Elon Musk presented a real photo of the tinfoil rocket
The word "real", redefined
SpaceX founder Elon Musk has shown for the first time what the new test spaceship of the company looks like. He showed on Twitter a picture of a first version of Starship, which would be tested next month. It is a first prototype of the spacecraft that in 2024 the first people should bring to Mars.
“This is a real photo, not a computer render”, Musk added to the photo. The word “real” demands an explanation though. The photo is definitely real while the rocketship is obviously made of tinfoil and sticks.
Starship is the name for SpaceX ‘new rocket, which previously had the name’ Big Falcon Rocket’. That would bring 100 passengers and 150 tons of cargo to Mars. In Boca Chica, Texas, where SpaceX has a launch site, images of the Starship were also taken and shared on social media.
SpaceX first Starship hopper under Texas Boca Chica Beach's cloudy sky.@elonmusk #Starship #SpaceX pic.twitter.com/hVg5Ken7Vp
— Evelyn Janeidy Arevalo (@JaneidyEve) January 10, 2019
The Starship will be the successor to the Falcon 9, the current rocket of the company that can land vertically. At the end of last year, another Falcon 9 with a half-billion-mile GPS satellite was successfully brought into space from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
SpaceX wants to use the Starship to fly to the moon and later to Mars. This first version of the rocket is only a prototype that can only go up and down. That test version is called ‘test hopper’ by Musk. Musk showed on Twitter that the Starship hopper will be tested in the same way as the Falcon 9 five years ago. So the rocket can not go to orbit around the earth. That should be possible later versions. He hopes to present SpaceX later this year.
Starship Hopper will do vertical flight tests similar to the Falcon 9 Hopper https://t.co/5dCrGFqymR
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 11, 2019
In October last year Musk announced that the first people should be able to leave for Mars in six years. As for now it seems not to be a real goal of the Starship hype. Publis Relation stunt as a goal is far more real.
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