Take a ride!
SpaceX unveiled its new Falcon Heavy rocket a month before its first launch. SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk said the Falcon Heavy will launch his own cherry-red Tesla Roadster into space.
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This photo made available by SpaceX on Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2017 shows the new Falcon Heavy rocket in a hangar at Cape Canaveral, Fla. It is scheduled for a test flight in January 2018. (SpaceX via AP)
First, SpaceX will test-fire the rocket's 27 engines at the pad; the company is aiming to do that by the end of the month. The launch is planned for a few weeks after the test.
Musk has repeatedly warned there's a good chance the new rocket could blow up, thus his own personal property will be aboard. He heads up the Tesla electric car company, as well as SpaceX and several other companies.
The Falcon Heavy will be minus its featured load for the test. That's been customary ever since a Falcon 9 exploded during a 2016 practice engine firing, destroying both rocket and satellite.
This photo made available by SpaceX on Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2017 shows the new Falcon Heavy rocket in a hangar at Cape Canaveral, Fla. It is scheduled for a test flight in January 2018. (SpaceX via AP)
Photo via Twitter@SpaceX
This photo made available by SpaceX on Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2017 shows the new Falcon Heavy rocket in a hangar at Cape Canaveral, Fla. It is scheduled for a test flight in January 2018. (SpaceX via AP)
First, SpaceX will test-fire the rocket's 27 engines at the pad; the company is aiming to do that by the end of the month. The launch is planned for a few weeks after the test.
Falcon Heavy is essentially the company's Falcon 9 times three. It features three Falcon 9 first-stage boosters joined together with a second-stage on the middle one. It also has three times more engines.
The Falcon 9 is now used to hoist satellites and supplies to the International Space Station. The Heavy is intended for super-big satellites, as well as cargo destined for points far beyond, like Mars.
This photo made available by SpaceX on Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2017 shows the new Falcon Heavy rocket in a hangar at Cape Canaveral, Fla. It is scheduled for a test flight in January 2018. (SpaceX via AP)
Photo via Twitter@SpaceX
Musk has repeatedly warned there's a good chance the new rocket could blow up, thus his own personal property will be aboard. He heads up the Tesla electric car company, as well as SpaceX and several other companies.
If all goes as planned, Musk's Roadster will wind up in a long, elliptical orbit around the sun, stretching as far out as the orbit of Mars. He laid out the jaw-dropping plan in a series of tweets earlier this month. Last week, a SpaceX manager said the company will meet all necessary government requirements.
"I love the thought of a car drifting apparently endlessly through space and perhaps being discovered by an alien race millions of years in the future," Musk wrote.
Elon Musk (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
The Falcon Heavy will be minus its featured load for the test. That's been customary ever since a Falcon 9 exploded during a 2016 practice engine firing, destroying both rocket and satellite.
The Falcon Heavy will have double the thrust of the next biggest rocket out there today, according to Musk. "Guaranteed to be exciting, one way or another," he promised.
SpaceX advertises that the Falcon Heavy will be able to lift 140,660 pounds of cargo to low-Earth orbit, 37,040 pounds to Mars, and 7,720 pounds to Pluto.
NASA's Saturn V moon rocket, used during the late 1960s and early 1970s, will still top the charts. But none of it was reusable. NASA introduced reusability with its space shuttles in 1981, reflying the orbiters as well as booster segments and main engines until their retirement in 2011.
SpaceX has paved the way for rocket reusability on the commercial side of orbital flight. Two of the Heavy's three first-stage boosters have flown before. After blasting off from NASA's historic Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, all three will attempt vertical landings, two on land and one on a floating offshore platform.
Photo via Twitter@SpaceX
Photo via Twitter@SpaceX
This photo made available by SpaceX on Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2017 shows the new Falcon Heavy rocket in a hangar at Cape Canaveral, Fla. It is scheduled for a test flight in January 2018. (SpaceX via AP)
SpaceX is working on an even bigger rocket that would replace the Falcon line.
NASA is also working on a megarocket, the Space Launch System or SLS. So is United Launch Alliance, a venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, with its next-generation Vulcan.
