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The SpaceX Company has given themselves no easy task in their mission to provide us mere earth dwellers with the ability to, as they say, enable people to live on other planets. The company was founded back in 2002 with a view to revolutionise space technology. Those very clever people at that company, designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft.
Recently most of the news about SpaceX has surrounded the Dragon program. But the firm has been plugging away at its Falcon rocket program also. The Falcon 9 is a two stage rocket that was designed and manufactured by SpaceX for the safe transport of satellites and their designed Dragon spacecraft into orbit.
This just-launched Falcon 9 (dubbed version 1.1) boasts 60 percent more powerful engines and has longer fuel tanks. According to the Global Post, other new features are also onboard that were designed to boost lift capacity and “simplify operations for commercial service.” To that end, the spacecraft was carrying a science and communications satellite for Canada’s MDA Corp when it left Earth’s atmosphere. This take-off comes just over five years after the first Falcon’s departure, and its itinerary will take it around both of the earth’s poles. Important to remember, for your average rich person that is, is for the mere pocket change of $56.5 million you can send a Falcon 9 into space yourself. No doubt a few flying lessons and maybe some astrophysics courses maybe in order, but if you have literally, tons of money, then that should be no issue, right? Maybe in the future, when companies such as SpaceX do actually provide space travel at a cost, lets hope it is less than 56.5 million bucks!
[Image via: americaspace & antonk]