An Essay
This week saw the crash and burn of two commercial space ships; one manned, the other unmanned. Regardless of how commonplace spaceflight seems to have become it is still dangerous business. As Elon Musk quipped when a SpaceX test vehicle self-destructed (as intended) when something went haywire over the McGregor Texas test site, “Rockets are tricky“.
This video predates Dragon V2, but the basic concepts remain the same.
Crew capability was the very reason SpaceX was founded, so we will do whatever it takes to make this happen. – Elon Musk
Related:
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
President John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1962, speaking to incoming freshman students at Rice University, Houston, Texas
The Register is reporting that Elon Musk expects to have space-farers on Mars within the next twelve years. Only when the “interplanetary mission gets underway” does he expect to “float [SpaceX] on Earth-bound stock exchanges.”
Read the full story at The Register.
Previously posted videos
In case you missed them … or just want to watch them again.
I feel like a kid again.
Elon Musk is my hero.
Contrafactual 