Eighteen months ago, Elon Musk launched a 50-lb. wheel of cheese
into space. Really. Musk was preparing for the first orbital
test of his brand-new Dragon spacecraft atop his brand-new
Falcon 9 rocket, and it seemed a shame to send the ship up
empty. So he drove to nearby Beverly Hills, Calif., and bought
the biggest piece of cheese he could find; then he and a few of
his engineers at the Space Exploration Technologies Co., or
SpaceX, rigged it into place inside the capsule and sent it off.
The Dragon made it into orbit and came home safely--becoming the
first vehicle launched by a private company to achieve such a
feat--and today the cheese (an earthy Le Broure, in case you
were wondering) rests in a display case just off the factory
floor of the SpaceX facility in Hawthorne. The Soviets had Laika
the dog. The U.S. had Ham the chimp. Musk has his wheel of space
cheese. Last month Musk had much more serious business on his
mind. Another Dragon spacecraft was flying, this one to deliver
half a ton of provision