Elon Musk must have felt like a proud father last night, as his company SpaceX’s rocket, the “Falcon 9,” launched and landed successfully. And his pride was very clear, as he tweeted to all his followers during the event. And it turns out that if Musk’s dreams of space don’t come true, he may always have a future in photography!
There and back again pic.twitter.com/Ll7wg2hL1G
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2015
On Monday night, the Falcon 9 completed the first ever successful vertical landing at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The previous attempt in June had met with failure, as the rocket exploded two minutes after lifting off due to a strut breaking from the force of the rocket’s acceleration. The ability to launch and recover these rockets is important, because it will help to lower the cost of space travel, which aids in Musk’s and SpaceX’s ultimate goal of colonizing Mars.
Live video from LZ-1 pic.twitter.com/Ve6gEXfOdh — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2015
Of course, Mars is still a ways off, and Musk seemed perfectly happy celebrating his present success. He posted several photos on Twitter, including one of the rocket shortly before liftoff and another showing the path it took both going up and coming back down. He also included a brief video clip of the rocket at Landing Zone 1! But his one text-based tweet was perhaps the most important, as it announced the successful landing: “11 satellites deployed to target orbit and Falcon has landed back at Cape Canaveral. Headed to LZ-1. Welcome back, baby!”
11 satellites deployed to target orbit and Falcon has landed back at Cape Canaveral. Headed to LZ-1. Welcome back, baby!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2015
Of course, all of Elon Musk’s Falcon 9 tweets were huge hits with his followers, all receiving likes and retweets in the thousands. Congratulations were offered by supporters who shared a love of space (and perhaps future residents of Mars). “Congrats Elon. What a truly remarkable milestone for commercialized spaceflight! Reusable rockets FTW [sic],” wrote one excited follower, while another said that Musk is “inspiring a new generation of scientists and astronauts with this historical achievement!” Perhaps the best comment was, “Thank you! I’ve been on this planet 56 years and I’ve pretty much have been waiting the whole time to see something just like this.” Here’s hoping we all live to see Elon Musk and SpaceX reach the next space exploration milestone!
