ME - 18
Korey Patterson & Nicholas Varga
The Secret Story of ME-18
BREAKING NEWS 11/20/2020: It has just been discovered that Elon Musk and the US government have been hiding important information right over the heads of US citizens and people around the world. Read below to learn more about this breaking story.
Back in 2002 Elon Musk launched a new space exploration company called SpaceX. The company was created with the goal of finding a way to make space travel an affordable enterprise. In 2010, after eight years of research and development, Elon and his team started working on a test station to help find life beyond Earth and take people to other planets. Finally, in 2018 SpaceX launched this spacecraft, formally known as ME-18 (or Mars Explorator-18, for the year of the launch), into space. This cruiser was built as a symbol of sustainability and hope for the future of mankind.
There was one major issue about this launch. SpaceX did not obtain the mandatory licences and approvals to commence such a launch and they did so in secrecy. They got away with it for around two years, until NASA discovered an object moving very fast towards Earth. They later discovered the unidentified object to be ME-18 hurtling through space- illegally. When US government officials got word of what had been secretly happening for the past two years, they knew that something needed to be done to ensure future safety in space travel and that something along these lines couldn’t happen again. This response was a result of government officials starting to realize that the technology of commercial space travel is here and ready to be implemented. Consequently, the US government added a fifth branch of the military on December 20th, 2019 called Space Force. The Space Force then instructed SpaceX to return their spacecraft to Earth, however, they declined this request. Then, in April of 2020 Space Force engaged in their first active mission to safely shoot down ME-18 when it was returning to Earth's atmosphere to restock equipment and food, as well as drop off it’s research and findings. The ambush attack of Space Force was successful and they were able to take down ME-18 and land it in an open part of the desert between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The US government, embarrassed at what they had missed for two years, wanted to keep this story a secret and cover it up the best they could. A rumor about a meteor hitting Earth in 2020 and the creation of the Space Force were both attempts of cover ups for this incident. Elon Musk was told by the government that he needed to find an alternative use for ME-18 to hide its original purpose from the rest of the world. Since it had landed in the middle of the desert, Musk realized that his new concept for the Hyperloop could run right through the exact spot that ME-18 landed. He then had the idea of using the old spaceship as a Hyperloop testing facility, since it already contained labs, classrooms, and research spaces. That catches you up
on what has been hidden from everyone while we’ve all been locked down in quarantine and explains how Elon Musk got his sudden interest in designing the buildings around the Hyperloop in a Cyberpunk style.
![Patterson_Varga_Perspective.jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d70646_6a1d9a3bb8e846db8940193de6edeaba~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_600,h_338,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Patterson_Varga_Perspective.jpg)
![Patterson_Varga_Plan.png](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d70646_dd86e9129d2a4172a9c79e3f114e646c~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_600,h_338,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Patterson_Varga_Plan.png)
![Patterson_Varga_Section1.png](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d70646_d007dd6442474ec7ad27132d430711f7~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_600,h_337,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Patterson_Varga_Section1.png)
![Patterson_Varga_Section2.jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d70646_7bc744026f154d25b32d39c0107d002b~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_600,h_337,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Patterson_Varga_Section2.jpg)