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Spacex Elon mask. SpaceX story: How Elon Musk is pushing the colonization of Mars. How SpaceX's development is affected by Musk's relationship with the White House

What high-profile announcements should we expect in the coming years? And, most importantly, where will Musk get the money for this?

Elon Musk's SpaceX has many ambitious projects, but two stand out among them - to entangle the planet with a network of Internet satellites and build a huge rocket that can take people to the Moon and Mars. There is little information about these plans, but we still know something - from the company's statements, Elon Musk's tweets and published ones.

SpaceX's flagship product, the Falcon 9 rocket, recently received NASA certification for the world's most expensive science missions. Company President Gwynn Shotwell called the event "a major achievement for the Falcon 9 team." The company said at least 22 Falcon 9 launches are planned for 2019, highlighting the reliability of the rocket that will take astronauts into orbit next year.

But all over the world, only $5.5 billion is spent annually on rocket launches, and this money goes to competitors from Europe, Russia and China, among other things. So SpaceX needs to develop new lines of business to justify the $27 billion valuation.

Internet from space

The global goal of the Starlink project is to launch several thousand satellites into low Earth orbit and provide Internet access to all users on Earth. These plans have been developed in the company for several years. This year the news is mixed. On the one hand, two test satellites have been launched and approval has been received from the US government. On the other hand, there have been changes in the leadership of the project, and today SpaceX refuses to say who is now responsible for the design and construction of satellites.

However, the company still plans to launch the service in 2020, with the first batch of satellites expected to be in orbit by the end of next year. Computer scientist Mark Handley of University College London believes that the Internet connection will be so fast that it will be able to use high-speed .).

Recently, the US Federal Communications Agency, led by Ajit Pai, launched an initiative to ease the regulation of space-related businesses. And this is in the hands of SpaceX, since the Starlink project requires the launch of 4425 satellites, which will double the number of vehicles in orbit and increase the risk of collisions and space debris.

On Nov. 7, a SpaceX executive who is working on obtaining satellite licenses met with Pai to show how seriously SpaceX takes this problem, because the company's survival depends on the ability to launch satellites, which means space debris threatens itself in the first place. The next day, SpaceX filed an application to lower the orbital height of future satellites by 560 kilometers from their original plans.

The lower orbit reduces the risk of debris because within five years the satellites will deorbit and burn up in the atmosphere, plus there will be 16 fewer satellites needed and faster connections. On the other hand, SpaceX will have to sacrifice some of its service coverage and amortize investments in satellites over a shorter timeframe, but the company clearly believes that these costs will make it easier to get approval from regulators and shareholders.

Matt Desh, CEO of Iridium, a satellite communications company that uses SpaceX to put vehicles into orbit, called the move "very responsible."

Missile launch financing

Musk says the goal of the Starlink project is to raise money for the company's Mars mission. However, the launch of the system itself will cost a lot, and SpaceX is planning to borrow money. According to Bloomberg, the company hopes to raise $750 million, with Bank of America as the organizer of the round.

It is reported that initially they wanted to organize the deal through Goldman Sachs, with which Musk usually cooperates, but the investment bankers refused to participate, suggesting that the company would continue to lend more and more. Today, SpaceX has no major debts, and even has a profit, but the company does rely on borrowed funds to finance future launches and government projects.

The company's first spacecraft, called the Falcon 1, was funded largely by Musk's personal funds. The next major project, the Falcon 9 and the Dragon spacecraft, was created with government support. In 2015, Google and Fidelity invested a billion dollars in SpaceX, partly for the Starlink project. But raising funds to build a huge, fully reusable BFR rocket capable of taking people to Mars (which the company wants to launch by 2022) is much more difficult.

Another source of income is space tourism. It is known that Musk accepted from the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa a significant deposit of the order of hundreds of millions of dollars - for a future flight around the moon.

Musk last Saturday

Elon Musk is an upstart. Elon Musk is a genius. Elon Musk is just a talented manager. For some, he causes envy, others want to be like him. Everything is as usual when it comes to a famous and successful person. Few people remember where the origins are, what is true and what is false: the existing information, which concerns the late 1990s - early 2000s, is shrouded in some kind of strange fog. It was then, as is commonly believed, "it all began."

Those familiar with Musk's biography know that he was born in 1971 in South Africa, but left his native country at a young age. His mother - from Canada - was at that time a model and a professional nutritionist, his father was an electronic engineer. Maybe it was he who influenced the future of his son, because after the divorce of his parents in 1979, Elon and his younger brother Kimbal decided to stay with dad.

