It was the eighth flight for this particular Falcon 9, which also lifted NASA astronauts, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station, last year.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk plans to eventually have more than 40,000 satellites transmitting internet service for users on Earth. It is working towards a mid-2027 deadline. At present, the Starlink beta service has about 10,000 customers, as Insider reported.
The rocket shot up from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida at 6:56 pm EDT, marking SpaceX’s 15th Starlink launch of the year. The full launch can be watched on SpaceX’s website.
It was a windy day on the coast but blue skies over the launch pad made for a spectacular show.
Musk’s ambition for his Starlink business is to create a high-speed satellite internet service that stretches across the world and provides connection to rural and underserved communities.
Starlink’s public beta test, known as “Better Than Nothing Beta,” has been popular with those living in remote areas of northern US, where it was first rolled out.
The company is also holding discussions with British officials about expanding Starlink to rural areas, as part of the country’s $6.9 billion “Project Gigabit” plan.
The entry records the same birth month and nationality as the Tesla and SpaceX CEO.
Other details, such as their UK-based location and country of residence, differ from Musk’s. As Bloomberg reported, the business mogul quit his doctorate program after two days and never earned a PhD.
The contact address of ElonSpace Ltd is a tower building located in West London, which is used for student accommodation. The company is described as being active in computer facility management, IT and data processing.
While it has not been possible to uncover the identity of Elonspace Ltd’s owner, Bloomberg reported that the company was registered in the UK the same week as posts on social media began promoting a crypto token by that name.
One of Companies House’s main purposes is to register company information and make it available to the public. It is an executive agency, sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, its website states.
Elon Musk’s net worth dropped by $25 billion within the week Tesla stopped accepting bitcoin payments, which sent Tesla shares lower, and after the billionaire hosted Saturday Night Live.
The billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s net worth fell to $159 billion on May 13 from $184 billion on May 9, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Tesla announced earlier this week it would stop accepting bitcoin payments for cars due to the use of fossil fuels in crypto mining. Musk, who has advocated for investing in cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and Dogecoin, said he still “strongly believes” in crypto, but it “can’t drive an increase in fossil fuel use.”
Tesla shares tumbled all week following the announcement, and bitcoin plunged as much as 15%. Dogecoin dropped during Elon Musk’s SNL debut, but rebounded later in the week.
Tesla also got hit with a class-action lawsuit on May 14, filed by a Solar Roof customer who said the company increased the price of his roof by $70,000 more than the agreed-upon contract.
Musk’s net worth began dropping after his SNL gig on May 8, which was surprisingly tame. His net worth remained consistent in the week before his SNL hosting gig, after dipping by $10 billion in April.
Tesla faced another setback on May 13 after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into a fatal Tesla crash in California. The vehicle safety agency told Reuters it previously had 28 probes into Tesla crashes, with 24 still under investigation.
Meanwhile, SpaceX, Musk’s other company, revealed the plan for its first Starship rocket orbital test flight on Thursday after successfully launching and landing a prototype for the first time this year.
SpaceX is planning for its first Starship rocket orbital test flight to launch from Texas and splash down off the coast of Hawaii, according to the company’s filing to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday.
Over the past year, SpaceX has launched five prototypes of its Starship rocket into the skies. The first fourburst into flames on landing, but the fifth test flight, with Starship serial No. 15, or SN15, proved successful. This allowed SpaceX to move to the next step of Elon Musk’s goal to reach Mars.
The company’s FCC filings said the test flight, comprised of the Starship rocket and a Super Heavy booster, would blast off from SpaceX’s launch facilities in Boca Chica, Texas. It did not give a projected launch date. The plan is for the booster to separate from the rocket nearly three minutes into the flight, and return to land roughly 20 miles from shore of the Gulf of Mexico.
Meanwhile, the Starship rocket is set to continue into orbit, the filing said. SpaceX plans for it to travel almost all the way around the Earth before plummeting back into the atmosphere, and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean around 62 miles off the northwest coast of Kauai, one of the Hawaiian Islands.
