Falcon-1 X-Prize Entry Nears First Flight

hpulley writes "With the X-Prize January 1, 2005 deadline looming closer, these announcements are becoming more common. The SpaceX Eagle-1 spacecraft is being readied for a possible November launch, after some static engine testing. There are plans for a larger Falcon-5 with 5 engines instead of one to be launched in 2005. At costs of around $6 and $12 million, respectively, for the launch vehicles it appears that the dream of affordable launch vehicles may finally come true. If you check the manifest you'll see they actually have three contracted and two tentative launch contracts through next year." Well, not quite affordable for everyone just yet, but not a bad pricetag for a millionaire.

Falcon, X-Prize and the Future

[Nano2Sol]

Elon Musk the founder of SpaceX [spacex.com] did not start this company to compete for the X-Prize and indeed the Falcon is not even competing for the prize. Instead Elon has loftier goals. After being very successful in the tech world he decided to turn his passsion into reality now that he had the money to do so. But he is a businessman first and foremost. Which means he was not about to dump money into a competition with no real business plan going forward. Instead he researched the market to try and find a niche he could enter. The low end market was needing of a cheap, reliable alternative. So he started SpaceX. To do this he needed to create 'new technology', a leap that would bring the cost down. He appears to have succeeded, we won't know until he has a successful launch. But if he does succeed then he will have brought the cost of launch down and created a market for himself.

While not as lucrative as PayPal which he co-founded, he will have created a legitimate business in an area he is passionate about.

What does this mean for the future? I think when all the X-Prize hype has evaporated people will pay more attention to what SpaceX has developed. Which is cheaper, partly reusable rockets. And although his rockets are not man rated, yet, anyone who knows Elon knows what he wants for the future of space exploration.