Musk's Mars plans: SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket soars in debut test launch

The demonstration flight put the Falcon Heavy into the annals of spaceflight as the world's most powerful rocket in operation, with more lift capacity than any space vehicle to fly since NASA's Saturn

The world's most powerful rocket, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, roared into space through clear blue skies in its debut test flight on Tuesday from a Florida launch site where moon missions once began, in another milestone for billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's private rocket company. 
 

The 23-story-tall jumbo rocket, carrying a cherry red Tesla Roadster automobile into space as a mock payload, thundered off its launchpad in billowing clouds of steam and rocket exhaust at 3:45 p.m (2045 GMT) at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. 
 

Boisterous cheering could be heard from SpaceX workers at the company's headquarters in Hawthorne, California,