Elon Musk continued his quest for space dominance on February 22nd, as his company SpaceX sent another rocket into orbit in a spectacular pre-dawn launch at Vandenberg Air Base in California. The rocket is carrying a Spanish radar satellite as well as two prototype relay stations for Musk’s proposed plan of creating an orbital network of broadcasting stations.
Despite having recovered the rocket’s first stage (what powers it out of our atmosphere,) no attempt was made to collect it again this time around. This portion of the rocket had been used in a previous SpaceX launch in August 2017. Musk said on Twitter “Missed by a few hundred meters, but fairing landed intact in water…Should be able catch it with slightly bigger chutes to slow down descent.”
SpaceX and Musk confirmed that the rocket’s entire payload had been deployed successfully in a series of tweets:
Allow me to put on my conspiracy hat for a second but does anyone share my suspicions that Musk is simply setting himself up to be the next Bond villain? Setting up a network of satellites just screams “I’m going to attempt to take over the world and lead it into a new age” to me. Someone get Daniel Craig on the line and just tell him to be prepared in case the inevitable happens.
