Elon Musk And The Space Cheese Adventure

Elon Musk, tech mogul of Tesla fame, is well-known for his extraterrestrial endeavours. The day after launching a used orbital rocket booster for the first time, tech mogul Elon Musk took to Twitter to tease the future of his aerospace company, SpaceX.

On March 30, SpaceX fired off one of its Falcon 9 rockets and delivered a satellite into orbit about 22,230 miles (35,790 kilometers) above Earth. The major feat of the mission was that its booster – you know that thing that falls off in all those space movies – flew a year earlier. All others of its kind have crashed into the ocean or the ground, never to be used again.

After promoting this feat on Twitter, various members of the Twitterati were curious about the payload of the flight which prompted Elon Musk to remind everyone that he shot a wheel of cheese into space. Yes, you read that correctly.

Most maiden flights don’t carry anything valuable in the payload since the risk of catastrophe is so high.

However, SpaceX is known for its secret payloads and Musk said that it was the “silliest thing we can imagine! Secret payload of 1st Dragon flight was a giant wheel of cheese. Inspired by a friend & Monty Python.”

Musk is referring to the ‘Cheese Shop’ comedy sketch which you can see below. I must say, I admire his taste, perhaps he could have called the first Dragon flight ‘The Life of Cheeses’ (too much?)

The LA Times revealed that on 8^th December 2010 a cheese wheel, of the Le Brouere variety, was the secret payload. Just a friendly reminder that a wheel of cheese made it to space before you.