In 2015, Errol Musk, Elon's father, gave an interview to Fortune magazine. In it, Musk Sr. assured that his son was primarily interested in books, and not in abstract conversations about sports or similar topics. "He was an introverted thinker" Errol said. Parents often idealize their children, especially when they really managed to achieve a lot.

Outcast

According to the headman of the school where Elon studied, the future billionaire was in the computer club of the educational institution. Probably. It turned out that in his youth, Musk was very inconspicuous, did not show much activity in general events, and he had few friends among other schoolchildren, to put it mildly - once the boy even ended up in the hospital with a broken nose after he was beaten by local hooligans - ringleaders. When you read about Elon's childhood, you may get an image of a nerd that no one notices, and if he sees, he strives to give a slap on the back of the head. As it was in reality, no one is recognized.

At the age of about 9-10 years old, Musk received at his disposal a Commodore VIC-20 computer that had just entered the market with a six-month training course. An inquisitive mind helped me understand the basics of programming in three days. At the age of 12, Elon wrote a game that he managed to sell to a computer magazine for $500 (today it's just over $1.2 thousand adjusted for inflation). Blastar is rather terrible, nevertheless, the mention of it appeared on the pages of PC and Office Technology. "Corny, but still better than Flappy Bird"- said Musk, already becoming a billionaire.

Path to Silicon Valley

When Elon turned 17, he immigrated to Canada - after all, South Africa is not the country where you can get a good start for a technological career. "Silicon Valley was like the Promised Land to Musk"- writes one of the biographers. And another source names a completely banal reason - neither Elon nor his younger brother Kimbal did not want to serve compulsory military service in the country where they were born. Moreover, apartheid reigned there. According to another version, young Musk went to Canada on his own earned money and without the consent of his parents, but also because of his unwillingness to serve. Finally, the most romantic option - Elon went to conquer the world.

Elon Musk while studying in Canada

Here, the future businessman did not stay long and after a couple of years he transferred from a Canadian university to the University of Pennsylvania in the USA. Then an attempt was made to enter Stanford. She was unsuccessful, because she really wanted to work.

While still a student, Musk thought about who and what he wants to become. The starting point for him was the question: “What will have the greatest impact on the future of mankind?” The answer consisted of a list that listed: the Internet; sustainable energy; space exploration and, in particular, the possibility of establishing permanent colonies outside the Earth; artificial intelligence; DNA reprogramming. Elon spoke about this in one of the StarTalk radio interviews a few years ago. The words, however, are perceived with a degree of distrust - one can hardly imagine how Musk made such an advanced list a decade and a half or two decades ago. However, not everyone is limited by needs like "a new car, a house and a lot of money"...

Elon decided to start with energy, which led the young man to Stanford, where he tried to study supercapacitors. At the same time, Musk was writing Internet-oriented software and drawing up business plans. In 1995, Netscape was on a horseback, Amazon had recently started its work, and Elon's friend Adeo Ressi launched the city site Total New York in 1994 and could not get enough of his brainchild (which was later sold to AOL Corporation). Around like mushrooms, new companies and enterprises appeared, which today are called nothing more than startups. Bill Gates was on TV on The David Letterman Show about the future of the internet. Musk himself, “being on trend”, used a telephone directory bought on CD to create a site-catalog of enterprises and organizations, but he was missing something.


The ambitious South African became emotionally ill - the “syndrome of missed profits” began to fall on him. But Google has not yet earned. In addition, Elon allegedly seriously owes a student loan. Something had to be done!

PayPal

However, the closer to general recognition, the more contradictions appear in Musk's biography. But the "star boy" was born - simultaneously with the Zip2 company, a primitive "city guide" on the net by today's standards, a modern replacement for those same "Yellow Pages". The idea was not new and probably borrowed from Adeo Ressi with his already existing project.

After two days at Stanford, Elon leaves the university and gives his all to Zip2, co-founded with his brother. They say that Musk lived right in the office, not missing a minute of his working time. The project developed successfully until Compaq bought it in 1999 for $307 million, which brought 27-year-old Elon $22 million.

Here everything was not too smooth. The fact is that in 1998, Zip2 intended to merge with a competitor in the person of CitySearch and the deal was estimated at the same $300 million. The Musk platform was supposed to dissolve into a new enterprise, which, apparently, did not suit the IT businessman. According to unofficial data, it was the future founder of SpaceX who unilaterally broke the agreement at the last moment.