The orbital test flight should last around 90 minutes, the filing said.
The five prototypes the aerospace company has already launched were the upper stage of a two-part rocket system for Starship. Now that the 16-story upper stage is able to reach high altitude smoothly, SpaceX will add on a 23-story booster called Super Heavy.
The Super Heavy booster will try to heave the nearly 400 feet tall spaceship towards orbit.
SpaceX’s ultimate goal is for the Starship to carry humans into low-Earth orbit, to the moon, and to Mars, then return to Earth to repeat the journey again. In April, NASA awarded SpaceX an exclusive contract to land the first humans on the moon since 1972.
Police are looking for a YouTube creator who entered SpaceX’s launch site in South Texas and filmed close-up videos of SpaceX’s SN11 Starship rocket.
In late March, Caesar L. Galaviz got into the Boca Chica base of Elon Musk’s aerospace company without any security stopping him. He filmed himself wandering around the launch site and walking underneath the 16-story-tall prototype Starship. He then uploaded the video to his YouTube channel, which is called Loco VlogS.
Sheriff Eric Garza of Cameron County tweeted on Monday that police had issued an arrest warrant for Galaviz “for intentionally going onto the SpaceX property without their consent.”
Garza said Galaviz’s last known location was Conroe, Texas.
Galaviz recorded videos with the Starship prototype days before it burst into flames when landing during a test flight. The rocket was on stilts, so Galaviz couldn’t touch it.
Galaviz later deleted the video, which got five likes and 100 dislikes, but another YouTube account reuploaded the recording on March 31.
Galaviz posted an apology video on April 1, saying his actions were “wrong” and “illegal.”
“In my eyes, in that time of moment, I didn’t really think about that,” he said.
Galaviz told Insider in April that he entered the premises because he thought it would make a good video for his YouTube subscribers. “I hope that the SpaceX community can forgive me for my actions,” he said.
Elon Musk may not be the biggest fan of Warren Buffett, but he might have the investor to thank for his “Saturday Night Live” hosting gig.
“There’s no question that Warren Buffett and other celebrity CEOs – including a real-estate developer named Donald Trump – helped pave the way for Elon Musk to cross over from the corporate world to pop culture,” Dave Ketchen, a management professor at Auburn University’s Harbert College of Business, told Insider.
Buffett became one of the world’s wealthiest people by picking stocks, striking deals, and buying companies. The investor has also transcended corporate America; he’s inspired scores of magazine covers, books, and documentaries, made cameo appearances on episodes of “The Office” and “All My Children,” and continues to star in an animated children’s TV show called “Secret Millionaires Club.”
Musk has followed Buffett in becoming a household name. He’s made cameo appearances on “The Big Bang Theory” and “Iron Man 2,” and has attracted vast amounts of free publicity for his companies and assets such as bitcoin and dogecoin.
“People feel personally invested in Musk and his success,” Ketchen told Insider, emphasizing that many of the executive’s fans watched him turn Tesla from a scrappy startup into a $600 billion company, and reignite mainstream interest in space exploration with SpaceX.
“As corporations continue to grow and represent some of the most powerful and influential organizations in the world, CEOs have become celebrities worthy of attention,” Scott Graffin, a management professor at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, told Insider. As more CEOs realize the value of a public profile, it “almost becomes an arms race” to stand out from the crowd, he added.
Graffin highlighted former General Motors CEO Lee Iaccoca as one of the first celebrity CEOs, and General Electric’s ex-CEO Jack Welch as another major one.
Buffett and Musk are part of the same tradition, leveraging their shared talent for self-promotion to garner global fame and attention. Musk’s appearance on “Saturday Night Live” is just the latest example of that trend in action.
SpaceX is launching a mission to the moon in 2022, and has accepted meme cryptocurrency dogecoin as payment to take a payload on the journey.
Geometric Energy Corp, an intellectual property, manufacturing and logistics firm, said on Sunday it had paid Elon Musk’s space company in dogecoin to take a kind of mini space-exploration satellite on the mission.
