Reaching Earth orbit and only spending a thousand dollars per pound to get your spacecraft there--it's long been the shining goal of the launch business. Tuesday, Elon Musk, the founder of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), made an announcement promising a new launch beast that could reach that mark in a couple of years--and shake up the space industry. He unveiled a new launch vehicle dubbed "Falcon Heavy." It's a derivative of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, which successfully delivered a pressurized capsule into orbit in December after a successful first flight last summer. But Musk says the Heavy will be able to blast five times as much payload into orbit.

via SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket - Private Space Technology - Popular Mechanics.