Entrepreneur Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, wants to make space launches more affordable. The private firm is vying for a NASA contract to deliver supplies to the International Space Station (Joshua Sudock/Special to The Christian Science Monitor)
Internet millionaire takes aim at Mars
PayPal cofounder Elon Musk’s latest enterprise just launched the first privately built liquid-fueled rocket into orbit around the Earth.
By Stephen Humphries | Staff writer/ October 15, 2008 edition
Staff writer Stephen Humphries discusses Elon Musk's brainchild of a rocket company trying to get off the ground.
Staff writer Stephen Humphries
Hawthorne, Calif.
Every morning, Elon Musk steels himself to once again do battle with gravity. A multimillionaire who made his fortune as cofounder of PayPal, Mr. Musk has spent six years and $100 million of his own money designing rockets for his company, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX). In August, he watched helplessly as a design flaw allowed Newtonian forces to triumph over his Falcon 1 – the third failure in as many launches.
If Musk’s wall-mounted photo of Muhammad Ali’s first-round, first-minute knockout of Sonny Liston signifies anything, it’s the South African-born entrepreneur’s determination to do things quickly and efficiently. “We did get to space on flights two and three,” says Musk, “but flight three really made me quite sad.” It took a fourth launch on Sept. 28, preceded by a family visit to Disneyland’s Space Mountain to calm Musk’s nerves, for Falcon 1 to become the first privately developed, liquid-fuel rocket to orbit Earth.
Having passed that milestone – or, more accurately, 434 vertical milestones – SpaceX is on a trajectory to revolutionize space transportation. Musk wants to make it more affordable through much cheaper launches. His larger ambition is to transport astronauts in Space X’s rocket capsule, effectively providing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration with an alternative to the space shuttle, due to be mothballed in 2010.
But his ultimate aim is Mars. “[Musk] really believes in the future of space, believes that humanity needs to be a space-faring civilization in order to survive long term,” says Bruce Pittman, director of flight projects at the NASA Ames Commercial Space Team/Alliance for Commercial Enterprise and Education in Space.
Despite such grand aspirations, the company’s offices, housed in an opaque building near several airstrips, aren’t ostentatious, and the only concession to flashiness is a sports shoe-like swoosh in the Space X logo. Sitting inside a cubicle where the few personal touches include toy robots and a model of Charles Lindbergh’s “Spirit of St. Louis,” Musk says he didn’t set out to start a rocket company. After selling PayPal to eBay in a $1.5 billion stock deal in 2002, he first embarked on an enterprise to spur public interest in Mars.
“I had a feasibility study done on a little project called Mars Oasis, which was to put a small greenhouse with seeds in dehydrated nutrient gel [on the planet’s surface],” says the soft-spoken Musk, who concentrates on interview questions the way Gary Kasparov studies a chessboard.
Musk’s grand vision of green plants against a red backdrop was dashed when he priced out the rocket launch. Too expensive. Believing he could do it more cheaply, he founded SpaceX. Few in Washington took him seriously. So he famously parked a model of a rocket prototype in front of the Federal Aviation Administration building.
In person, Musk isn’t brash or domineering – in that respect, he is neither a modern-day Howard Hughes nor a real-life Tony Stark, even though he’s renowned for his steely resolve. The one-time physics student assumed the role of designer when he was initially unable to hire away top rocket scientists.
“Rockets fail all the time, and hardly ever does a rocket work the first time you’ve built one,” says David Livingstone, host of “The Space Show,” a weekly Internet broadcast. “For him to have a flawless launch on the fourth try is miraculous.”
Chris Thompson, SpaceX’s vice president of structures, concurs. “[Musk] has picked up on everything related to propulsion, structures, avionics over the last six years. He’s a bright guy.”
Even so, there was internal skepticism when Musk proposed that the company’s flagship product, a 180-foot rocket, use nine engines, not one.
“Ah, the old configuration debate,” says Mr. Thompson with mock grandiosity. “When Elon had the revelation or epiphany, or whatever you want to call it, where he said, ‘Hey, we’re going to put nine engines on the back of this rocket,’ there were a lot of comments going back and forth – most of them pretty catty.”
Musk’s idea is that the design will allow the rocket to fly even if it loses an engine early in flight. SpaceX recently fired the Falcon 9’s engines for 35 seconds – enough to incinerate any lingering doubts. The rocket is vying for a NASA contract to deliver supplies to the International Space Station. If SpaceX wins the bid – and it’ll have to beat rival Orbital Sciences Corp. to do so – NASA has the option of commissioning manned flights. SpaceX isn’t waiting for NASA’s green light. The Falcon 9’s free-flying and reusable Dragon cargo capsule is multiuse: It can be reconfigured to accommodate up to seven astronauts.