The mission will be called “DOGE-1 to the Moon”. Geometric Space Corp will collaborate with SpaceX to launch a 40kg satellite on a Falcon 9 rocket in the first quarter of 2022.
Musk tweeted: “SpaceX launching satellite Doge-1 to the moon next year. Mission paid for in Doge. 1st crypto in space. 1st meme in space. To the mooooonnn!!”
The token is up more than 20,000% over the last year, according to CoinGecko, despite falling sharply at the weekend. It has been boosted by Musk and other celebrities and has captured the imagination of cryptocurrency enthusiasts.
Analysts said a key driver of the red-hot rally in recent days was Musk’s upcoming performance on “Saturday Night Live.” Many commentators said he could further drive up dogecoin by singing its praises on national TV.
Geometric did not reveal in its statement how much dogecoin it had paid SpaceX as part of the deal.
“Having officially transacted with DOGE for a deal of this magnitude, Geometric Energy Corporation and SpaceX have solidified DOGE as a unit of account for lunar business in the space sector,” Geometric Energy’s chief executive officer Samuel Reid said.
Many regulators have warned cryptocurrencies are highly risky and could plummet to zero. But many analysts have made even stronger warnings about dogecoin, saying the joke token has no use cases and is pure speculation.
Dogecoin recovered some losses on Monday, after Elon Musk announced his SpaceX company will launch the satellite “DOGE-1 Mission to the Moon” next year.
Musk’s commercial-rocket firm will take off on a moon mission in 2022 carrying a mini-satellite used for space research from Geometric Energy Corporation, paid for entirely in dogecoin.
“Having officially transacted with DOGE for a deal of this magnitude, Geometric Energy Corporation and SpaceX have solidified DOGE as a unit of account for lunar business in the space sector,” Samuel Reid, Geometric Energy’s CEO, said in a statement.
@elonmusk/Twitter
The Tesla boss had previously hinted at these plans in a tweet on April Fool’s day, when he said SpaceX plans to put “a literal dogecoin on the literal moon.” That prompted a near-30% spike in its price.
Dogecoin had slumped 30% over the weekend after Musk’s Saturday Night Live appearance, at which he jokingly called it a “hustle.” He also said it’s “as real” as a dollar bill and predicted it will “take over the world.” The billionaire joked that he would gift his mother the meme currency for Mother’s Day, which was a day after the show.
Cryptocurrencies had another volatile weekend thanks to Elon Musk, according to Jeffrey Halley, a senior market analyst at OANDA. “Dogecoin, or as I call it, Pumpanddumpandpumpcoin, enjoyed a 40% range,” he said.
“Having risen on Friday after a Musk tweet with a dog, it fell when he called dogecoin a hustle in a skit on Saturday Night Live, which he hustled. Musk announced he was sending a satellite to the moon, much like Pumpanddumpandpumpcoin’s price action, next year in another tweet today. Dogecoin will likely follow suit,” he added.
The meme coin’s price rebounded by 3% to 55 cents, after trading around 47 cents on Sunday, according to Coinmarketcap data. But it again slipped to around 53 cents in early European trading. It is currently the fourth-most valuable among all cryptocurrencies, with a market cap of $70 billion.
The astronauts of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission – Shannon Walker, Victor Glover, Mike Hopkins of NASA, and Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency – recently returned to Earth after completing the longest spaceflight any US vehicle has ever flown.
During the live Q&A, Glover, who was the pilot of the Crew Dragon spacecraft and second-in-command for the mission, was asked to provide perspective on being the first Black astronaut to embark on a long-duration spaceflight aboard the ISS.
He said: “I’ve been receiving a lot of emails and messages from folks that say, ‘Hey, my kid saw you and they’re so excited and it’s great that he can look at the NASA TV broadcast and see someone that looks like him,’ and I think that’s important.”
He continued: “I think we all need to be able to dream in all colours.”
