美国有线新闻 CNN 美国民企SpaceX将发射猎鹰重型火箭 搭载特斯拉超跑（在线收听）

RACHEL CRANE, CNN TECH CORRESPONDENT: SpaceX is about to make the ground seriously crumble. The new rocket, the Falcon Heavy, is about to launch for the first time and this thing is big. It's lifting from the historic Kennedy Center launch pad 39A, which is where Apollo 11 launched humans to the moon, and once again, the pad will be the site of space flight history.

Once Falcon Heavy has lift off, SpaceX says it will be the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two.

The rocket is powered by 27 engines and SpaceX says when all engines are at full throttle, the rocket has 5 million pounds of thrust, which is the equivalent of 18 747s. The going cost for a launch, according to the company, $90 million. But that's just a fraction of what a launch would cost with the SLS, the heavy lift rocket that the government has been working on for years.

Now, the Falcon Heavy is basically three of the company's Falcon IX rockets, which they've been launching since 2010, strapped together.

Originally, the company had thought that putting together three of these tried and true rockets would be relatively easy rocket science, but it turns out it was much more complicated than Elon Musk and his team had anticipated, and the launch has been delayed for several years. And even though the rocket is expected to finally take flight, Musk himself acknowledges that this first test launch has a high likelihood of failure.

So, what you're launching the rocket that everybody has been waiting years for and has a good shot of just blowing up — well, if you're Musk, master of PR, you go big and you launch your own car. Yet, the rocket's payload will be Musk's own cherry red Tesla roadster and it will be playing David Bowie's "Space Oddity" on repeat.

The intended destination: Mars orbit, that is if it doesn't blow up on ascent. And while sending a Tesla to space might be a silly PR stunt, the launch is anything but. The rocket was designed from the start to ferry people to the moon and to Mars. A successful launch would put SpaceX, a giant leap forward, towards getting to deep space. Oh, and did I mention that SpaceX is hoping to land all three first stage boosters? Yes, that's also happening.