Watch the SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket Launch Today

4 hours to go... I'm on the wrong continent :( I would have definitely gone there to view the launch, it's a real milestone and I so hope that it will work.

Elon leaving... Stock markets crash...

i was just thinking if a possible downturn would have any effects on his plans of settling the solar system. (for me as a lowly grunt a downturn always means switching to work with a different industry, but who cares except for me.)

If this launch of Falcon Heavy becomes its last one then it would be so similar to the Buran shuttle.

I can't put into words how excited I am for this launch today.

I remember back in 2012 where spacex was still a laughingstock. The idea of landing a rocket from a private company was a joke.

But SpaceX always did one thing right, they made many care about space again. They broadcast their launches, made a bit of a show of it, and they weren't ashamed of their failures.

Then they started breaking milestones. They increased their launch cadence in what felt like overnight. They were actually trying (and failing) to land rockets, but they were still broadcasting them! Then they landed the first one on land, then the first one on a barge, then they re-launched rockets (and re-landed them!). Now it's weird when a rocket is launched in "expendable mode"!

I wanted to start this comment saying this is the most excited I've been of any launch in a long time, but when I really thought about it, it's not. There have been half a dozen launches in the past few years from SpaceX that were just as exciting, and that's amazing.

I hope today's launch goes well, and I hope this is the start of the "new normal"!

> I remember back in 2012 where spacex was still a laughingstock

I can't help but draw a parallel to how Tesla is considered by the old guard to be a laughingstock today. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16305520