In any case, as soon as Elon got rid of Zip2, he became involved in a new startup - X.com, which later became part of one of the largest electronic payment systems. The project was planned as a financial platform, something like an advanced online bank. What about an unusual name? Sounds nice, nothing in particular obliges. Although someone the letter "X" evoked thoughts about the porn industry.

The start-up was funded by proceeds from the sale of Zip2, as well as third-party investments. In the same building where the office of the new company was located, another company with a similar kind of activity, Confinity, was located. And if at first they got along peacefully, then later it became obvious that they were direct competitors. The market was huge, and today, probably, the projects could divide the spheres of influence. However, X.com and Confinity decided to merge. In the first one, more employees worked, the client base was larger, and growth rates were high. For the founders of Confinity, which was ahead of Musk's company only in terms of the number of eBay users, this was the decisive factor.

In March 2000, X.com acquired Confinity. The deal came after Elon's conflict with then-president of the company he founded, Bill Harris, who did not share Musk's optimism about the merger. It is worth noting that Harris already had a very long experience in the IT field and supported Elon since Zip2. At the same time, one of the former employees of X.com and PayPal once wrote that Harris was a good financier (he helped raise $100 million in investments), but not a very outstanding CEO. As a result, he left the newly formed company.

A holy place is never empty, and in the second quarter of 2000, Musk took the place of Harris. However, he stayed at the post of top manager only until the autumn of that year. Due to disagreements with board members, Elon lost the title of CEO. One of the reasons for leaving allegedly was a conflict over the choice of a server platform - Musk was against free Unix and demanded to switch to a solution from Microsoft.

By the way, Elon is somewhat like Steve Jobs, who was fired from Apple at one time - Musk experienced the same in Zip2 and PayPal. He was fired from the latter when the businessman flew to a vacation spot: according to him, this was supposed to be the first vacation in many years.

In 2001, the combined entity was named PayPal, after one of Confinity's products. Now Peter Thiel, co-founder of the latter, was in charge of everything.

Well, at the time PayPal was acquired by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion, Elon had an 11 percent stake in the financial platform. Profit!

The dream of space ceases to be a dream. Birth of SpaceX and Tesla

There is money, ideas too. Moreover, the ideas are old, and not invented on the go. Musk's first "long-term" project was not Tesla, as many might assume, but SpaceX. Elon dreamed of Mars and space for a long time (SpaceX ships were not accidentally named Falcon - in honor of the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars), so he set about realizing his dream by founding the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation. For what? To build your own spaceship to fly to the Red Planet, send a "greenhouse" there and arrange a "Martian oasis".

The mask was not stopped by the words of friends and colleagues who dissuaded him from the work he had begun. Success, which even now looks somewhat shaky from a financial point of view, will take a very long time. After all, SpaceX was seriously talked about only in 2008: then Falcon 1 became the first private liquid-fuel rocket to reach the Earth's orbit and deliver a payload there. Until that moment, Elon's project was treated with distrust. But between 2002 and 2008, a hole appeared in the history of the company. In 2003, for example, The Los Angeles Times wrote about the young businessman cautiously and with some irony. The author of the material could not decide: whether the technological genius Musk or another Don Quixote.

It was not only Elon who looked at the stars then. In 2004, Virgin Galactic and some other companies were very optimistic about the future of space tourism, intending in 3-4 years to establish regular commercial launches of "mere mortals" to places where planes do not fly. As you know, reality has made serious adjustments.

Founded by Musk, SpaceX has been active in developing the technology, talking about both successes and failures. Launch vehicle components fell apart during testing due to miscalculations? On the website of the project, the news appears: "The fuel tank was deformed due to a valve malfunction." Second problem in a row? Fail again? Fifth postponement? Elon signs his name under reports of failures. Went "white stripe"? Everyone will know about it at the same moment from the first mouth.

There is a feeling that everything was invented and implemented by a single person - Musk himself. It is obvious that this is not the case. A simple example: the development of the Merlin series engines was carried out by Tom Muller, whose employer until a certain point was TRW. Here the chief engineer was part of the team that created the most powerful TR-106. However, not everyone was pleased with Muller, who believed that he was not appreciated, and ideas were not used. As a result - the development of the world's largest liquid-fuel rocket engine in a private garage. Garage, Carl! What did Elon do? Called Muller in 2002 to work. Now the engineer holds the post of technical director at SpaceX. Musk chose an interesting approach to finding tops, so the people in the company did not appear random and interesting in their own way. Enthusiastic professionals who are allowed to realize themselves are looking for the same, and together they make sure that their offspring - the company and its projects - develop.

