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.
I've met Elon, he's pretty candid about the fact that he wants to go to Mars. I'm not surprise at all that he wants to be putting people into orbit in the next 4-5 years (or less)
Posted by: Martin | July 07, 2004 at 11:34 AM
I would love to see it or participate in it, but it seems like a short period to complete the task, given how the projects of his private customers -- especially Bigelow's -- are lining up. Building the necessary infrastructure seems like a time-intensive task as well.
In any event, maybe Elon's timelines are more realistic than mine. We've never had a successful private program and my expectations unfortunately still are rooted in the government-influenced aerospace world. For my own part, I'm perfectly comfortable with seeing Elon set the most ambitious goals, knowing that what he gets in the end may only fall slightly short.
Posted by: Dan Schmelzer | July 08, 2004 at 10:05 AM