3 ms·
What’s special isn’t so much putting people into LEO, so much as a private company having done it! It’s one thing for a nation-state to send a mission across th
by mitchellgoffpc 8y ago
What’s special isn’t so much putting people into LEO, so much as a private company having done it! It’s one thing for a nation-state to send a mission across the Atlantic or to the moon, but it’s a VERY different thing for companies to begin doing those things — developing rockets has always been enormously expensive, and this test (among others) signals that companies are finding ways to do it profitably. If this trend continues, we can probably expect the cost of a ticket to space to drop dramatically in the next 20 years. Wouldn’t it be amazing to visit other planets in our lifetimes?
- computerex 8y agoI think you are getting ahead of yourselves. For one thing, SpaceX is a launch provider. Whether there is even demand for Mars launches remains to be seen. I think SpaceX itself has said that it can't/won't be funding the Mars launches. And secondly, this was an unmanned test launch to LEO. I think it'd be more prudent to wait till we get reliable manned launches to LEO before dreaming about other planets. It's very cool that private companies are now doing this type of stuff. But imo the technical challenges still remain.
- jryle70 8y ago> I think SpaceX itself has said that it can't/won't be funding the Mars launches. What they said was they couldn't be funding the whole Mar endeavor. They certainly can and plan to fund Mars launches. They stated their aspirational goal of sending the first unmanned spaceship to Mar in 2022, followed 2 years later with a manned one. They have seemed to pivot a bit to Moon, so I'm not so sure what their current plan is, but a trip to Mar isn't out of their reach financially.
- computerex 8y ago> but a trip to Mar isn't out of their reach financially. Source? I highly doubt this is accurate.