When very little time had passed since the founding of SpaceX, Elon set about implementing his next fix idea. Or just caught fire with something new. In 2004, already on the Tesla board of directors, he became an investor in this start-up by Martin Eberhard and Mark Tarpenning, founded a year earlier. The businessman saw the prospects of the project and invested in it. Despite the fact that the main goal of the founders of Tesla was not to create a fully electric vehicle, but only to find effective technologies that would reduce oil consumption. To put it simply - to make a "green" car.

History is linear when it becomes fact, and until then things can go in any direction. This is to the question of whether Tesla would continue to exist without Musk's money or not. Maybe by 2017 everyone would have forgotten about it? Or, conversely, would the company capture the automotive market, like Apple or Samsung - mobile? Today, at Tesla Motors, Ilona is officially considered a co-founder - apparently, there are reasons for this, and hardly anyone cares about third-party opinion. As a result, Tesla followed in the footsteps of Chrysler, which in 1925 became “the last successful auto startup in the United States,” and those who entered the market with electric cars did not achieve serious success at all.

The AC Propulsion tzero played a role in the creation of the Roadster, Tesla's commercial firstborn. Allegedly, it was his power unit that was used in the prototype of the Musk car. The look came from Lotus, as Elon was obsessed with British sports cars. Already in 2006, the Tesla Roadster was introduced, but the release of the mass version lasted from 2008 to 2012. It was Musk who became the person who was able to attract all the investments necessary for the implementation of the project. So it was in 2004, in 2005, 2007, 2009 - tens of millions of dollars appeared thanks to Elon. In 2007, one of its founders, Martin Eberhard, left the company. The venture was briefly led by an Israeli businessman who cut staff by 10% and made Tesla profitable. Musk replaced him in 2008.

Somewhere in this period, Tesla and SpaceX already give the impression of growing companies - they have commercial products and evidence that time was not wasted. The financial crisis, which did not affect only the lemurs of Madagascar, made its own adjustments. Elon, who compared what is happening with the Great Depression, fired another quarter of the company's employees, and also announced the postponement of the release of the first Model S. “There is also a positive point: we have time to make it even better”,- said the businessman.

Near collapse and billion dollar contracts

In 2008, the company was threatened with bankruptcy, but Musk was able to avoid this, and a couple of months later, in the spring of 2009, a Model S prototype was exhibited at SpaceX headquarters. Elon described the past year as the worst in his life: Tesla was losing money, and SpaceX couldn't launch Falcon 1...

This period marked a turning point in the recent history of SpaceX and Tesla: despite all the criticism and obstacles, including financial ones, the projects survived. And then a contract with NASA for $1.6 billion arrived in time. In addition, people were actively placing pre-orders for Model S, Daimler AG believed in the project, which bought 10% of Tesla for now ridiculous $50 million (today the share is estimated at billions of dollars). Profitability, by the way, at least for Tesla, is still a big question - but this does not stop Musk.

The Interplanetary Transport System (ITS) is an interplanetary transport system that will be used to deliver the first colonists to the Red Planet.

To bookmarks

According to the ITS promo video, the rocket with the spacecraft is first launched into orbit, and then separated from the ship and returned to Earth. In orbit, the ship refuels, and then it deploys solar panels that generate 200 kilowatts of power and begins moving towards Mars.

According to previous statements, Elon Musk plans to send people to Mars before 2024. According to the updated schedule, the first expeditions will begin at the end of 2022.

The first missions to the Red Planet will begin to be implemented as early as 2018 - for example, dropping supplies and other supplies for the survival of the first colonists. Each Dragon ship will be able to "carry" 2-3 tons of payload.

At the conference, Musk explained the reason for flying to Mars in two ways: the development of the human race as interplanetary travelers, as well as the remote possibility of the extinction of all life on Earth. The other planet closest to Earth - Venus - has a too unfriendly atmosphere, similar to an "acid bath": "Venus is not at all like the [eponymous] goddess," the head of SpaceX explained the choice.

Since Mars is farther from the Sun than Earth, it is somewhat colder - however, the planet can be "warmed up" with geothermal changes and form a friendly enough atmosphere for growing plants on it. In the past, Musk has already said that Mars can be heated, for example, using thermonuclear bombs.

