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[FiRe] On to Mars to back up the biosphere: SpaceX Technologies
These are notes from the Future in Review conference. More here.
Elon Musk, founder and sole financier of SpaceX Technologies, explained their business and what they are doing. Probably the most out-of-there presentation of the whole conference. In short, SpaceX is developping and building a rocket that will launch its first satellite into space by the end of this year. Higher goals are in the bag for later.
General Motivation: Immediate company motivation is that as of now the cost of launch of space vehicles is too high. The long-term, larger vision is to help mankind to expand beyond Earth. We should become a "multi-planetary species". Another interesting keyword: "Backup the biosphere." Right now, we are at a unique point in time, where we can actually work on backup plans for a possible species extinction. Mars is the right planet because it's the only planet close-by which is somehow imagineable to contain human life.
Company History: After having sold Paypal, he wanted to do something philanthrophically regarding space exploration. He was thinking about a low-cost, robotic mission to Mars that would truly excite people, so that legislative pressure would be increased to set the goal of a self-sustaining basis on Mars. He came up with the mission "Mars Oasis", which would bring Earth plants inside kind of a greenhouse to Mars. This could have a large PR impact ("furthest life ever travelled", "first export of planet's life to other planet"). After a feasibility study with experts, he found out that they could do that for $15-$20m. But the costs for the launch vehicle were not included yet. He tried to find launch vehicles in the US and also went to Russia. But either the price or the risk were too high. But after the third time in Russia, one question came up: Why are the Russian cost so low? He saw a problem: In three decades, where all technologies have improved, rockets have actually not improved - neither in their cost nor in their benefits. Conclusion: One should be able to achieve a much cheaper rocket. So, he put together a team of scientists that had been involved in almost all earlier launches to find out how to build a cheaper, better launch vehicle. And he formed SpaceX in 2002.
Product: Their rocket "Falcon" is completely self-developped. First stage is already produced. Second stage is in production. They use a tried-and-tested basic rocket concept, but they have improved notably. Their first stage goes down by parachute into the sea and is then collected by someone external. Later, they plan full recovery of all parts.
Market: First two satellite launches already sold to customers, with the first launch planned for late 2003. Competition in the US mainly Orbital Sciences' Pegasus (list price $30m and a failure rate of 10%). Boeing and Lockheed produce larger launch vehicles. Other competition in Russia, China, and Europe. The Falcon in contrast is priced at $6m. This price reduction is so significant, it can indeed send ripples through the market. It will -- should it work -- be an offer the larger incumbents can't match. And it will make completely new applications for space launches possible, e.g. university satellites. One of their two customers would not have flown were it not for Falcon.
Future: Later, they also plan manned missions. But the proof-of-concept will come with commercial missions. The requirement later will be fulfilled by using a propulsive lander to bring back humans as well. Ballistic re-entry capsule with a propulsic landing system (like the Apollo moon lander). The final follow-on vehicle (internal codename: "BFR") depends on how long it takes to develop the engine for that.
Elon Musk: Apart from that, Elon Musk seems to be quite the successful entrepreneur. He co-founded two companies prior to SpaceX, both of which were sold for $350m and $1.5bn respectively. And he is only 31 years old as of today.
Sidenote: What I liked especially is that he is putting his efforts where his dreams are. Whereas many people have probably said to themselves when they were young that they would do something great like building a rocket when they were rich, most just continue doing what they were doing before. But Elon Musk is really setting out to build a rocket and shoot it up into space. When the question came from the audience why he was doing this startup, but not a third "conventional" Silicon Vally startup, he answered that this was the most interesting thing he could think of. Great. Definitely not going to have midlife crisis issues, I guess.