Though NASA’s astronaut corps have become increasingly diverse throughout the years – there is still more work to be done. A 2020 workforce data report published by NASA shows that 72% of NASA employees are White or Caucasian. 12% are Black or African American, 8% are Asian American or Pacific Islander, 7% are Hispanic or Latino; 1% are American Indian or Alaska Native, and less than 1% are more than one race.
As reported by The New York Times, Glover is only the 15th Black American astronaut to travel to space out of a total of more than 300 NASA corps.
“I’m glad to have been in this position,” he said in the virtual Q&A, but added that it wasn’t something he chose.
NASA first included Black Americans in the astronaut program back in the 1960s when Ed Dwight, an Air Force test pilot, was selected as an astronaut candidate. But he never went to space. Instead, Guion S. Bluford became the first Black American to travel to space in 1983 aboard the Challenger space shuttle.
Since then, more African American astronauts have gone to space but not many, despite a much more inclusive selection process than in previous decades.
Glover and his fellow crew members’ return to Earth showed that SpaceX can carry out full-length crew rotations and land humans safely. Last year, the company rocketed NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the ISS for a two-month test flight.
In the more recent mission, the Resilience spaceship, carrying all four crew members, splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico at 2:57 a.m. ET. This was the first nighttime splashdown since 1968, as Insider previously reported.
NBC and Saturday Night Live did not reference controversies surrounding Musk’s stances on labor and stimulus checks during his May 8 TV appearance.
Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Elon Musk’s appearance on SNL was tame and uncontroversial, despite his inflammatory tweets.
SNL did not address address Musk’s anti-union stance or his wealth increase during the pandemic.
Given the lack of context surrounding Musk’s appearance, NBC aired an uncritical portrayal of the billionaire CEO during his sketch comedy show appearance.
During Elon Musk’s opening monologue as Saturday Night Live host on May 9, he said “I’m making history tonight.”
Musk made history in several ways during the show. He is the only person worth $184 billion – making him the second-most richest man in the world – to host. He is also only the second billionaire CEO to host after Donald Trump, and did so without a background in entertainment.
But Musk did not mention his wealth or companies, including Tesla and SpaceX. He said during his monologue that he was making history as the first person open about having Asperger’s, an autism spectrum disorder where people have “difficulty responding to the body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice of others,” per Medical News Today. Some pointed out the statement was not accurate, as former cast member Dan Aykroyd has Asperger’s and hosted the show in 2003.
Though Musk is known to make inflammatory statements, his appearance on live TV was tame and uncontroversial. NBC gave the world’s second richest man a platform to show a human, sympathetic side with little critique of his massive wealth and power.
Prior to the show, some SNL cast members criticized the decision to invite Musk due to his ultra-wealth, prompting NBC to reportedly allow comedians to choose not to participate with Musk as host. Cast members Michael Che and Colin Jost brought up some criticism surrounding Musk, joking that the CEO hosted the show to distract from failed SpaceX rocket launches.
“Why are all these rich white people trying to go to space?” Che said.
Yet later in the episode even Che and Jost appeared friendly with Musk after asking him numerous times “What is Dogecoin,” the cryptocurrency that started as a joke in 2013.
Popular comedy shows, like Saturday Night Live, can be a powerful platform for social and political critique and criticism, and that can include poking fun at powerful figures, even guest hosts. But Musk’s SNL episode failed to address his extreme wealth or the power and influence he wields.
SNL did not mention how Musk’s wealth tripled during the COVID-19 pandemic alongside other billionaires, as millions of people simultaneously suffered from job losses and slashed incomes.
With the lack of context surrounding Musk’s appearance, NBC aired an uncritical portrayal of the billionaire CEO during his sketch comedy show appearance.
When fellow billionaire Trump hosted SNL at the height of “The Apprentice’s” popularity, he proclaimed it was a “bigger deal” for NBC than him. Yet reports from The Washington Post, Harvard University, and The New York Times said the media’s portrayal of Trump’s presidential bid – which was often obsessive and sometimes uncritical – and focus on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s controversies ended up helping him win the Republican nomination and presidency.
Time will tell how Musk’s portrayal on SNL will influence his future.
NBC was not immediately available for additional comment.