Shaped like a cork with a cyclopslike porthole set between its conical nose and its 18 thrusters, a full-size model Dragon sits near the metallic ribs of the real thing on SpaceX’s factory floor. The factory also manufactures the Falcon 9, its various stages lying about like pieces of an oil pipeline. (Here, too, you’ll find geek touches such as a life-size model of a “Battlestar Galactica” robot.)
Unlike other aerospace companies, which rely heavily on subcontractors, SpaceX builds just about everything. It’s one way for the 500-employee organization – whose nonhierarchical culture is more Silicon Valley start-up than aerospace monolith – to keep costs low. Where possible, automation and software have replaced personnel, even on the launch pad in the Marshall Islands.
“[SpaceX’s competitors] are so tied to the government business and the government culture of doing things,” says Lon Raines, editor in chief of Space News, a trade publication. “The streamlined organization is where [SpaceX] can make a difference. They do make decisions faster, and they are trying to do this with far fewer people than you see on some of the traditional launch programs. That will be a big benefit but – who knows? – it could also be an Achilles heel.”
Musk says SpaceX will have failed if it doesn’t produce cheaper launches. But Orbital Sciences, too, promised low-priced launches in the 1990s, and its Pegasus rocket costs about $30 million per launch. Andrew Beal, who invested $200 million in now-defunct Beal Aerospace, wouldn’t laugh at Musk’s joke that the easiest way to become a millionaire in rocketry is to invest a billion dollars.
He wouldn’t be in it if he weren’t thinking big, and extending life beyond Earth is his goal. “I don’t need to work – I can buy anything I want,” says Musk, who is also chairman of Tesla Motors, the electric sports car manufacturer. “I’m just working because I think this is important.”
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Comments
2. Darnell Clayton | 10.16.08
While I am very optimistic about either SpaceX, China or NASA landing on the Moon, Mars seems to be a rather long shot goal.
If Elon can help launch men (and women) to the Moon, then I might be persuaded about Mars, as we have yet to build anything that can house humans for over a year without (that word is key) resupplying materials.
3. Jeff Williams | 10.22.08
Whilst all of America is fretting over some real nincompoops running for office, and the country’s government is heading towards bankruptcy, a private firm is quietly going out there and kicking spaceflight a*s all over the place. Elon has the best chance of anyone because he doesn’t have all that red tape swimming all over the place.
I watched the live webcast of launch four. Once the bird was up, poor Elon was in complete shock and mental lockdown!
I was soooo happy for him and his team. I had comuunicated with the gal who runs the webcast just prior to launch.
What a truly nice bunch of folks. I’m so glad they did it.
Best of luck to him and his fantastic team.
4. Roger Brannon | 10.22.08
If Elon Musk is resupplying the space station by 2011 my bet is he will be on Mars by 2020.That will be ahead of all other contenders.When NASA had the fire in their belly they went from the first unmanned orbital flight(Explorer 1) to manned Lunar orbit in 10 years and 11 months.With the knowledge of space flight engineering that is around today he can beat Apollo’s schedule.
5. Anime | 10.22.08
The first falcon 9 should be on launch pad by years end, and they are scheduled to deliver cargo to the iss in two years. I am a big fan of what musk has done, how flexible his company has been, and there plans for the future.
6. Brian | 10.23.08
Elon Musk definatly has the fire in his belly. My money is on his company beating everyone to Mars, and Nasa will probably be coming to him for launches very soon indeed. He’s my personal hero too Lel
7. BurlyEarly | 10.24.08
With any luck, Musk will succeed in helping humanity homestead Mars. With any more luck, future Martians will form a truly libertarian society, free of the shackles of government. The US almost managed to pull it off after the revolution against the British, but alas is slipping into the statist mold.
The opportunity to create wealth here is astonishing. An entire planet to homestead and tera-form! I’m sure some “green” ninny will complain about humans destroying the pristine, lifeless gem. I say bullocks - let’s polish the lifeless ugly gem into a beautiful, human-friendly, second home base.
8. Jack Waldbewohner | 10.26.08
I have the honor and pleasure of sitting in two long meetings with Elon Musk in Los Angeles and Boulder, Colorado. He is a visionary and a brilliant man. I compare him to Howard Hughes without Howard’s flamboyance and eccentric ways. He set out in life to help his fellow human being. He has been rewarded with a fortune and respect and admiration worldwide. Elon will blaze all sorts of new trails. He has earned my utmost respect,affection, and admiration. I am sure that one day he will walk on the surface of Mars.
9. david_42 | 10.30.08
It’s a pity Robert Heinlein and Pohl Anderson didn’t live to see this.
Space is too important to the survival of the species to be left to governments.
