【I Am a Plaything (2025)】

Watching Space X's Falcon Heavy launch,I Am a Plaything (2025) the future suddenly materialized in front of me.

For years, space nerds have heard about this huge new rocket with three boosters that could land back on Earth after flying payload after payload to space. But did I think it would really happen, and that somehow, someway I'd get to see it live? Nope.

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk just revealed a secret message SpaceX sent to space aboard the cosmic Tesla

And yet, there I was at 3:45 p.m. ET on Tuesday, standing by the water outside the press site at Kennedy Space Center watching as the Falcon Heavy lifted off into the blue sky above Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The sound of the launch rattled my chest and made me gasp as the rocket flew steadily, slowly up into the air, leaving the Earth behind — but in no rush to do so.

The launch was extreme. You could feel it in your bones, but that wasn't even the best part.

After moving away from the rest of the rocket and its payload of a Tesla Roadster outfitted with a dummy named "Starman," the two side boosters flipped and started their journeys back to Earth, landing on two pads here at the Cape.

Even in bright daylight, the flames of the the twin boosters stood out against the blue sky as the rockets flew back to Earth, firing their engines to slow down and land softly. Each announced their presence back on home soil with a sonic boom that echoed across the entire space center.

Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

And I'd been waiting for this launch for years.

I started off my career as a space reporter in 2012, not long after SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced the company would be building the Falcon Heavy and hoping to launch it sometime in 2013. Then the delays came.

The Falcon Heavy was in something of a development hell for year upon year. According to Musk, building the Falcon Heavy -- which is essentially three Falcon 9 boosters strapped together -- was a lot more difficult, and took much longer to come to fruition, than they initially bargained for.

But now that it has, SpaceX is banking on it.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

The company is now the proud builder of the most powerful operational rocket on Earth today, and it's a far cheaper launcher than other heavy-lift vehicles launching payloads into space today.

Because of that lower price point, SpaceX expects that companies and nations will want to use their heavy-lift rocket over others when hoping to launch big satellites to orbit — or even to the moon or Mars.

The success of this launcher will also allow the company to focus on other efforts including getting the Big Falcon Rocket -- a beefed up launcher with 31 engines -- flying sometime in the next few years, according to Musk.

If nothing else, this launch taught me something important: It's always good to be around when one of Elon Musk's rocket dreams comes true.

---

Featured Video For You

---

Tesla unveils their latest roadster and it's beautiful

---

• Social Good
• Science
• Games
• Deals
• Digital Culture
• Tech
• Life
• Entertainment

• Whale Vomit Episode 5: Startup Monarchy
• August 1–7: What We’re Doing Next Week by The Paris Review
• What the Review’s Staff Is Doing This Week: August 21–27 by The Paris Review
• Announcing Our Fall Issue by Emily Stokes
• Amazon Pet Day: All the best deals
• August 7–13: What the Review’s Staff is Doing Next Week by The Paris Review
• August 14–20: What the Review’s Staff Is Doing Next Week by The Paris Review
• A Letter from Henry Miller by Henry Miller
• I'm a college professor. My advice to young people who feel hooked on tech
• Wrong Turn by Natasha Stagg

• The Corner of ‘MacDoodle St.’ and Memory Ln.
• The Ragpicker: Frédéric Pajak’s ‘Uncertain Manifesto’
• Letters From W. S. Merwin by Grace Schulman
• Staff Picks: Spells, Cephalopods, and Smug Salads by The Paris Review
• The maximalism design TikTok drama explained
• Whiting Awards 2019: Lauren Yee, Drama
• The Artist
• Balzac and the Reassembly of France by Jérôme David
• On Believing by Hanif Abdurraqib
• Cooking with Anzia Yezierska by Valerie Stivers

• Bargaining For the Common Good
• Pasolini on Caravaggio’s Artificial Light by Pier Paolo Pasolini
• The Hole by Nicolaia Rips
• A Coiled Spring by Mary Gaitskill
• Waymo data shows humans are terrible drivers compared to AI
• A Coiled Spring by Mary Gaitskill
• Making of a Poem: Michael Bazzett on “Autobiography of a Poet” by Michael Bazzett
• “Then Things Went Bad”: How I Won $264 at Preakness by Tarpley Hitt
• Outdoor speaker deal: Save $20 on the Soundcore Boom 2
• August 1–7: What We’re Doing Next Week by The Paris Review

• Time to Unite
• A Letter from Henry Miller by Henry Miller
• At Chloë’s Closet Sale by Sophie Kemp
• An Egyptian Vase by Jago Rackham
• Waitin’ on the Student Debt Jubilee
• Rear Window, Los Feliz by Claudia Ross
• Announcing Our Fall Issue by Emily Stokes
• Sentences We Loved This Summer by The Paris Review
• NYT Strands hints, answers for May 5
• The Green and the Gold by Helen Longstreth