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January 18, 2005
Entrepreneurial Space-Faring
This intriguging Wired News story reveals some details on Elon Musk's plans for Space-X - the Merlin engine is almost ready for real use on the first Falcon launch vehicles, and Musk intends to be able to launch 5 people on the 5-engine Falcon-V within 5 years, in order to win America's Space Prize by 2010.
More interesting for space advocates, Musk asserted that he wants to be part of something bigger: "I think it's very important that we become a spacefaring civilization, and that we eventually become multiplanetary."
First commercial launch of the Falcon-I vehicle is scheduled for March, 2005.
Posted by apsmith at January 18, 2005 09:45 PM
Comments
I think that Elon Musk's plan to put 5 people into Earth orbit is definitely going to help propel mankind into interplanetary space. I agree with Musk that mankind must become a multiplanetary species. If we do, we might eventually form a Federation of Planets in the next 100 years. This Federation could consist of the Earth, the Moon, Mars, the outer moons, and maybe colonies on Kuiper Belt objects. This would take enormous resources, but with advances in antimatter production and storage that will occur in the next 30 years, this could be acheived. Research is currently being done with developing antimatter initiated fusion propulsion technology that would give us ready access to the entire solar system and the kuiper belt.
Posted by: Richard Howard at January 21, 2005 10:50 AM
