Last week a company called SpaceX launched a most awesome rocket into space. What is the ultimate goal of this company? They want to go to Mars. In fact they want to put together a colony of one million residents on Mars. How could they possibly ever afford such a thing? Very simple, they will open a night club and call it the Mars Bar. But it costs a lot of money to go to Mars. If they want to turn a profit, I suggest they recruit all of the colonists from my home state of Wisconsin. We drink a lot. (Fun fact: we drink more brandy than all the rest of the U.S.A. put together. SpaceX can use brandy for rocket fuel, and we’ll drink whatever is left over after the flight.)
Why would SpaceX want to go to Mars? Well, because their CEO, a man by the name of Elon Musk, he’s just a crazy man. Just going to space doesn’t keep him busy enough. Mr. Musk is also founder and CEO of Tesla, the maker of electric cars. And he is working on electric semi-trucks, batteries for electric homes, and a nuclear powered laptop computer. I’m looking forward to that one. My laptop battery always goes dead just when I find a good YouTube of kitties. (Okay, so I made that last one up.)
The rocket launched by SpaceX last week was called the Falcon Heavy. That right there indicates Mr. Musk could use some new engineering brain power. They should have used the Falcon Light. Anybody knows the more weight, the more fuel. If they design a Falcon Light instead of a Falcon Heavy, there will be more brandy left over for the Mars Bar. However, I will admit those engineers are pretty clever. Their signature trick is they land their rockets back on earth again so that they can be used multiple times. In fact, the Falcon Heavy launch blasted one rocket up into space and landed two rockets back on earth. That’s a good way to turn a profit. But whoa, how did they do that? Did that thing multiply up there in space somehow, like a bunny rabbit? It could be. If you look at a picture of that big long Falcon Heavy with the bulbous tip and the two side-slung boosters down at the bottom, it looks a lot like a, well…maybe we should just move on.
I heard Elon Musk said that since this was the first test of Falcon Heavy, he would be happy if it just got high enough before it blew up that it didn’t damage the launch pad. But he is truly a master of spin. If things go explosively wrong, he calls that an RUD. That stands for Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly. And the beauty of it is, there’s no manual labor in that operation.
Falcon Heavy is designed to lift payloads to low earth orbit, take men around the moon, and even transport passengers from point to point here on earth. But I have no urgent business on the moon, have no relatives on the International Space Station, and really, I’m not in that much hurry to get to East Chicago. I think I’ll just drive.
But what about Mars? Do I want to go to Mars? No way! Do I want to go floating around weightless in space for months only to find that Mars is a stupid sandy gravel pit with terrible scenery? And on top of that probably never get back to earth again? No sirree! On the other hand, my brother who lives in Sweden, he can’t wait to go to Mars. But he’s always been more adventurous than me. After all, when we were young he moved to Sweden. I moved to Appleton.
So who, exactly, should we send to Mars? I have some suggestions:
1. 535 members of Congress.
2. One president.
3. His friend Vladimir Putin.
4. Harvey Weinstein.
5. Anthony Weiner.
6. Several cable news hosts to be named at a later date.
That’s about 550 people, depending on how many cable news hosts get the honor (the more, the better). If we’re going for a colony of one million, that leaves plenty of room for all the people who are going to send hate-mails to this website.
There is one dummy on his way to Mars right now. Unfortunately, it’s not any of the dummies mentioned above, and it’s not Vladimir Putin either. It’s an actual dummy, in a spacesuit, nicknamed Starman, and he’s behind the wheel of a red Tesla roadster now motoring its way to Mars. This is actually true! Check out the view from the driver’s seat on YouTube! Test launches like that of the Falcon Heavy last week typically carry a worthless payload in case they blow up. But Elon Musk, like I said, he’s a crazy man! He loaded his personal Tesla roadster into the nosecone with Starman at the wheel. The car radio was blasting Starman by David Bowie, and the digital screen on the dashboard read Don’t Panic. That Elon Musk, he sure is funny! That sure is a knee-slapper!
Have you heard the expression big boys play with big toys? For a man like Musk, the Falcon Heavy isn’t big enough. To get to Mars, he’s building an even bigger one. He calls it the BFR. That stands for Big F#@king Rocket. The BFR will be 30 feet in diameter, 347 feet tall, and lift a payload of 330,000 pounds. So all of you guys out there with 490 horsepower all-wheel drive diesel pickup trucks with exhaust pipes sticking straight up behind the cab? Give it up guys, Elon Musk has got you beat!
All of this didn’t come easy though. SpaceX made a few boom-booms along the way. I’m not sure you’re going to want to book passage after you see this, but check it out right here. You’re welcome.