Fast Company has a very good article about the progress of SpaceX as it develops its Falcon line of rockets. Check it out.
A ton of facts are given in the article that are useful in figuring out what SpaceX is doing. It has 88 employees, which I guess gives the company a "burn rate" of about $10 - 20 million per annum -- very sustainable. Musk has spent over $50 million on the development of the Falcon I and Falcon V rockets. Musk has a fortune of approximately $328 million, some of which is tied up in SpaceX and at least one other space company. Musk is willing to spend up to $100 million for this project and perhaps higher, depending on the circumstances. Lastly, SpaceX is contemplating development of a BFR. I'm dying to know its weight class.
Lots of fun to contemplate.
As I said in another thread, the real safe, every day "Honda" of space is using an engine that hasn't been built yet. Rockets aren't child's play and until the space engine IS, it won't be commonplace.
Posted by: Nathan Hampton | March 04, 2005 at 02:10 AM
And as I said in that other thread, you cannot know this to be true, given the lack of data.
Posted by: Daniel Schmelzer | March 04, 2005 at 12:47 PM