{"id":27944,"date":"2018-02-07T00:48:21","date_gmt":"2018-02-07T00:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=27944"},"modified":"2018-02-07T00:48:21","modified_gmt":"2018-02-07T00:48:21","slug":"absent-nasa-sponsored-effort-pretty-cool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=27944","title":{"rendered":"Absent a NASA-sponsored effort, this is pretty cool"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/99915960_1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-27945\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/99915960_1-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/99915960_1-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/99915960_1.jpg 624w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I normally would look with bemusement at a stunt that occurred today. Instead, though, I am utterly amazed at what I saw.<\/p>\n<p>Elon Musk &#8212; a South Africa-born U.S. business tycoon &#8212; has this notion of building a colony on Mars. He has developed a rocket that he hopes will ferry human beings to the Red Planet eventually.<\/p>\n<p>Today, he launched the largest rocket built since the Saturn V rocket launched astronauts to the moon from 1969 until 1972. The monstrous SpaceX rocket took off, jettisoned its boosters, which then made a soft landing near the launch pad from which NASA used to launch missions to the moon.<\/p>\n<p>But &#8230; here&#8217;s the amazing part of the story.<\/p>\n<p>The rocket carried a Tesla hot rod atop it and that vehicle &#8212; with a spacesuit-clad mannequin in the driver&#8217;s seat &#8212; is in Earth orbit. It will take off eventually on a lengthy trip around the sun. Musk plans to keep the car in space for a <em>million<\/em> years. He said maybe some extraterrestrials will find it. <em>Maybe.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>My preference, of course, would be for NASA to launch these missions. I want the federal government to get back into manned space exploration. I&#8217;m old-fashioned that way, you know?<\/p>\n<p>Absent a NASA-sponsored and financed operation, though, I welcome Elon Musk&#8217;s investment in this kind of exploration.<\/p>\n<p>Hey, a guy with $20 billion in his portfolio can afford the expense &#8212; and it provides a heck of a show to boot.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I normally would look with bemusement at a stunt that occurred today. Instead, though, I am utterly amazed at what I saw. Elon Musk &#8212; a South Africa-born U.S. business tycoon &#8212; has this notion of building a colony on Mars. He has developed a rocket that he hopes will ferry human beings to the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=27944\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Absent a NASA-sponsored effort, this is pretty cool<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[7568,2924,5622,3182,7569,6724],"class_list":["post-27944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-elon-musk","tag-mars","tag-moon-mission","tag-nasa","tag-saturn-v","tag-space-flight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27946,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27944\/revisions\/27946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}