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are tumbling after a report suggesting flagging economic growth and still-high inflation hurt hopes that have kept Wall Street high recently. A sharp drop for Facebook parent Meta Platforms also dragged the market lower. The S&P 500 fell 1.3% early Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 503 points, and the Nasdaq composite fell 2.1%. Treasury yields jumped in the bond market after the government reported that inflation remained hotter than forecast in the first three months of the year. It also reported that the U.S. economy’s growth slowed during the period to a 1.6% annual rate, well below forecasts.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
Markets on Wall Street gave back some of this week's gains early Thursday ahead of another heavy slate of corporate earnings and the government's initial estimate of how the U.S. economy fared in the first quarter of 2024.
Futures for the Dow Jones industrials and the S&P 500 each declined 0.6% before the bell.
Southwest Airlines fell nearly 8% after the carrier said it lost $231 million in the first quarter and will limit hiring, offer voluntary leave to employees and stop flying to four airports. CEO Robert Jordan said the airline was reacting quickly “to address our financial underperformance” and cope with delayed deliveries of new planes from Boeing.
American Airlines reported a $312 million loss in its most recent quarter as labor costs rose, but said it expects to return to profitability in the second quarter. That sent its stock up 5.2% before markets opened Thursday.
Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta fell 15.6% in after hours trading when it issued lukewarm revenue guidance after the bell Wednesday along with otherwise strong first-quarter financial results.
Two others of the “Magnificant Seven” stocks — Google parent Alphabet and Microsoft — report their most recent quarterly results after the bell Thursday. Those companies drove most of the U.S. stock market’s gain last year, and they’ll need to perform to justify their high prices.
The hope is that profit growth will broaden beyond the Magnificent Seven to other types of companies, in large part because of a remarkably solid U.S. economy. They’ll likely need to deliver fatter profits if they want their stock prices to rise. That’s because they’re unlikely to get much help from the other lever that can lift stock prices: interest rates.
After a flurry of rate hikes beginning more than two years ago, the Federal Reserve has left interest rates alone at its last five meetings. Expectations that the U.S. central bank would start slashing rates have been undercut by a strong economy and job market.
Fed officials will get more data on the U.S. economy Thursday when the government releases its initial estimate of the country's gross domestic product in the first quarter of 2024. Analysts expect that GDP — the economy’s total output of goods and services — grew at a slow but still-decent 2.2% annual pace from January through March.
France's CAC 40 lost 0.9% in midday trading, while Germany's DAX dipped 0.6%. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.7%.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 slid 2.2% to 37,628.48. South Korea's Kospi dropped 1.8% to 2,628.62. But Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.5% to 17,284.54, while the Shanghai Composite rose 0.3% to 3,052.90.
Markets were closed in Australia for a national holiday, Anzac Day.
Attention is also turning to the Bank of Japan, whose two-day monetary policy meeting started Thursday.
“For the record, heading into tomorrow’s policy decision, exceptional Japanese yen weakness is the agitated elephant in the room for the BOJ,” Tan Jing Yi of Mizuho Bank said in a commentary.
In currency trading, the U.S. dollar rose to 155.55 Japanese yen from 155.31 yen. The euro cost $1.0722, up from $1.0697.
The yen has been trading at 155 yen-levels lately, its lowest level in 34 years. That helps Japanese exporters by raising the value of their overseas earnings, but it also raises the price of imports.
Speculation has been growing Japan may intervene to prop up the yen. But opinion is divided if and when that might happen.
Chris Turner, global head of research at ING Economics, said the dollar's trading above 155 yen was at a level many had expected to trigger an intervention in the market, but conditions weren't sufficient.
“The sufficiency has to come from market conditions and one can argue we are not there yet,” Turner said, pointing to recent trading volatility.
In energy trading early Thursday, benchmark U.S. crude added 19 cents to $83 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 17 cents to $87.21 a barrel.
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Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shortly after the opening bell, Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
People walk in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
People walk in front of an electronic stock board showing U.S. Dollar/Japanese Yen exchange rate at a securities firm Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
A person looks at an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
People look at an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
People walk in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