Musk estimates that the cost of traveling to Mars per person is now $10 billion. In the event that it can be reduced to the price of one house in the United States, many will be able to begin resettlement to the Red Planet. This will require using fully renewable means, the right (efficient) fuel that can be produced directly on Mars, and also fueling ships in orbit (rather than spending money on transporting fuel to orbit every time a new ship is sent).

For example, kerosene cannot be produced on Mars due to the lack of oil on the planet. However, liquid methane is possible, and in almost all respects it is suitable for effective cost reduction, the head of SpaceX believes.

According to Musk, the ITS simulation video is not the work of artists, but engineers: it reflects exactly what SpaceX is trying to achieve, and practically future ships will be identical to what is shown in the video.

The largest number of reuses SpaceX puts into a launch vehicle to put a ship into orbit is 1,000 times. It is planned to use the tanker for refueling about 100 times, and the ship itself - 12-15 times. On it, the colonists will send cargo from Mars to Earth or fly away themselves.

According to calculations, approximately 100 people are placed in one ship. The launch vehicle, which will be used to put the ship into orbit, will have 3.5 times the mass of the world's most lifting rocket - "", with the help of which the first landing of a man on the moon was made.

On planets with a weak gravitational pull - such as the Moon or Mars - a launch vehicle is not needed to enter orbit: the ship itself can handle this task. 42 engines are built into the rocket (it can lose some of them and still continue moving), and nine into the ship.

One trip to Mars, depending on the year in which the flights will take place, will take from 90 to 150 days. According to Musk, during the flight, the crew of the ship should have fun - in the compartment it will be possible to enjoy zero gravity, watch movies, give lectures or relax in a restaurant.

If a person takes with him less than a ton of payload, his flight will cost less than $ 200,000, Musk believes.

The exact structure of income that will be used to finance the program, Musk did not name. In his opinion, for this, both SpaceX's profit from launching satellites and delivering cargo to the ISS, as well as voluntary donations to the project through Kickstarter, can be used.

Musk estimates that it will take at least 40 years to create a fully autonomous civilization on Mars.

Musk noted that technology does not develop on its own, but only when the mind of engineers is applied to a specific problem to solve it. There have already been examples in the history of mankind when technology has developed to a certain level, and then rolled back, and the last such example is the situation with the lunar program.

In addition to the Mars program, the new ships can also be used to move around the Earth - according to Musk, it will be possible to move with them to anywhere on the planet within 45 minutes. In addition, Musk plans to install "refueling" for spacecraft on other planets - this will allow travel to any point in the solar system.

According to Musk, he himself will also someday fly to Mars - when he can decide what will happen to the company if he dies for some reason and SpaceX investors are left alone with the problem of maximizing profits: “The first flight will have a very high probability of death, and I still want to see how my children grow up.

The first ship to go to Mars, Musk plans to call the Heart of Gold - by analogy with the spaceship from the novel "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy": "I think our first flight will also be of infinite improbability."

Even before performing on stage, Musk revealed some of the details of ITS on his microblog. Booster diameter

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 7, 2018

The publication also draws attention to the remark of some astronomers about the real trajectory of Tesla. The electric car did indeed fly farther than the orbit of Mars, they argue, but not far enough to be in the asteroid belt. Scientists give some calculations, but they have not become the subject of wide discussion.

Why Musk sent Tesla into space

Many experts and columnists called the launch of Tesla into space a massive advertising campaign.

“Musk, the master marketer of our time, has found the perfect way to make science sexy and memorable for everyone: the Tesla Roadster. Without the human element, even the fiery eruptions of a rocket launch can start to feel repetitive, especially in this age of instant access to the breathtaking and otherworldly. So Musk thought: “How about a glossy red supercar to spark the imagination?” — wrote in his column one of the editors of The Verge Vlad Savov.

The launch turned out to be literally assembled from spectacular details - the inscription Made on Earth by Humans ("Made on Earth by people"), which is applied to the machine, a plate with the names of six thousand SpaceX employees.

Inside the electric car, the message Don’t Panic (“Don’t panic!”) glows as a reference to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a series of science fiction novels by English writer Douglas Adams. A few years ago, Musk said in an interview that one of his favorite science fiction spaceships was from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He admitted that he first read the book when he was a teenager and was suffering from an existential crisis while trying to figure out the meaning of life.


SpaceX

Among other memorable fragments of this flight is the Starman dummy from David Bowie's song of the same name in a SpaceX spacesuit. And, of course, the ever-repeating song Space Oddity inside the Tesla. All this and much more is called the elements of a big advertisement for Tesla, which is now in a difficult situation.