10. Andrew Rozell | 10.30.08
Read up on the mars direct mission plan originally conceived by Robert Zubrin and David Baker. Mars is an attainable goal right now.
Without making this about US policy, “we” could have gone to Mars multiple times for the cost of the war in Iraq.
Government sponsored space programs have achieved a lot and have put the human race in a great position but I don’t see these organizations making the next great leap in manned [local] exploration. Throughout history real achievements in exploration have been made by those with fortitude. In many people’s opinion NASA is too focused on safety and bogged down by bureaucratic nonsense; this is ultimately and hopefully their downfall in favor of accelerated private sector accomplishment.
11. Jack | 10.31.08
How silly in these times. Mars? Why?
I started my career after 2 engineering degrees, in the space business and about 15 spacecraft have my work on them that are or were flying at one time or other. ISS included. (I actually built and designed them for aerospace companies — not a science zoon at NASA wasting taxpayer money on pretend)
Space is useful for comsats and remote sensing. A robot to a planet is perfectly good if it is cheap and works.
There is nothing on the moon that we need.
We only get this planet, flying to space is an imaginary fantasy from comic books. (In 1969 when Armstrong was walking on the moon and I was in high school I spent the time fixing my car and heard a few words from the TV in my Aunt’s house. Boring then, boring now.)
If Elon’s rockets work and are cheaper than Lockheed, Boeing, Ariane, Russia, China, Japan, India, and Orbital Science he can have a place at the table. He ain’t going to re-invent them or show those guys a better way. He just gets a place alongside the others and a bit of the business if his works. If he blows up a couple more — “Next in Line!”
12. roga | 11.02.08
Jack - Thanks for injecting some reasonability in the thread. I think your point is very good and in Musk’s case it’s right on; but I don’t share your ultimate conclusions. Humanity will leave Earth and settle space… eventually. But I think the usual enlightened observer has no idea how difficult a challenge it is. Not so much from a technical standpoint, but from a systems standpoint. Early seafarers had only to worry about controlling structure. The first steamships and locomotives added propulsion to that. Modern airplanes tack on another layer - you could use aerodynamics to describe it imperfectly - in that falling out of the sky can kill you.
When you get out of all these, you can eat, breathe, and not die of radiation sickness. Space adds on a number of additional vital systems to combat things that can kill you - life support, growing food, recycling, radiation protection being the big ones. The brute force systems engineering approach is not self-sustaining, unstable to non-linear inputs, and not implementable on a large scale - this what we have now. Those who think that NASA’s successes are remotely close to what we need to become a spacefaring civilization are in a state of delusion. The only way it will come about is by a self-sustaining emergent system - markets need to be built from the ground up to satisfy all these needs automatically. This tends to lag exploration by several decades to several centuries. And it’s hard work. Someday, after trillions of dollars, a few billion words written, umpteen bankrupties and firesales, thousands of lost lives, hundreds of robot probes, a hundred and one scandals, a couple dozen abortive tried by independent nations, and probably a major war or two, there will be permanent colonies off Earth.
13. roboclaw | 11.04.08
To 12 roga
Everything you said is right. Musk is just showing private industry can be involved in space outside of development of satellites. I doubt he will privately get to Mars.
There are a lot of challenges. You left out the biggest gravity and lose of bone marrow. The second is a constant source of propulsion that is fast enough. There are tons of ways to do what you said are problems. Those too are bigger stumbling blocks. Enough led can protect you from radiation. Recycling oxygen and water is being done at a pretty decent rate already. The remaining can be stored for long enough time. Making gravity is pretty hard though rotation is a thought (though motion sickness probably would make it hard). That requires constant power and there is the rub. We get a fusion engine working off water then all these other problems go away. Energy my friend, energy is the problem. Musk should be working on that.
I completely disagree with Jack though. Its a life perspective thing.
Once you can sustain your own life and have some fun with it then what.
Learning is in mans nature and so is exploration. I can’t think of anything I would rather do then to have a shot at walking on mars. Why? Simple it would be historic it would make people realize that one can go to another planet and live 2 years in space. Man needs a mission and a future. Living on this planet for the rest of our existence has no future. Man needs to learn to live in space. But first we need to learn to crawl.
Plenty of other reasons to be in space. Like removing earth threatening comets/meteorites, Solar power collectors, resource collection (yes space has many many useful hard to find minerals), living space, the thrill of it, gaining perspective on ourselves, gaining scientific knowledge (many many products came from research meant for NASA) and thats just the tip of the iceberg.
We all just need to think about the bigger picture.
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1. Lel | 10.16.08
wow. not very often we see people like him these days. How much one really needs to retire extremely comfortable? 20 mil at the very most. The rest is pure excess. That’s why I am surprised to see how many modern days super-riches do so little for humanity. No matter whether his program succeeds or not, he is my personal hero!