Tesla Cybertruck spotted; Starship SN15 flies; Starlink orders soar. It’s the free edition of Musk Reads #246 — subscribe now to receive two more editions later this week!
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Musk quote of the week
“To the Moon!”
SpaceX: Inside the firm’s most ambitiously strange space mission
SpaceX plans to launch a funded, cryptocurrency-themed satellite to the Moon next year, Musk revealed over Twitter Sunday. The Doge-1 mission is themed around Dogecoin, which, at the time of writing, ranks as the world’s fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
Musk named three key features of the mission and not much else:
- The mission will be paid for in dogecoin.
- It will be the first cryptocurrency in space.
- It will be the first meme-themed space mission.
Little else is known at this time, but it could be SpaceX’s weirdest mission — even weirder than in February 2018, when SpaceX launched Musk’s red Tesla Roadster on a mission around the Solar System.
Watch Musk explain Dogecoin during this week’s Saturday Night Live appearance here:
The appearance coincided with a huge plummet in its value. The cryptocurrency dropped in value from 71 cents to 49 cents.
SpaceX also successfully cleared a major hurdle this week — the first successful high-altitude launch and landing for Starship. The SN15 flight on May 5 went off almost without a hitch, barring some flames after landing. Read more.
What was it like to witness the SN15 flight in person? Musk Reads+ subscribers last week heard from MaryLiz Bender, co-founder of Cosmic Perspective, about her experience of the iconic event.
Tesla
Dogecoin wasn’t the only feature of Musk’s SNL appearance. Musk also seemingly brought a prototype of the Tesla Cybertruck with him to New York:
The Cybertruck is expected to enter volume production next year.
The truck was also seen around the streets of New York City in a new video: