Usually, Elon Musk is calmness and confidence personified. But he isn't very optimistic of SpaceX's next big rocket's maiden flight.
The billionaire entrepreneur confirmed while speaking at the?ISS R&D conference on Wednesday that launching the Falcon Heavy into orbit is extremely risky. It's probably going to be the trickiest rocket SpaceX has ever launched so far, purely due to the complexity and magnitude of task attached to getting it off the ground.
Why is Musk curbing everyone's enthusiasm and trying to water down expectations? Well, because getting the Falcon Heavy in the air requires the simultaneous ignition of 27 orbit class rockets. Even the slightest miscalculations or delay of a fraction of a second could cause disaster. There's absolutely no room for error.
Reuters
According to Techcrunch, Musk also said that SpaceX actually bit off more than it could chew with the Falcon Heavy, which is nothing short of strapping together three Falcon 9 rockets. Developing the monstrosity proved to be "way, way more difficult" than what the aerospace company had originally anticipated.
No human pilot will be aboard the initial flights of the Falcon Heavy, of course. But when the time eventually comes for humans to be part of test flights, Elon Musk said these early human "guinea pigs" will have to be brave.
The Falcon 9 Heavy plans to eventually take adventurous humans into space and onto the moon by late 2018.