Musk himself said, which considers "terribly boring" the usual payloads used in such launches - most often these are concrete and steel blocks. He said he wanted to send into space "something out of the ordinary that would make us feel". However, some experts attributed this decision to the fact that the first launch of a new rocket could be unsuccessful.

Since 2016, Musk's company has been developing the Tesla 3. Now Musk is faced with the task of launching the model and starting its mass production. The company has approximately 400,000 customers interested in buying electric vehicles - a $1,000 deposit was taken from each of them.

Sales and, accordingly, Tesla's income will increase if the company can quickly establish production, writes The New York Times. If two years ago Musk promised to produce 500 thousand cars of this model by 2018, then in January he planned to produce only about 2.5 thousand - however, promising to increase production, the newspaper notes.

That being said, Tesla has been losing money in eight of the last nine quarters. The day before, the company reported a record quarterly loss of $675 million in the fourth quarter of 2017, while for the same period last year, losses were equal to $121 million. The New York Times also links the decision to send Tesla into space to Musk's attempt to rebuild the company, including getting the Tesla 3 up and running.

Tesla, after the launch of the Falcon Heavy, will be able to confidently declare that its electric car was sent into space and is there. According to the editor of The Verge, this will help divert attention from some of Tesla's problems, including with the release of Tesla 3. "This is the biggest publicity stunt we've seen in a long time," he wrote.

Tesla is now valued at around $58 billion.

How Musk appreciated the first launch of the Falcon Heavy

“I imagined the image of a giant explosion on the launch pad, a Tesla wheel jumping along the road, the Tesla logo falling somewhere. Fortunately, none of this happened,” he said at the first press conference after the launch.


John Raoux / Associated Press

Even before the launch of the Falcon Heavy, Musk said that the probability of an accident at the start is very high. At the same time, on the eve of the flight, he told CNN that he usually feels “super stressed” the day before the launch of the rocket into space. “However, right now I feel quite dizzy and happy. And that could be a bad sign,” he added.

Before the press conference, Musk inspected both returned boosters. He noted that they are in good condition, especially the titanium lattice rudders - this is especially important for SpaceX, since their production turned out to be quite expensive and difficult.

Musk said SpaceX doesn't have a forecast for how the electric car will behave once it enters orbit. “Maybe it will just be in space for millions or billions of years. Maybe some future alien intelligence will find it and think, “What the hell is this? What did these guys do? They bowed before this machine? Why is there another small car in this car? “The whole thing will really confuse them,” Musk said.

Musk said he was convinced that the most incredible things can come true. “I really didn’t think it would work: that I would see a rocket lift, I would see a thousand things that couldn’t seem to work – and it’s just amazing when they work.”

How the launch of Falcon Heavy was assessed by experts

Pundits met the launch mostly positively, congratulating Musk and the SpaceX team.

The launch of the Falcon Heavy is a reminder of how quickly the private space industry has grown over the past five to 10 years, Phil Larson, a former SpaceX employee who now works as an assistant dean at the University of Colorado, told Mashable. Like many experts, he links the flight to creating the conditions for US economic competitiveness and national security.

University of Southern California professor and former NASA employee Greg Autri believes that the launch of the Falcon Heavy is the case when a private company "just surpassed all the governments on earth." “This is bigger than anything Russia or China is doing. No one is close to such results yet,” he told Bloomberg.

“You see this so often with space, and even with exploration missions to Mars and Pluto: people feel almost an antidote to the everyday world of social networks, where we persistently continue (trying to attract them to the topic of space. - approx.). And now this process almost literally and metaphorically makes people look at how space is explored from their own devices, ”Casey Dreyer, one of the managers of the American NGO Planetary Society, told The Guardian.

Astronaut Gerald Carr praised Musk for "discovering a new frontier in space." "Mars is the next logical step in space exploration," he told The Guardian.

With whom and how can SpaceX compete

Private companies began launching as early as 1980, when the French company Arianespace was created. However, until recently, customers who wanted to put a satellite into orbit mainly relied on rockets that belong to the United States or Russia, Forbes notes. Recent developments in competition have led to increased investment in private space enterprises around the world. A Forbes columnist wonders who will win the new space race, the commercial one that has taken over from the post-Cold War era.

Mashable predicts that Musk will soon face a competitor that is quite comparable to him in the future - Jeff Bezos' aerospace company Blue Origin (also the founder of Amazon.com and the owner of The Washington Post publishing house). The company was established back in 2000 (SpaceX - in 2002) to develop space tourism. Bezos is also working on a project for a new super-heavy space rocket.


