Elon Musk: Our future in space depends on reusable rockets
 |
SpaceX
CEO Elon Musk, right, on Saturday describes stressful moments during
the company's Dragon mission to the International Space Station.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Elon Musk: Commercial space flight won't be affordable without reusable rockets
- CEO of SpaceX gives keynote at South by Southwest Interactive festival
- The SpaceX Dragon is currently docked at the International Space Station
- Musk also is CEO and chief designer at Tesla Motors, maker of electric cars
Musk, whose SpaceX Dragon is currently docked on the International Space Station,
showed a packed exhibit hall a two-day-old video of Grasshopper, an
experimental rocket. If fully realized, the rocket would propel
spacecraft out of the earth's atmosphere, then flip around, sprout
landing gear and return intact to the launch pad.
In the video, a
10-story-high Grasshopper rocket did just that -- except for the
leaving-the-atmosphere part. It blasted off, hovered, and then set
itself down at virtually the same spot where it began. The video, with
its Johnny Cash "Ring of Fire" soundtrack, drew cheers from the crowd.
SpaceX capsule rendezvous with ISS
Friday wasn't the first time Grasshopper has left the ground, but it was the most ambitious test to date, Musk said.
"With each successive test, we want to go higher and further," he said.
Musk, a festival keynote
speaker, made his fortune as the founder of Paypal. From there, he's
taken on private spaceflight as CEO of SpaceX, electric vehicles as CEO
and chief designer of Tesla Motors, and solar energy as chairman of
Solar City.
"Elon may be the planet's most exciting entrepreneur," said SXSW Interactive director Hugh Forrest.
During a
question-and-answer session with "3D Robotics" editor-in-chief Chris
Anderson, Musk said that affordable commercial space travel will never
be possible with the current model, which relies on single-use booster
rockets.
"Every mode of
transportation we're used to ... they're all reusable, but not rockets,"
Musk said. "If we can't make rockets reusable, the cost is just
prohibitive."
He said a reusable
rocket could make space launches 100 times cheaper. The price of fuel,
oxygen and the like for a launch currently amounts to just a fraction of
1% of its overall cost, he said.
Musk also recounted the
stressful moments around last week's launch of the unmanned Dragon cargo
vessel, which linked up with the Space Station last Sunday.
"It's extremely
nerve-wracking," he said. "The thing about a rocket launch is that all
your work is distilled into these few minutes, especially the few
seconds before liftoff."
The Dragon mission had
some extra nail-biting moments. Once in space, three of its four
thruster pods malfunctioned. Engineers were able to write new code and
beam it to the capsule and "pressure slam" oxygen into tanks that had
failed to oxidize.
"We were sort of trying to give it the spacecraft equivalent of the Heimlich maneuver," he said.
"It was hardcore. I don't want to go through that again."
Musk also confirmed
that, while he's in Texas, he's meeting with state lawmakers about the
possibility of building a commercial launch site in the state.
Currently, SpaceX --
which both works alongside NASA and counts the agency among its clients
-- launches from Cape Canaveral in Florida and Vandenberg Air Force Base
in California, which are both government sites.
Musk said Texas is the
leading candidate for the launch site and that, if things go smoothly,
construction could begin as early as next year.
end quote from:
No comments:
Post a Comment