4 ms·
In what way is most of his money spent on Mars? Most of his money seems to go to LEO cargo launch tech, and solar panels, batteries, and the cars that use them
by M_Grey 10y ago
In what way is most of his money spent on Mars? Most of his money seems to go to LEO cargo launch tech, and solar panels, batteries, and the cars that use them to charge.
- Robotbeat 10y agoBut those are investments, not really "spending." Mars doesn't really have a direct financial payback (although any payback would be helpful in making it possible). And Musk seems to say that's what he plans on using his money for. Also, the LEO cargo launch tech (which SpaceX is being paid for, by the way) is being leveraged for Mars using the Red Dragon concept, which is using a Falcon Heavy to launch a Dragon to the surface of Mars. Red Dragon itself is being paid for by SpaceX without government funding to SpaceX. (although NASA /is/ providing valuable free assistance to help make the mission a success--including data relay and EDL expertise--in exchange for SpaceX providing EDL data to NASA. This will end up saving NASA a lot of money, since NASA will not need a dedicated supersonic retropropulsion EDL tech demo to prepare for human-class landers).
- greglindahl 10y agoIt's worth noting that Falcon Heavy development is being paid for by SpaceX, as were the upgrades to Falcon 9 to increase its payload. SpaceX plans on making that money back from commercial launches, mainly heavier geosync satellites. Aside from the two launch failures, SpaceX has been very efficient with R&D&operations.