Haute 100 SF: Elon Musk’s SpaceX Announces Two New Contracts

This morning, SpaceX announced two new orders for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles. The announcement was made at the World Satellite Business Conference in Paris.

According to the press release, the contracts include launch of a communications satellite for HISPASAT on a Falcon 9 and launch of the Saudi Arabian Arabsat 6A communications satellite on a Falcon Heavy.

“We are pleased to add these additional launches to our manifest,” said Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO of SpaceX. “The diversity of our missions and customers represents a strong endorsement of our capabilities and reflects SpaceX’s efforts to provide a breadth of launch services to our growing customer base.”

The launches are slated for Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida between late-2017 and 2018.

In addition, last week, Elon Musk, the chief executive officer of Tesla Motors Inc. and privately-held SpaceX, made an appearance on the highly-anticipated “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

Following around of applause from the audience members for his involvement with advanced technologies like Telsa Motors and SpaceX, Musk answered a number of Colberts questioned. The talk show host asked, “Are you sincerely trying to save the world?” “Well, I’m trying to good things, yeah,” Musk responded.
Colbert and Musk then discuss a new Tesla product called a power arm, which Colbert refers to as a “snake charger.” Finally, the conversation turns to SpaceX and Mars. “You sincerely think we should go to Mars, like, that men and women should go to Mars,” Colbert says to Musk.
The South African-born business magnate begins to explain what life on Mars could look like. He says, “It is a fixer-upper of a planet. Uh, so first you’re going to have to live in transparent domes, but eventually…you can transform mars into an earth-like planet.”

Colbert inquires more about Musk’s idea. Musk continues, “Just warm it up. There’s a fast way and a slow way. The fast way is to drop thermonuclear weapons over the poles ….and the slow way would be to release greenhouse gases like where we doing on earth.”

Photo via Pixabay