Pushkin.

You are looking at a live view of the Falcon Heavy.

In 2018, Elon Musk's company, SpaceX, launched a rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida,

under blue skies streaked with clouds.

A giant white rocket attached to two smaller white boosters stood perched on the launch pad.

All systems are go for launch.

A crowd assembled at mission control, giddy and loud.

This was the company's splashiest launch yet of its biggest rocket. A crowd assembled at mission control, giddy and loud.

This was the company's splashiest launch yet of its biggest rocket, built for a Mars-crossing orbit.

Stacked inside the fairing is Elon's cherry-red Tesla Roadster.

Then there was the payload, described by SpaceX in its live broadcast.

And inside of it a passenger. His name is Starman, but don't worry, he's not human.

There was also an arc, a sort of Noah's Ark of an archive, on a space-proof quartz compact

disc.

On the ark that's being launched today, the Foundation has stored Isaac Asimov's classic

sci-fi series, The Foundation Trilogy.

One objective of this test flight was to put a Tesla Roadster carrying the works of Isaac

Asimov into orbit for a billion years.

Three, two, Musk origin story.

I'm Jill Lepore.

I'm a professor at Harvard.

I'm a U.S. political historian,

...