Yesterday, Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, was a panel guest on NPR Talk of the Nation's Science Friday (he's fast becoming an NPR regular, apparently). He mentioned that after developing the Falcon V, which is to fly next year, SpaceX will be "working on making the upper stage reusable, which would enable human transportation."
I don't know for certain the connection between making the upper stage reusable and human transportation, but it probably has to do with cost. Maybe there are also reliability advantages in making their upper stage reusable. In any event, we now know that SpaceX will be working to make the Falcon V a manned system in the near to medium-term. Of course, oftentimes business plans change, as happened last year with a reconfiguration of the Falcon V from a 3 booster concept to a one booster, 5 engine concept. But SpaceX's manned space program plans seem much closer now than what seemed likely previously.
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