Like a new car, SpaceX unveiled the Falcon 1 just outside of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. SpaceX brought the entire seven-story high rocket together with its mobile launch system. This was in December 2003, so the event coincided with the first flight of the first aircraft, which flew for the first time in December 1903. Falcon 1’s maiden voyage should have coincided with the 100th anniversary of this first flight, but due to delays, the rocket had not yet launched.
Elon made a statement during this event. “We’re very proud to debut this vehicle, and do so here in DC,” Elon said. “Another thing I want to do here is to announce what the follow-on is to the Falcon, called the Falcon 5. Falcon 5 will be the first US launch vehicle with true engine-out capability in over three decades, since the Saturn V. We can have multiple engines fail, depending on the phase of flight, and still have a successful mission. We think that will really have a dramatic improvement in the reliability of access to space.”312
SpaceX decided to launch Falcon 1 from the Vandenberg Air Force Base. They leased a launch pad from the Air Force, transported the rocket to the launch site, got the rocket in place, and they test-fired it. They were ready. But they were not allowed to launch. The Falcon 1 would fly over a Titan IV rocket with a billion dollar payload, so there was a small risk the Falcon 1 could destroy the Titan IV if something happened after the launch. “It’s like you build your house… somebody else builds a house next to you and tells you to get out of your house. Like, what the hell… after we’ve made that big investment and everything,” Elon shouted and decided to find another launch site.301,365
You can find a picture of Elon where he holds a white cat. Like a James Bond villain, SpaceX decided to launch the Falcon 1 from one of the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific, 2100 miles [3400 km] southwest from Hawaii. The name of the launch site is the Reagan Test Site at the Omelek Island, which is a part of the Kwajalein Atoll. Known as the Execution Island during the Second World War, the atoll is today often called just Kwaj. The area is military ground. You can see a large concrete building previously used as a target for laser beams from space, and a part of the atoll is a target for testing missiles launched from the US mainland.
Several visitors attended the first launch. You could see representatives from government agencies and corporations. Someone who also visited the launch was Elon’s brother Kimbal. He said that physics is fun, but Elon suspected what his brother really liked was to visit exotic islands in the south pacific and fly Huey helicopters.
The island leased by SpaceX used to be a launch pad during the Cold War. When SpaceX arrived to the island, they had to cut down the overgrown bushes and trees. Then they poured concrete to build a launch pad.284
They were ready to launch Falcon 1. Due to safety reasons, the drawback with this launch site was that the launch pad wasn’t on the same island as where the SpaceXers were. When sensors on the rocket detected a glitch, the launch team had to make a 20-minute boat trip to fix the problem. SpaceX hadn’t anticipated this delay, so they hadn’t stockpiled enough liquid oxygen on the island. Liquid oxygen is used as a fuel component and to cool the rocket’s helium supply. The launch had to be postponed until they could import more liquid oxygen from Hawaii.301
Another problem occurred when they discovered that not all rocket components were operating properly. The malfunctioned components needed to be upgraded. While the rest of the team tried to find a supplier who hadn’t closed on a Sunday, a SpaceXer took a plane from Kwaj back to SpaceX in Los Angeles. They found a supplier in Minnesota, so an intern from SpaceX in Los Angeles had to fly there to get the components. The intern got back to Los Angeles where they tested the new parts before they flew them to Kwaj. “The SpaceX launch team in Kwaj is less than 30 people,” Kimbal said. “When another rocket company launches in Kwaj, they bring 300 people. What they do is beyond us.”283
When the rocket finally launched in March 2006, it flew for 33 seconds before the flight ended abruptly. The load, an experimental satellite from the US Air Force Academy, came crashing down through the roof of SpaceX’s machine shop, landing mostly intact on the floor.281 “Everyone was cheering,” Mueller said. “But my engine went on fire. It burned through the wires, and the data was terrible. 33 seconds in, it flamed out and Falcon fell a mile back onto the reef. We lost everything, all data, everything. There was the jubilation of it lifting off and the agony of it crashing. It was a pretty unpleasant time to be hanging with Elon.”278
SpaceX released an official video showing the crash. It’s possible to see how the white rocket begins to turn due to a fuel leak, before it finally crashed on a reef close to the launch site. To figure out what went wrong, Elon and his team had to spend the rest of the day collecting scattered pieces of the rocket. “I was picking up bits of rocket at the launch site,” Elon said.63 After several months, the SpaceX engineers determined a corroded nut had permitted fuel to leak, the fuel caught fire, and the rest is history.
The second launch was supposed to happen in January 2007, but was delayed until March 2007. Falcon 1 flew to an altitude of 180 miles [290 km], before it failed to reach orbit. It’s possible to see on the launch video how, after 2 minutes and 50 seconds, the rocket separates as it was supposed to, and how the first stage falls back to Earth. The first stage could never be found again due to a broken GPS transmitter. The reason why Falcon 1 failed this time was that an engine had stopped 90 seconds too early.
The Electric Stars
There was a time when more electric cars drove on the roads than there were cars powered by fossil fuels. In 1900, electric motors powered 34 percent of the cars in New York, Boston, and Chicago. A steam or a combustion engine powered the other cars.385
Manufactured in the late 1800s, the first electric cars were quiet, clean, and could be charged in the home.59 The torpedo shaped electric car, The Never Satisfied, was the first vehicle to reach a speed over 62 mph [100 km/h]. Those who saw the record thought they were going to die if they traveled so fast. While Henry Ford mass produced gasoline cars, his wife Clara Ford drove a 1914 Detroit Electric with a range of 80 miles [130 km] and a speed of 20 mph [32 km/h].218
Around 1920, the gasoline cars began to outnumber the electric because they were easier to refuel. In most smaller towns in America, the gasoline car arrived before electricity. The gasoline car was also less expensive. You could buy three of Ford’s Model T for the price of just one electric car.59,329 Several car manufacturers have since then again and again tried to sell electric cars. But all models failed. They didn’t always fail because the cars were expensive, slow, ugly, or had a limited range – they could also fail because the auto manufacturers wanted them to fail. The best example is General Motors’s EV1.
At the 1990 Los Angeles Auto Show, General Motors revealed an electric concept car: the Impact. Because of the name, you could hear comments like, “What’s next, the Ford Whiplash?” General Motors announced at the same time how the Impact would become a vehicle for the mass market. The California Air Resources Board realized this new generation of electric vehicles could solve the state’s problem with pollution. The same year, they passed the Zero-Emission Vehicle mandate. It said that if a car manufacturer wanted to sell cars in California, some cars must be free from exhaust. California was a large market, so the car manufacturers didn’t have any other choice than to begin selling electric cars.330