Gregg Newton/Reuters

The advantage of SpaceX is in the creation of reusable rockets, which can significantly reduce production costs. Bloomberg, comparing various launches for an example, notes that at a cost of $ 90 million per Falcon Heavy launch, SpaceX is now able to deliver twice the mass of cargo than the company's main competitors - and this price will still be about a fifth of the average launch cost of others.

One flight of Falcon 9 costs about $62 million, Falcon Heavy about $90 million. For comparison: the flight of a one-time two-stage carrier rocket "Atlas-5" United Launch Alliance (a joint company of Boeing and Lockheed Martin) - $ 109 million. Launching NASA's Space Launch System super-heavy launch vehicle is expected to cost at least ten times as much as launching a Falcon Heavy.

But now more intriguing projects appear to be new commercial opportunities for private space companies, Bloomberg notes. The publication cites tasks that some are already developing or testing - for example, equipment for mining asteroids. If we add to this the fact that super-heavy rockets will become cheaper and more reliable, then getting energy from outer space will no longer be science fiction.

How SpaceX's development is affected by Musk's relationship with the White House

The success of SpaceX is largely due to the political climate in the United States and the almost constant cooperation with NASA throughout almost the entire history of the company, writes The Verge. US President Donald Trump tweeted congratulations to Elon Musk on the launch of the Falcon Heavy almost immediately.

Recently, Trump signed the documents of the program related to the focus of the United States, including on the moon. The President of the United States instructed NASA to begin preparing a manned flight to the Earth's satellite. The Verge notes that SpaceX clearly expects that this state interest in space will not change in the near future.

However, many of SpaceX's plans could end if the Trump administration ends funding for the International Space Station program after 2024. According to media sources, including The Verge, Trump is considering such an option. It is expected that the draft US federal budget for 2019 will be presented in February.

Cutting funding for the ISS, which now stands at about $3-4 billion a year, would be a step backward and would not be in the interest of the country, American astronaut Mark Kelly wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times. He noted that NASA programs have benefited people since the second half of the 20th century, for example, they help in the development of solar technologies, microscopic computer chips, and have contributed to the emergence of computed tomography and MRI. Kelly calls research funding one of the most efficient uses of taxpayer money. “This not only creates new jobs, but also industries that would otherwise never exist. It is easy enough to understand how a dollar spent on our space program will return to the taxpayer more than once,” he said.

Previously, Elon Musk was on the board at the White House, where he was one of the consultants. However, in June 2017, he announced that he was leaving the council. This was due to Trump's decision to withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement. Musk publicly announced his decision, noting that climate change is very real, and stopping work on it is not good for America or the whole world.

What Musk is most often criticized for and what questions he does not answer

One of Musk's harshest criticisms can be found in the "Opinions" section of The Guardian. In his column, news editor Nathan Robinson criticized SpaceX for its massive spending. He noted that on the day of the Falcon Heavy launch, another big news was the death of 80 people in Syria as a result of a long civil conflict. “Meanwhile, in Florida, Elon Musk launched his sports car into space. Guess which story dominated the mainstream news sites?"

Robinson even calls Musk's actions "the tragedy of global inequality of the 21st century." “There is hardly a better way to appreciate it than to watch a billionaire spend $90 million to launch a $100,000 car to the far reaches of the solar system,” he writes, beginning to list the many social problems of the world—war, poverty, disease, violence. . In his opinion, Musk unreasonably spends money on demonstration flights, while not paying attention to spending on social areas, where the situation of people is often critical.

Analyzing Musk's plans, The Verge notes that there are still questions to which he does not provide concrete answers. For example, one of the main questions of the professional community for Musk is the details of his plan to colonize Mars: how exactly is he going to organize a human habitat there, where people will live for so long and how exactly you can get there, given the serious radiation factor. In addition, it is still not clear how this project is planned to be financed.

Bloomberg also released a list of their questions to Musk - they concern Tesla. The publication is interested in how many electric cars the company can actually produce, what share of Tesla’s income is customer deposits for future cars, how exactly the company plans to enter the Chinese market, and whether this can really be considered a success.

Speaking about Musk's weaknesses, The Verge notes the frequent postponements of testing or launches of various missiles, and sometimes their absence altogether. However, he adds that the results are often impressive.

