NPR

Our Ancestors, Elon Musk, And The First Car In Space

Musk's successful rocket launch is a step on the ambitious road to Mars; as with our adventurous ancestors, where we might go seems to be limited only by our imagination, says Marcelo Gleiser.
The SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifts off from launch pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center on Feb. 6, 2018, in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

On Tuesday, Elon Musk's SpaceX successfully launched its most ambitious rocket to date, the Falcon Heavy.

This is a transformative spacecraft, a behemoth that essentially straps three Falcon 9 rocket cores together. At 224-ft. tall, it's smaller than NASA's giant Saturn V (363 ft.) — but it is the largest

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