez had been “killed” and that his assailants would be brought to justice.
But the FBI said it has found no evidence of a homicide, despite mobilizing significant resources involving 37 field offices to investigate Martinez’s death.
“To date, this investigation has not conclusively determined how Agent Martinez and his partner ended up at the bottom of the culvert and no suspects have been linked to this incident,” the report said.
“None of the more than 650 interviews completed, locations searched, or evidence collected and analyzed have produced evidence that would support the existence of a scuffle, altercation, or attack on November 18, 2017,” the report added.
An autopsy report released Tuesday by the El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed that Martinez died of blunt injuries to the head, but it listed the manner of death as “undetermined.”
Another agent, Stephen Garland, was also found injured nearby with serious head injuries and other trauma. Investigators have said he cannot recall details about what happened.
But the FBI findings include previously undisclosed details about the moments immediately after the agents were injured and Garland radioed for help.
In his distress call, Garland told the dispatcher: “We ran into a culvert,” “I ran into a culvert” or “I think I ran into a culvert,” the report said.
In the course of its investigation, the FBI said, it identified several individuals in New Mexico with potential ties to the case. They have been charged with offenses involving the “smuggling of an alien,” but the agency said they are not suspects in the investigation of Martinez’s death.
Judy Melinek, a San Francisco forensic pathologist who reviewed Martinez’s autopsy report at the request of The Washington Post, said the injuries described in the report were more consistent with an accident or fall than an assault.
Melinek stressed that the report contains limited information, and she didn’t have access to photos, X-rays and other materials available to the El Paso medical examiner who performed the autopsy.
“He doesn’t have injuries on his back and front. He doesn’t have injuries on both sides of his body. They are all on the right side and in line with each other. There are also no defensive injuries on the arms or hands,” she said. “The absence of defensive injuries and a single plane of injury is more consistent with an accident than a homicide.”
Backers of Trump’s plans for a border wall have continued to insist Martinez was murdered and challenged others who have cast doubt on the version of the event advanced by union officials.
Chris Cabrera, a spokesman for the National Border Patrol Council, which represents agents, said his union continues to believe that Martinez and Garland were attacked.
“We believe it was an assault on our agents and a murder of one of our agents and an attempted murder of another,” he said.
“We hope that they take this very seriously and continue to look for those that attacked our agents,” Cabrera said of the FBI.
The FBI said it will continue investigating and has extended a cash reward for information leading to a resolution of the case.