Falcon 9, Dragon, Big Falcon Rocket: what you need to know about other SpaceX projects

Falcon 9 was first launched in 2010. It consists of two steps. This type of missiles can be either disposable or reusable. It uses kerosene and liquid oxygen as fuel. The nine in the name denotes the number of liquid rocket engines that are installed on the first stage of the launch vehicle.

Falcon 9 is the rocket that actually allows SpaceX to make money, writes The Verge. In 2017, she completed eighteen successful missions, and in 2018, SpaceX is going to carry out even more with her help. The Falcon 9 primarily sends satellites into space and delivers cargo to the International Space Station. In addition, Falcon 9 is directly related to the cooperation between SpaceX and NASA - the launch vehicle is an integral part of the Dragon cargo spacecraft.

Reusable unmanned spacecraft Dragon Developed by SpaceX for NASA. This is one of SpaceX's longest-running projects - the company began working on it back in 2004. The space agency ordered a model to work with the cargo - its delivery into space and return. On ships in the future, they also plan to deliver people to the International Space Station.

Dragon has several modifications: cargo, manned with a crew of up to seven people, and a mixed type - a combined cargo and passenger, which is capable of carrying up to four people and several tons of cargo. With one of the modifications, Dragon SpaceX partially associates its Martian plans, in particular those related to research on the planet.

One of the most anticipated models right now is the Dragon V2 manned spacecraft. Already in the second half of 2018, Musk plans to send several people to the moon on it. It is known that they have already been selected - these are two non-astronauts who know each other and are not connected with Hollywood. Musk has so far declined to name them. They are expected to circle the Moon without landing. In the near future they will begin to actively prepare for the flight. The cost of such a space trip is estimated at 150 million dollars.

Big Falcon Rocket(BFR) is still a reusable launch vehicle and spacecraft project to replace SpaceX's current rockets. Musk spoke about its development in September 2017. One of the main goals of the project is the flights of people to the Moon and Mars. Musk said that the rocket, in principle, could help to carry out fast flights around the Earth. He recently said that SpaceX may abandon plans to send people into space using the Falcon Heavy and use the BFR for this.

BFR is larger than existing SpaceX rockets. It is expected that it will be capable of launching up to 150 tons of cargo into orbit.

The estimated date for the first BFR testing was previously given as 2019. Tests are planned to be carried out at one of the company's facilities in Brownsville, Texas. The Verge suggests that this will be similar to the very first Falcon 9 tests, which were performed as normal flights of about a few hundred meters.

If the BFR is not ready by the scheduled time, SpaceX may revert to plans to send humans into space on the Dragon and Falcon Heavy.

When will SpaceX launch the Falcon Heavy again?

In the next 3-6 months, SpaceX will not try to launch the Falcon Heavy again, Musk said. The length of the interval between flights, he said, depends on two factors: the speed of the company's production of the central part of the rocket and customer demand. External accelerators - that is, upgraded Falcon 9 accelerators - are easier to manufacture.

The central core of the Falcon Heavy also has parts of the Falcon 9 - for example, the same engines - however the rest of it (i.e. the core) must be fully simulated for each individual flight. Therefore, we can assume that the frequency of flights of the Falcon Heavy mainly depends on the production rate of the central booster. However, Musk promises to organize a fairly fast production. He says: "Whatever the demand (for launches. - Approx.), We can meet him."

It is now quite difficult to analyze and predict this demand in detail, The Verge notes. In 2018, SpaceX has several large-scale launches planned, including projects related to Saudi Arabia and the US military structures.

It is now known that the blocks and any major parts of the past first flight will not be used at the next Falcon Heavy launch. The two side boosters are already obsolete, performing various Falcon 9 missions. The next Falcon Heavy will consist of new center and side boosters.

At the same time, SpaceX can still use the details of the rockets of the first launch - for example, writes The Verge, the metal of the upper part of each of them, parts of which helped to safely guide the structure to the ground. They are made of titanium, and this process is quite long and expensive.

Why did they start talking about a new space age

CNN columnist Gene Seymour called the launch "the start of a new space age". “Although many details referred to the old (age), but only in a positive sense,” he added. The main feature of the present time, which distinguishes it from the past space age, is private companies that have decided to organize space travel. Previously, only governments could do this. Another feature, no less significant in Seymour's opinion, is that there should be no winner in the new space race. This is about competition, not confrontation.

“Is it worth it? We won't know until we try. Musk is likely to say yes, and so will NASA. This is not the most detailed or satisfying answer. But until something better happens, sit back and enjoy the show."


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