If you’ve followed SpaceX Falcon 9 launches for a while, you may know that the company routinely lands each vehicle’s first stage — the bottommost portion of the rocket that gives the initial burst of power at liftoff — on seafaring platforms that SpaceX calls “droneships.”
Musk’s company has bestowed some intriguing names on those vessels — including Just Read the Instructions, A Shortfall of Gravitas, and Of Course I Still Love You. Those are all nods to Iain M. Banks’ “Culture” series of science fiction books.
