After a long, confusing, and frankly disappointing era of stunted spaceflight, slashed budgets at NASA, and an unending string of lame excuses - it looks like the U.S. is gearing up to punch a hole in the sky once again.  There's a brand new space race in town!  Only this time, the smartypants at NASA aren't going up against a communist government - they're facing of with an American capitalist.  Elon Musk's SpaceX has been strutting out some pretty impressive hardware and achievements in the past few years.  From putting a car in space just for the kicks, to launching, landing, and reusing rockets like it ain't no thang - this guy is kind of a show off.  His next target puts all of that to shame.

While the smarty-pants at NASA are planning an encore trip to the moon, Elon Musk wants to put humans on Mars.  He is building a spaceship full of people and supplies on top of his biggest rocket, the massive BFR (Big Falcon Rocket).  Business Insider reports that the goal is to put 100 people and 150 tons of food, water, and other supplies on the surface of Mars with this system.  The first crewed mission is tentatively set to launch in 2023, and may launch from Texas!

Popular Mechanics is reporting that a SpaceX Facility has popped up near Brownsville in South Texas.  The not-exactly secret, yet not-exactly talked about location has all of the trappings of a BFR launch site.  There is no word yet of a completion date on the site, but it is very likely that this location would be used as one of several southern locations to launch either people or supplies into orbit in preparation of the big push to Mars.

 

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