Space X designs rockets and space cargo ships that are set to transport cargo to the space station. The next flight of Space X's Falcon 9 which will carry the Dragon capsule to the space station is scheduled for April 30th.
There is a lot competition by private companies to build NASA's next manned space craft which will fly astronauts to the space station and Elon Musk is very optimistic that Space X will win that contract.
This is very interesting to me because, for one, the U.S. is actually contracting space flight out to private companies, and it it seems to be working! This is exactly what I would do if I had billions of dollars. Who wouldn't want to build space craft! It is a long video, but worth the watch in my opinion.
Elon Musk is a fascinating guy. He has business and physics degrees, dropped out of grad school to star to start an internet company, and later was one of 5 co-founders of PayPal. He is CEO and chief technology officer of Space X, despite not having and aerospace background (he claims to be self taught). Space X was awarded a $1.6 billion from NASA for 12 flights of their Falcon 9 rocket. Musk has business interests the internet, clean energies, and space. He was the inspiration for character Tony Slark (Iron Man) in the Iron Man movies (which I have not seen).
"I think it's important that humanity become a multi-planet species. I think most people would agree that a future where we are a space faring civilization is inspiring and exciting compared with one where we are forever confined to Earth until some eventually extinction event." -Elon Musk
This guy is awesome!
No comments:
Post a Comment